Terms of Service

1. Agreement to Terms

By using this website or engaging GuildHall Compact LLC (“GuildHall,” “we,” “our,” or “us”) for services, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use this site or initiate an engagement with us.

These terms govern your use of ghforge.com and describe the basis on which GuildHall delivers services. They are not themselves the engagement contract.

Paid work is governed by two signed documents: a Master Services Agreement (the “MSA”), which sets the standing legal terms of the relationship, and a Sales Order for each engagement: a Trial Sales Order or a Partnership Sales Order, which sets that engagement’s scope, deliverables, fee, and timeline. Order of precedence is: the Sales Order controls scope, deliverables, fees, payment, and timeline; the MSA controls everything else, including intellectual property, confidentiality, limitation of liability, and governing law; and these Terms yield to both in the event of any conflict.

2. Services

GuildHall helps small businesses build and use business intelligence: connecting information, improving the work that produces it, and using it to investigate performance and make decisions. The Partnership is GuildHall’s service. A Discovery Call is the first conversation. The Trial is an optional first, focused step into the Partnership without a monthly commitment.

Discovery Call — no charge. A conversation of approximately 30 minutes to assess the business question, the available information and whether GuildHall is a suitable fit. No fee or service-delivery obligation attaches to a Discovery Call.

The Partnership — from $500 per month. An ongoing, month-to-month engagement covering the priorities, deliverables and support capacity agreed in your signed Sales Order. The work can include establishing useful information, making scoped operational improvements, and continuing analysis and decision support. The published starting price does not define the scope of every engagement. Either party may cancel under section 6.

Starting the Partnership with a Trial — $500 one-time fee. The Trial covers one defined piece of work under an agreed written scope and finish line. It begins the same Partnership service without a subscription or commitment to further work. Monthly support begins only if agreed; clients may also start with monthly support from the outset. You receive the agreed artifacts and configurations with the ownership and use rights described in your signed engagement documents and section 7. No Trial fee is due unless the agreed result is delivered, as explained in sections 5 and 6.

If you have paid for a Trial and continue with monthly Partnership support, GuildHall credits half of the Trial fee paid, currently $250, toward your first month’s Partnership invoice. There is no deadline based on the time elapsed since the Trial.

Work outside the agreed scope requires agreement in writing before it is performed. The added work, responsibilities and any additional fee must be agreed; work you have not agreed to does not create an additional charge. As needs change, we review scope, support capacity and fee together. Changes to an existing engagement require both parties’ written agreement.

Published prices may change for future engagements. Your signed Sales Order sets your applicable fee and scope and controls over published pricing. Moving into maintenance does not by itself change your fee, create an automatic discount or establish a right to a different support level.

3. Trial Deliverable Scope

The Trial’s specific deliverables and boundaries are agreed in writing before work begins and are set forth in the applicable engagement document. Subject to that written scope, a Trial engagement includes:

• One or more working sessions with your team (remote or on-site, as agreed). Travel expenses, if any, are agreed in advance in writing
• Review of the operational documents and workflow information you provide that are relevant to the agreed scope
• Delivery of the scoped result together with a written findings summary
• One clarification session of up to 30 minutes, within 30 days after delivery, at no additional charge

The Trial does not include:

• Software implementation or development beyond what is expressly defined in the written scope
• Ongoing support, maintenance, or monitoring
• Any guarantee of specific business outcomes (see Section 9)

The Trial result and findings reflect GuildHall’s professional analysis of the information you provide within the written scope. Their quality depends on that information’s completeness and accuracy. You approve business and implementation decisions for your operation. Where the signed scope expressly includes configuration or implementation by GuildHall, GuildHall remains responsible for performing that agreed work; recommendations beyond that scope do not create an additional implementation obligation.

4. Partnership Scope

The Partnership supports a practical path to business intelligence through three stages: connect information, improve operations, and use business intelligence. These stages can overlap or be revisited as priorities and information change. A client may start with a Trial or begin directly with monthly Partnership support.

Connecting information may include reviewing existing records, reconciling sources and establishing definitions for useful measures. Improving operations may include clarifying a workflow and configuring, checking and putting a smaller agreed change into use. Using business intelligence includes reviewing performance, investigating changes, discussing decisions and following through on agreed actions.

Once the initial foundation is established, maintenance remains active analytical work: keeping the agreed information and measures useful, reviewing results, investigating new questions and supporting the next decision. Upkeep of agreed reporting and workflows supports that work. There is no universal date on which every engagement reaches maintenance.

The signed Sales Order defines priorities, scope, deliverables, support capacity, responsibilities, completion criteria and meeting cadence. GuildHall performs only the implementation work expressly included in that scope. Larger software projects, specialist integrations, migrations and work requiring other providers need separately agreed requirements, responsibilities and delivery arrangements before they proceed. A Partnership fee does not include every project or third-party service a client might need.

As the work changes, both parties review scope, capacity and fee together and agree changes in writing. Entering maintenance does not automatically reduce the fee or establish a right to a lower-priced support level. Either party may cancel with the 30 days’ written notice specified in section 6.

GuildHall will make reasonable efforts to keep the agreed tools and workflows current. We cannot guarantee uninterrupted operation of third-party platforms or tools outside our control.

5. Payment Terms

• The Trial: a single invoice for the Trial fee is issued only upon delivery of the agreed Trial result. Payment is due within 30 days of the invoice date (Net-30). No Trial fee is due unless that result is delivered. Cancellation is addressed in section 6.
• Partnership monthly fee: in the amount set forth in the signed Sales Order. Invoiced on or near the first business day of each month for that month. First month is prorated if the engagement begins mid-month. Payment is due within thirty days of the invoice date (Net-30). The Trial credit described in section 2, currently $250 for a $500 Trial fee paid, is applied to the first month’s Partnership invoice.
• Agreed out-of-scope work: where you have agreed to additional work in writing under Section 2, it is invoiced on the basis set out in that written agreement. Net-30 from invoice date.

Preferred payment method is ACH bank transfer. Check and wire transfer are also accepted. Credit card payments may be accommodated by arrangement.

Amounts not received within 30 days of the invoice date accrue a service charge of 1.5% per month (18% per annum) on the outstanding balance, or the maximum rate permitted by law if lower. Interest does not accrue on any amount subject to a good-faith dispute raised in writing. GuildHall reserves the right to pause active service delivery on accounts more than 30 days past due.

6. Cancellation and Termination

Trial cancellation

If you cancel the Trial before the agreed result is delivered, no Trial fee is due, and GuildHall will refund any Trial fee already paid. This applies before or after kickoff. There is no separate Trial cancellation charge for time spent or unfinished work. If the agreed result has already been delivered, the Trial fee remains payable under section 5, with payment due within 30 days of the invoice date.

Partnership cancellation

Either party may cancel the Partnership with 30 days’ written notice to the other party. Written notice means email to the address on file for each party. Monthly fees already paid for a period in progress are non-refundable; monthly fees paid in advance for a period not yet begun will be refunded.

GuildHall’s right to terminate

GuildHall may terminate an engagement with written notice if: (a) a payment remains outstanding more than 30 days past due and has not been cured within 5 business days of a written payment demand; or (b) the client commits a material breach of the engagement document or these terms and fails to cure within 15 days of written notice of the breach.

Data return on termination

Customer source data remains in customer-controlled storage; GuildHall does not house it or retain it as an ongoing operational data store. We will coordinate ending GuildHall’s authorized access when the engagement ends, in accordance with the signed engagement documents. If client-provided source material is incidentally in GuildHall’s possession, we will return or make it available within 15 days after the engagement ends and delete GuildHall’s copies within 60 days, unless retention is required by law or to resolve a pending dispute.

GuildHall separately retains signed agreements, invoices and payment records for seven years after the engagement ends as described in section 5 of the Privacy Policy. That period is not a blanket exception for client source data. A third-party service’s handling and retention, including through your own AI account, depend on that service’s applicable terms and settings. Deleting GuildHall’s copies does not itself delete information a provider has already processed or retained. The signed engagement documents control where they establish different obligations.

7. Intellectual Property

GuildHall retains ownership of its methodology, analytical frameworks, internal tools, templates, and all pre-existing intellectual property that GuildHall brings to an engagement. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of GuildHall’s methods to you.

You retain full ownership of your business data, SOPs, processes, and any materials you provide to GuildHall during an engagement. Providing those materials to GuildHall does not transfer any ownership rights.

Your ownership and license rights in custom reports, configurations, workflow documentation and other deliverables are set out in the signed MSA and Sales Order. Those documents distinguish any ownership transferred to you from rights licensed for your use, including use of GuildHall’s pre-existing materials. This website description does not create a different transfer or license from the one agreed in those documents.

GuildHall may reference your engagement as a case study or in marketing materials with your written approval. We will not reference your business by name or share specific findings without that approval.

8. Confidentiality and Client Data

All paid engagements are conducted under a signed Master Services Agreement (MSA), executed before work begins, together with a Sales Order that sets the scope and fee for that specific engagement. Mutual confidentiality obligations are set out in Section 9 of the MSA, which governs how engagement-level confidential information is handled and controls over this section in the event of a conflict.

For information exchanged before an MSA is in place, for example during a Discovery Call or initial email exchange, both parties agree to treat non-public business information shared in that context as confidential and use it only to evaluate a potential engagement. Disclosure is limited to service providers needed to handle that communication, as described in section 4 of our Privacy Policy, disclosure authorized by the other party in writing, or disclosure required by law. The limited technical processing needed to handle email or scheduling does not authorize GuildHall to submit inquiry content to an AI tool for analysis. Any such use must be agreed separately before submission.

Client data

You retain ownership of your business information. Customer source data remains in customer-controlled storage; GuildHall does not house it or retain it as an ongoing operational data store. GuildHall may access your systems through an access method you authorize for the agreed work. Before access or processing, we agree the permitted data and purpose, who will have access and which tools may process it, including any AI use. Customer-controlled storage does not by itself establish that a third-party service never receives or retains information. The agreed workflow must address the information tools can access or receive, including prompt content and any permitted attachments, exports or logs.

GuildHall does not currently accept protected health information, payment card data, or export-controlled or ITAR-regulated information through this website, discovery conversations, Trials or Partnerships. Do not send this material or grant us access to systems that would expose it. This exclusion applies whether or not material is marked as regulated or controlled.

If proposed work requires any excluded material, the affected work must pause before GuildHall receives or accesses it. GuildHall would first need to assess whether it can support the work and establish separate, legally valid agreements and operational safeguards appropriate to that information. A general permission in a Sales Order, an ordinary confidentiality clause or a client’s instruction alone does not remove the current exclusion. We do not represent that those separate arrangements are currently in place.

For other information about customers, employees or contacts, agree the permitted fields, purpose, access and handling with us before sharing it. Confidentiality terms do not by themselves establish that every category of personal information is suitable for the engagement. Any additional privacy or industry-specific arrangements needed for the proposed work must be addressed before that work begins. Each party remains responsible for the obligations that apply to its own activities. GuildHall does not represent that its services satisfy every data-protection or industry requirement.

Our use of AI tools

For the AI working environment used in your engagement, you choose OpenAI or Anthropic as the primary vendor and own the account. GuildHall uses the selected environment as authorized to assist with analysis, drafting, configuration and automation work within the agreed scope. Provider use must fit the permitted data, the exclusions above and any written restrictions you give us.

• GuildHall does not train models on client information. We do not use client information to build, train, fine-tune or improve AI models. We do not house customer source data or retain it as an ongoing operational data store. Administrative records and any incidental copies are addressed in section 6 and our Privacy Policy.
• Your provider’s processing depends on your account. Information submitted to or accessed by the selected service is processed under the applicable product terms, settings and agreements for your account. These determine matters such as model-improvement use, retention, processing locations and contractual safeguards. A client-owned account is not itself a guarantee of zero retention, no training or a particular processing location. Before work involving your information begins, we agree the data and handling appropriate to the selected environment. See section 4 of our Privacy Policy.
• Excluded material must not be submitted. The protected health, payment card, export-controlled and ITAR-regulated material excluded above is not accepted for current engagements and must not be submitted to an AI tool as part of our work. Any future consideration of work involving such material requires the separate assessment and arrangements described above before access or receipt.
• You may restrict further AI use of your information. You may direct us in writing at any time not to submit information from specified systems or categories, or from your engagement as a whole, and we will comply. Email kyle@ghforge.com with the subject line “AI Processing.” This direction concerns further submissions within its scope; it does not itself delete information already processed by a service. The effect on prior processing depends on the applicable provider arrangements. If the restriction changes how agreed work can be delivered, we will discuss the affected scope and any proposed changes with you; any change to the agreement requires both parties’ written agreement.
• The work is ours. All findings, recommendations, and deliverables are GuildHall’s own professional work product and GuildHall’s responsibility, whether or not AI tools were used in producing them. Your rights under Sections 9, 10, and 11 are unaffected.

If we add or change AI providers, we will update this section and notify active client contacts by email.

9. Warranties and Disclaimers

GuildHall will deliver all services with reasonable professional care and in a manner consistent with generally accepted professional standards for business operations and analytics consulting.

Findings and recommendations delivered as part of a Trial or Partnership engagement are GuildHall’s professional opinion based on the information you provide. They are not a guarantee of any specific business outcome. Any estimates included in a findings report are projections based on available data and industry benchmarks, actual results will depend on your implementation decisions and operational context. GuildHall makes no guarantee of specific ROI, revenue increase, cost savings, or any other financial outcome.

This website is provided “as is.” GuildHall does not warrant that ghforge.com will be available at all times, error-free, or free of security vulnerabilities. We do not control Cloudflare’s infrastructure and cannot guarantee uptime at the hosting level.

10. Limitation of Liability

GuildHall’s total liability to you for any claim arising out of or related to these terms or any engagement, regardless of the legal theory, is limited to the total fees you paid to GuildHall in the 12 months immediately preceding the claim.

GuildHall will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, including lost profits, loss of data, or business interruption, even if GuildHall has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

This limitation of liability applies to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law and survives termination of any engagement or these terms.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless GuildHall and its principals from any third-party claims, damages, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your misuse of deliverables or recommendations from a GuildHall engagement; or (b) your breach of the engagement document or these terms.

GuildHall agrees to indemnify and hold you harmless from any third-party claims arising from GuildHall’s infringement of a third party’s intellectual property rights through GuildHall’s own pre-existing tools, frameworks, or methodology. Each party is responsible for defending claims arising from its own pre-existing intellectual property.

12. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These terms, and your use of this website, are governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. Any dispute that cannot be resolved informally will be heard in the state courts of Jackson County, Missouri. You consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. If you have a signed MSA with GuildHall, the governing law and venue for your engagement are the ones stated in that MSA, and they control over this section.

Before either party initiates litigation, both parties agree to participate in a 60-day good-faith mediation period. Either party may request mediation by written notice to the other. The parties will jointly select a mediator within 10 business days of that notice. Costs of mediation will be shared equally. If mediation fails to resolve the dispute within 60 days, either party may proceed to litigation.

Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking emergency injunctive relief where necessary to prevent irreparable harm.

13. Changes to These Terms

GuildHall may update these website terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of the page and send direct email notice to active client contacts. Continued use of this website after the update is subject to the updated website terms. An update does not change the fee, scope or other terms of a signed engagement document already in effect.

Changes to these terms do not affect a signed engagement document that is already in effect; that engagement continues under the terms in place when it was signed, unless both parties agree in writing to amend it.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms:
GuildHall Compact LLC
Lee’s Summit, Missouri
kyle@ghforge.com