Terms of Service
Effective: August 19, 2026 · Version: 2026-08-19
1. Agreement and authority
These Terms govern access to North Bench's website and subscription service. "North Bench," "we," and "us" mean Safari Tedeneke, a Virginia sole proprietor doing business as North Bench. "Customer" and "you" mean the organization accepting these Terms and its authorized users.
By signing an order form or affirmatively accepting these Terms through signup, you confirm that you are authorized to bind the Customer. Merely visiting the website does not create a subscription or authorize data intake.
If North Bench and the Customer sign an order form or Data Processing Addendum, that signed document controls where it expressly conflicts with these Terms.
2. The service
North Bench provides an open-order dashboard and vendor follow-up workflow. Depending on the selected plan, the service may import an authorized CSV or Excel export, organize aging orders, prepare or send approved vendor follow-ups, collect and classify replies, and surface exceptions requiring customer attention.
Unless a signed agreement expressly adds them, the service does not include ERP or LIMS integration, inventory management, billing reconciliation, chemical or regulatory compliance, legal advice, procurement authority, purchasing approval, payment services, or multi-user enterprise administration.
3. Free trial and subscription
Self-service subscriptions initially begin with a 14-day free trial without requiring a payment card. A Customer who wants service to continue after the trial must add a payment method and separately affirm the clearly disclosed paid monthly plan before the trial ends. Card entry alone does not authorize a charge. North Bench will provide a retainable acknowledgment of the recurring terms and cancellation method. If no paid-plan consent and payment method are available at the end of the trial, the subscription cancels and access ends without a charge. After both steps are completed, Stripe charges the selected monthly plan when the trial ends and the subscription renews monthly until canceled.
Cancellation before the trial ends prevents the first subscription charge. Cancellation after a paid period begins stops future renewal and access continues through the paid period unless law or the checkout terms require otherwise. North Bench may require a payment method for future new trials after providing clear signup disclosure; that change will not retroactively alter an already-started trial. Any refund right must be stated expressly in these Terms, checkout, or a signed order form.
The service may not accept customer data until North Bench confirms that the production account, legal, sender, and data-handling controls are active.
4. Customer responsibilities
The Customer must:
- provide accurate information and maintain authorized account access;
- have the legal and contractual right to provide every file, business contact, message, and instruction submitted to North Bench;
- identify approved orders, vendors, sender identities, and communication boundaries;
- review exceptions and maintain its normal procurement, approval, receiving, payment, and regulatory controls;
- promptly report unauthorized access, incorrect data, or automation concerns; and
- comply with applicable law and the selected plan and service scope.
The Customer remains responsible for procurement decisions and vendor relationships. North Bench does not accept purchase commitments, amend contracts, approve substitutions, authorize payments, or bind the Customer unless a separately signed agreement expressly grants that authority.
5. Prohibited information and uses
Do not submit patient or protected health information, study-subject identifiers, regulated research data, sensitive research content, government identification numbers, account passwords or API keys, card or bank-account data, employee or HR records, export-controlled information, malicious code, or third-party confidential information the Customer is not authorized to share.
Do not use the service to send deceptive, unlawful, harassing, or unauthorized messages; interfere with the service; evade security or access controls; reverse engineer protected components except where law prohibits that restriction; or use another customer's information.
North Bench may pause or reject an import, message, account, or instruction that appears unauthorized, unsafe, outside scope, or inconsistent with these Terms.
6. Vendor communications
North Bench sends vendor communications only within the Customer-approved workflow and sender identity. The Customer represents that the vendor-contact information and requested communications are lawful and related to the Customer's legitimate orders or business relationship. North Bench may apply suppression lists, sending limits, manual review, or other safety controls.
7. Automated outputs and human review
Dashboards, classifications, summaries, recommended actions, and follow-up drafts are operational aids generated from customer data, rules, and automated systems. They may be incomplete, delayed, or wrong. The Customer must apply its normal review and approval process before relying on an output for procurement, compliance, financial, contractual, or safety decisions.
North Bench will route identified low-confidence, sensitive, or failed outcomes for review when the agreed workflow supports that review. North Bench does not guarantee that every error or exception will be detected.
8. Customer data, privacy, and confidentiality
The Customer retains ownership of its data. The Customer grants North Bench a limited right to host, copy, transform, transmit, and otherwise process that data only as needed to provide, secure, support, and document the service and as described in the Privacy and Customer Data Policy and any applicable Data Processing Addendum.
Each party must protect the other party's nonpublic confidential information, use it only for the agreed relationship, and disclose it only to personnel and service providers who need it and are subject to appropriate obligations. These duties do not cover information that is public through no breach, already lawfully known without restriction, independently developed without the confidential information, or lawfully received from another source.
North Bench does not use the Customer's name, logo, quote, named case study, or identifying metrics in marketing without separate written permission.
9. Service providers
The Customer authorizes North Bench to use the service providers listed in the current Privacy and Customer Data Policy and applicable Data Processing Addendum. North Bench will provide notice before materially changing the provider arrangement when the signed agreement requires it.
10. North Bench materials and feedback
North Bench and its licensors retain ownership of the service, software, templates, documentation, methods, and improvements, excluding Customer data and Customer-owned materials. During an active agreement, North Bench grants authorized users a limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable right to use the service for the Customer's internal business operations.
If the Customer voluntarily provides product feedback, North Bench may use the feedback without identifying the Customer or disclosing Customer confidential information. Named attribution still requires written permission.
11. Fees, billing, and taxes
11.1 Plan and price. The selected plan, price, and billing frequency are shown at checkout or in a signed order form. Unless stated otherwise, paid subscriptions are billed monthly in advance. Stripe processes all payments, and the Customer authorizes North Bench and Stripe to charge the Customer's payment method for the selected plan and any applicable taxes.
11.2 Free trial and first charge. The self-service subscription begins with a 14-day free trial that requires no payment card. Access ends at the end of the trial without a charge unless, before the trial ends, the Customer both adds a payment method and separately affirms the clearly disclosed paid monthly plan. Card entry alone does not authorize a charge. When both steps are completed, the first charge occurs when the trial ends and the subscription renews automatically each month until canceled.
11.3 Automatic renewal disclosure and cancellation. The paid subscription renews automatically each month until canceled. Before the first paid charge, North Bench presents the automatic-renewal terms — the recurring amount, the billing interval, and the deadline to cancel before the next charge — in a clear and conspicuous manner, and obtains the Customer's affirmative consent. After consent, North Bench provides the Customer a retainable acknowledgment (for example, by email to the account address) stating the recurring terms and the cancellation method. The Customer may cancel at any time, at least as easily as the subscription was started, through a self-service online cancellation mechanism, without being required to speak to an agent. Cancellation before the trial ends prevents the first charge. Cancellation during a paid month stops future renewals; access continues through the end of the then-current paid month, and the Customer remains responsible for that month's fee.
11.4 Refunds. Except where required by applicable law, fees are non-refundable, and North Bench does not provide credits or refunds for partial months, unused service, or downgrades.
11.5 Failed or reversed payments. If a charge fails or is reversed, North Bench may retry the charge and may suspend or downgrade access until the past-due amount is paid. Continued nonpayment after reasonable notice is a basis for suspension or termination under Section 12.
11.6 Price changes. North Bench may change plan prices or introduce new fees on at least 30 days' advance notice to the Customer's account email. A change takes effect at the start of the next billing period after the notice period. The Customer may cancel before the change takes effect to avoid it; continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the new price.
11.7 Taxes. Stated fees exclude taxes. The Customer is responsible for all sales, use, VAT, and similar taxes on the service, excluding taxes based on North Bench's net income.
12. Suspension and termination
The Customer may cancel through the supported billing process. North Bench may suspend access immediately for a security risk, unlawful activity, prohibited data, nonpayment, or material breach.
After cancellation or termination, return and deletion obligations follow the Privacy and Customer Data Policy, any signed Data Processing Addendum, legal retention duties, and verified technical capabilities.
13. Service availability and changes
North Bench may maintain, modify, or discontinue service features. We will make reasonable efforts to communicate material changes affecting an active Customer. The service may experience interruptions, provider failures, or feature changes.
14. Disclaimers, limitation of liability, and indemnification
14.1 Limited service warranty. North Bench will provide the service with reasonable skill and care. North Bench's sole obligation, and the Customer's exclusive remedy, for breach of this warranty is for North Bench to re-perform the affected service; if North Bench cannot do so within a reasonable time, the Customer may terminate and receive a pro-rata refund of prepaid, unused fees.
14.2 Disclaimer of warranties. Except as expressly stated in Section 14.1, the service — including all dashboards, classifications, summaries, recommendations, and follow-up drafts — is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent permitted by law, North Bench disclaims all other warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.
14.3 No guarantee of outcomes. North Bench does not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that any vendor will respond, ship, honor pricing, or maintain availability, or that use of the service will produce cost savings, regulatory compliance, or any particular business outcome. Automated outputs are operational aids that may be incomplete, delayed, or wrong, and the Customer remains responsible for its own procurement, compliance, financial, and contractual decisions.
14.4 Exclusion of indirect damages. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost or corrupted data, or the cost of substitute services, arising out of or relating to the service or these Terms, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
14.5 Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by law, each party's total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the total fees paid or payable by the Customer to North Bench in the 12 months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$100. The cap in this Section 14.5 and the exclusion in Section 14.4 do not apply to (a) the Customer's payment obligations, (b) the Customer's indemnification obligations under Section 14.6, (c) either party's breach of its confidentiality or data-protection obligations, or (d) a party's gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud.
14.6 Indemnification by Customer. The Customer will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless North Bench from and against third-party claims arising out of the Customer's data, the Customer's instructions or vendor communications, the Customer's breach of these Terms, or the Customer's violation of law or the rights of a third party. North Bench will promptly notify the Customer of the claim, allow the Customer to control the defense with counsel of its choice, and reasonably cooperate.
14.7 Allocation of risk. The disclaimers and limitations in this Section reflect the agreed allocation of risk between the parties and the pricing of the service, and apply regardless of the form of action. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty or damages exclusions, so parts of this Section may not apply to a particular Customer.
15. Governing law and dispute resolution
15.1 Governing law. These Terms, and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the service, are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
15.2 Venue. Subject to Section 15.3, the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state courts located in Fairfax County, Virginia, and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria Division).
15.3 Jury-trial waiver. Each party knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally waives any right to a trial by jury in any proceeding arising out of or relating to these Terms.
15.4 Informal resolution. Before filing a claim, a party will give the other written notice of the dispute — to North Bench at the contact listed in Section 18, or to the Customer's account email — and attempt good-faith resolution for 30 days.
15.5 Equitable relief. Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief from a court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual property or confidential information, without the requirement of posting a bond.
15.6 Survival. Section 11 (as to amounts accrued before termination), Section 14, this Section 15, and the confidentiality obligations in Section 8 survive cancellation, termination, or expiration of these Terms.
16. Electronic records
The parties may agree to transact electronically. North Bench must use an acceptance process that clearly identifies the signer, the Customer, the document versions accepted, the timestamp, and the signer's affirmative action, and must retain an accessible copy of the signed record. Where separate consent to electronic transactions is required, North Bench will request it conspicuously.
17. Changes to these Terms
The effective date appears at the top. Material changes will be posted and communicated to active Customers before taking effect when reasonably practicable. Changes will not silently replace a signed order form or Data Processing Addendum.
18. Contact
Email: hello@northbench.co
Business mailing address: 590 Grove St #10, Herndon, VA 20172