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Terms & Conditions

Last Updated: October 2026

Welcome to Aura CMS (auracms.com.au), owned and operated by 3J Effect Pty Ltd in Sydney, Australia. These Terms & Conditions ("Terms") govern your access to and use of our Church Management System (ChMS), AI pastoral assistant features, customisation services, and associated web applications (collectively, the "Service").

By creating an account, subscribing, or using Aura CMS on behalf of a church, diocese, parish, or non-profit organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind your organization to these Terms.

1. Description of Service

Aura CMS provides cloud-based church administration software designed to streamline congregation records, attendance tracking, pastoral communications, event scheduling, and giving records. Features include our proprietary AI Pastoral Assistant, bespoke system customisation, and high-security data infrastructure.

2. User Accounts & Access Controls

  • Account Responsibility: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of administrative credentials, API tokens, and access rights within your church's instance.

  • Role-Based Permissions: Administrators are responsible for appropriately assigning permissions to pastoral staff, ministry leaders, and church volunteers (e.g., restricting access to sensitive tithe data or confidential pastoral care notes).

  • Authorized Use: Accounts may not be shared across multiple independent church organizations unless configured under a multi-site or denominational agreement.

3. AI Pastoral Assistant & Fair Usage

  • Pastoral Workflow Aid: The AI Pastoral Assistant is designed to assist church administrators and ministers by synthesizing rosters, retrieving newcomer data, and organizing ministry information via natural language queries.

  • No Substitute for Pastoral Discretion: The AI assistant is a productivity and data retrieval tool. It does not provide theological doctrine, professional legal counsel, or independent pastoral counseling. Human oversight is always recommended for critical decisions.

  • Data Integrity & Confidentiality: Queries submitted to the AI assistant are processed securely within your tenant boundary. In accordance with our Privacy Policy, your church data is never used to train public or foundational AI models.

  • Fair Use: Aura CMS reserves the right to throttle or limit automated, scripted, or abusive queries that compromise system stability.

4. Church Data Ownership & Security

  • 100% Data Ownership: Your organization retains full, exclusive ownership of all congregation records, member profiles, donations, notes, and uploaded media ("Church Data"). Aura CMS claims no intellectual property rights over your data.

  • Security Standards: We maintain rigorous organizational and technical safeguards compliant with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and GDPR standards, including AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS encryption in transit.

  • Data Portability: You may export your congregation and financial data at any time during active service in standard machine-readable formats (e.g., CSV, Excel).

5. Customisation & Professional Services

  • Bespoke Tailoring: Where custom modules, form structures, or legacy data migrations are commissioned, Aura CMS will deliver adaptations based on mutually agreed specifications.

  • Platform Core: Custom configurations and integrations built within the system framework remain the underlying intellectual property of 3J Effect Pty Ltd, while your specific data and custom workflows remain your exclusive property.

6. Fees, Billing & Renewal

  • Subscription Fees: Subscriptions are billed on a recurring monthly or annual basis as selected during registration or outlined in your custom agreement.

  • Price Changes: We will provide at least 30 days’ notice prior to any changes in standard recurring subscription rates.

  • Refunds: Cancellations and refund requests are governed by our Refund & Cancellation Policy and applicable statutory rights under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).

7. Intellectual Property

  • All rights, title, and interest in Aura CMS—including user interfaces, algorithms, software architecture, branding, logos, and the AI pastoral query engine—belong exclusively to 3J Effect Pty Ltd. You are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the platform for legitimate ministry purposes during your active subscription.

8. Service Availability & Support

  • Sydney Local Support: Technical assistance, onboarding, and platform training are delivered directly by our local Australian engineering team.

  • Service Level & Maintenance: We strive for 99.9% platform availability. Scheduled maintenance will be communicated in advance, typically scheduled outside peak Australian church operation hours (e.g., Sunday services).

9. Limitation of Liability

  • To the maximum extent permitted under the Australian Consumer Law:

  • Aura CMS provides the platform on an "as is" and "as available" basis for non-profit and ecclesiastical administration.

  • 3J Effect Pty Ltd is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential losses, nor for disruptions arising from third-party outages, congregational user misuse, or external internet failures.

  • Total liability for any direct claims arising out of this agreement shall not exceed the fees paid by your organization to Aura CMS in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim.

10. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

  • These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of New South Wales, Australia. Any disputes arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales.

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