The terms you are certified under.

1 · Who these terms are between

These terms are between ArtisanCheck (“we”, “us”) and the person or business that uses this site, holds an account, applies for certification, or buys a product line certification or a membership (“you”). By applying, by paying, or by using an account, you accept them.

If you apply on behalf of a business, you confirm you are entitled to do so and that the business accepts these terms.

2 · Accounts

You are responsible for the accuracy of your account details, for keeping your sign-in method secure, and for what happens under your account. One membership applies to one account. Tell us promptly if you believe an account has been used without your authority.

3 · Applications and evidence

You apply in your own name, for products you make or are responsible for making. Everything you submit must be true, complete, and yours to provide. Submitting altered, fabricated or third-party documents to support a claim is a breach of these terms, and is grounds to refuse an application or to revoke a certificate already issued.

You must tell us if something material changes while an application is under review, or during a certification period: a supplier, a formulation, a process, or where the product is made.

4 · Fees and currency

All charges are in Canadian dollars (CAD). The vendor certification is Free for a year, and each additional product line is Free a year unless it is included in a membership. Membership fees and the lines they include are published on the membership page.

Prices are charged in CAD whatever currency your card or bank account uses; your provider may apply its own conversion rate and its own fees, which are outside our control. The amount charged is the amount published at the time you apply or renew.

5 · Refunds

Fees are charged for the review and for the certification period that follows it, not for a particular outcome. If an application is not approved, the fee is not refunded.

The work has been done: the application was read, the evidence was assessed, and a decision was reached and recorded. That is what the fee pays for, and it is the same fee whether a claim is certified or refused.

Renewal fees are not refunded for a period that has already begun. Where a payment was taken in error, or where you believe a decision was reached wrongly, write to us — the appeal route below is how a decision is looked at again, and a payment taken in error is refunded.

We refund in full where the review has not begun, where you were charged twice, or where you paid for something we cannot provide. If we end a certification for a reason that is not your breach, we refund the unused part of the period you have paid for. Ask at [email protected], and we answer within ten business days.

6 · Appeals and complaints

Vendor certification. If your application is not approved, you may appeal. An appeal is a request to have the decision looked at again, usually with corrected documents or additional evidence. You may appeal as many times as you need to while you work to meet the requirements, and each appeal is decided on the record in front of it.

Product lines. A rejected product line may be appealed up to three times. A fourth appeal of the same product line is not accepted. A product line that has used all three appeals cannot be re-applied for on the same formulation or process; if the product or the process has changed, it can be considered as a new line.

An appeal does not extend a certification period and does not move a renewal date. Appeals are raised from your account, or by writing to us at [email protected].

Every appeal is recorded against the application, with its date and its outcome, so the number of appeals a line has used is known to you and to us. When you appeal, tell us what has changed since the decision you are appealing against: an appeal is a fresh look at the evidence, not a second opinion on the same file.

Complaints. If you are unhappy with a decision, with how your application or your documents were handled, or with the conduct of a certified maker, write to [email protected]. We answer in writing, within ten business days, and we keep the complaint and our answer on file. A complaint about a certified maker is considered against the standard and the evidence on file: we can require a claim to be corrected or a seal to be taken down, and a serious or repeated breach ends the certificate, which the register then shows.

7 · Decisions

We approve, ask for more detail, or decline. A decision is made on the evidence in front of the reviewer at the time. We decline where evidence is missing, contradictory, unverifiable, or where a claim cannot be supported by what was provided — and we tell you which claim, and why.

Declining one claim does not certify the others by default, and approving one line does not certify another. A line is certified for the claims that were supported, and the register shows exactly those.

How long it takes. We aim to decide within ten business days of an application being complete — that is, once the fee is paid and everything we asked for has been received. If we cannot decide within that time, we will tell you where it stands and when to expect an answer. A request for more detail restarts the count from the day your answer arrives. A delay is never a refusal, and you may withdraw an application at any point before a decision is made.

8 · Certificates, renewal and revocation

A certificate is valid for the period printed on it. Renewal is annual and continues until you cancel it; cancelling stops the next renewal, and the certificate then runs to the end of the period already paid for.

We may revoke a certificate if the information it rests on was untrue or has stopped being true, if a product or process changes materially without notice, if the seal is used outside the seal usage terms, or if an account is used to mislead a reviewer or the public. A revocation is recorded in the register.

9 · The documents you give us

Documents you submit are held on our systems and in your account for record keeping. They are not published and they are not shared: they are kept so that the evidence behind a certificate can be returned to at renewal, on appeal, in a dispute, or years later when a buyer or a retailer asks what a claim rested on.

Your account holds them for as long as the certification record does, so that you have them too. What we hold, why, and for how long is set out in the privacy policy.

10 · The seal, and our material

The seal, the certificate artwork, the standard, and the contents of this site belong to us. Your right to use the seal is set out in the seal usage terms: it is a licence to promote the certified product while the certificate is active, and it ends with the certificate.

The seal may not be modified in any way, and it may not be used for a product, a line or a claim that is not certified.

The ArtisanCheck name, the seal, and the words Certified Artisan Vendor and Certified Artisan Product are our marks, used to show that a business or a product has been certified by us. They are not a brand a maker can adopt, and no use of them gives a maker any right in them: they may be used only as the seal usage terms allow, for a certified product or business, and only while the certificate is active. A use that suggests a wider relationship with us — endorsement, partnership, sponsorship, or membership of a scheme we run — is not permitted.

11 · Independence

We are independent. We do not review, rank, score, promote or sell placement. We do not accept payment for a favourable outcome, and no part of a reviewer's arrangement with us depends on the decision they reach. We validate the information supplied to us and certify accordingly.

Certification is not advertising, sponsorship, or a ranking of any kind, and it must not be described as one.

12 · What certification is not

Certification is a statement about evidence, not a warranty of the product or the business behind it. It is not a safety approval, a regulatory clearance, or a guarantee of quality, performance or fitness for purpose. You remain responsible for your product, your labelling, your packaging and the law that applies where you sell.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability for any claim relating to a certification is limited to the fee paid for that certification in the twelve months before the claim.

These terms are written for makers and businesses. Nothing in them is intended to take away a right you have under consumer protection law where that law applies to you.

13 · Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, and every version is dated. The version that applies to you is the one published when you apply or renew your certification. If a change is material, we will say so on this page rather than quietly rewriting it.

These terms are governed by the laws of Canada and of the province in which ArtisanCheck is established, and disputes are subject to the courts there.

14 · Language

Our documents are published in English. If you would rather have one in French — these terms, the standard, the claims library, the privacy policy or the seal usage terms — write to [email protected] and we will send it in French. A French version is a translation for convenience: the English text is the one these terms are governed by and the one a decision is made against.

15 · Contact

Applications, appeals, corrections and questions about a certificate: [email protected].

Privacy and data requests are dealt with under the privacy policy, at the same address.