LEGAL DOCUMENTATION

Terms Of Use

Last Updated: August 24, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

Welcome to Altar Suite GH. By registering for an account, accessing our management portal, utilizing our cloud services, or integrating with our communication gateways, you enter into a legally binding agreement to comply with and be bound by these Terms of Use. If you do not agree to these terms in their entirety, you are not authorized to use the platform.

These terms apply to all Account Owners, designated Moderators, ministry administrators, and authorized personnel utilizing Altar Suite GH.

2. Description of Platform Services

Altar Suite GH provides a modern, compact church management operating system engineered specifically for religious organizations, churches, and Christian ministries. Core modules and services include:

  • Member Directory & Interactive Demographic Map: Membership record management, department/fellowship assignments, birthday tracking and greetings, Ghana Post GPS digital address geocoding, interactive congregation density map plotting, and bulk CSV dataset imports/exports.
  • Unified Messaging Hub & SMS Tools: Targeted group broadcasts, direct SMS messaging, 1-Click GSM-7 text sanitization, pre-flight SMS cost and encoding verification modals, dynamic personalization placeholders ({firstname}, {lastname}, {fullname}), custom SMS template libraries, and automated event triggers (member welcome greetings and instant payment receipts).
  • Automated Recurring Dispatches Engine: Automated recurring message scheduling (Daily, Weekly, Monthly) with live occurrence previews, upfront unit reservation, and automatic balance safeguards that pause dispatches if credit is insufficient.
  • Event Coordination, QR Attendance & Series Management: Program scheduling with recurring series automation, manual check-in tracking with fast search, slide-out attendees drawers with real-time attendee search, and public QR code self check-in portals (/checkin/).
  • Financial Ledger & Giving Statements: Multi-category contribution logging (Tithes, Offerings, Welfare/Dues, Pledges, Special Appeals) and operational Expenses, along with an official printable Member Giving Statement PDF Generator with date filtering and security hashes.
  • Church Health Score & Vitality Index: Diagnostic vitality analytics evaluating church health across 4 pillars (Attendance Vitality, Membership Growth, Financial Stewardship, and Member Engagement), complete with actionable pastoral prescriptions and what-if goal simulations.
  • AI Pastoral & Clerical Tools: The Ministry Copilot executive clerical assistant with documentation search and anti-hallucination grounded verification, AI Sermon Generator outlines, SMS Magic Draft tone assistants, and message polish refiners.
  • Moderator Delegation: Multi-user access control granting granular, role-based operational permissions (managing members, sending broadcasts, logging finances, or coordinating events) under Account Owner oversight.

3. User Accounts, Verification & Moderator Delegation

To use Altar Suite GH, organization administrators must establish an authorized account. You agree to:

  • Provide accurate, truthful, and complete organization, ministry, and contact details during registration.
  • Complete mandatory email verification via our /verify/ activation portal prior to accessing administrative operations.
  • Maintain strict confidentiality over your authentication credentials and accept full legal responsibility for all activities conducted under your primary account.
  • Ensure that any provisioned Moderator sub-accounts operate in full compliance with these Terms. Account Owners remain legally accountable for all actions taken by their provisioned moderators.

4. SMS Communications, Sender IDs & Regulatory Compliance

SMS messaging features must strictly comply with Ghanaian telecommunication regulations and National Communications Authority (NCA) standards:

  • Sender ID Registration: Account Owners must utilize an approved Sender ID (up to 11 alphanumeric characters) that accurately represents their registered church or ministry name. Sender ID spoofing, impersonation, or unauthorized third-party Sender ID use is strictly prohibited.
  • GSM-7 Encoding & Character Compliance: SMS messages composed on the platform are metered according to telecommunication standard GSM 7-bit encoding (160 characters/page for single dispatches; 153 characters/page for concatenated dispatches). Users acknowledge that special characters (smart quotes, em dashes, unmapped emojis, or the Ghana Cedi symbol) trigger UCS-2 Unicode encoding (70 characters/page), increasing unit consumption unless sanitized using the platform's built-in Sanitize GSM-7 tool.
  • Pre-Flight Dispatch Review: All broadcasts and direct dispatches present an interactive pre-flight modal detailing recipient counts, page lengths, encoding formats, and unit costs. Account Owners are solely responsible for reviewing and confirming dispatches prior to execution.
  • Prohibited Content: You agree not to send unsolicited spam, deceptive financial solicitations, partisan political campaigning, hate speech, defamatory material, or fraudulent messages via our SMS gateways.
  • Regulatory Suspension: Altar Suite GH reserves the right to immediately suspend SMS capabilities or terminate accounts that violate NCA regulations or broadcast non-compliant messages.

5. Billing, Paystack Topups & Subscriptions

SMS unit topups and subscription plans are managed under the following financial terms:

  • Payment Gateway: All financial transactions are processed securely through Paystack, supporting Ghanaian Mobile Money (MTN MoMo, Telecel Cash, AT Money) and debit/credit cards.
  • Instant Crediting: SMS units and software subscription periods are credited automatically upon verified Paystack payment webhook confirmation.
  • Monthly Subscription Pricing: Software subscriptions are billed monthly only. The monthly fee is set by the number of member records in your directory at the time of payment: Seed (up to 50 members) GH₵ 45, Growing (51–150) GH₵ 70, Established (151–300) GH₵ 105, Large (301–600) GH₵ 160, and Cathedral (601+) GH₵ 160 plus GH₵ 20 for every additional 100 members. A church that has just outgrown its tier by no more than 10% keeps its previous price for one month.
  • Manual Monthly Renewal & No Advance Payments: Each payment extends access by one month. Renewal opens 7 days before the current period ends; multi-month or advance payments are not accepted. Previously purchased multi-month periods remain valid until they expire.
  • Reserved Recurring Units & Cancellation Refunds: When scheduling future or recurring messages, required SMS units are reserved from your available balance. Cancelling a pending scheduled dispatch permanently releases and refunds all reserved units back to your active balance immediately.
  • Non-Refundable Policy: Purchased SMS units and software subscription fees are non-refundable once credited to your account balance, except where explicitly mandated by Ghanaian consumer protection legislation.

6. AI Pastoral & Clerical Utilities Disclaimer

Altar Suite GH incorporates artificial intelligence tools (Ministry Copilot, Sermon Generator, Magic Draft, Message Refiners, and Financial Summaries) to assist pastoral and clerical workflows:

  • Administrative Aid: AI-generated sermon outlines, clerical answers, liturgy drafts, and broadcast suggestions are provided solely as assistive suggestions.
  • Anti-Hallucination & Record Verification: The Ministry Copilot operates strictly on verified, local church records and official documentation guides. Users acknowledge that AI tools do not replace pastoral judgment or human administrative verification.
  • User Responsibility: Ministry leadership retains sole editorial control and legal responsibility for reviewing, verifying, and approving all AI-generated copy prior to public dissemination, preaching, or broadcasting.

7. Data Retention & Archival Obligations (365-Day TTL)

To guarantee optimal platform performance, rapid querying, and sound data hygiene, Altar Suite GH enforces an automated 365-Day (1-Year) Time-To-Live (TTL) Data Retention Policy for high-volume transaction collections:

  • Financial transaction ledger entries and event attendance logs are retained for exactly 365 days from creation, after which older records are automatically pruned from the active database.
  • Active membership profiles, department registries, automation rules, and moderator permissions remain permanently stored while your account remains active.
  • Export Responsibility: Account Owners are obligated to export periodic financial ledger summaries and attendance reports to CSV and PDF formats (e.g. via our Giving Statement PDF Generator and Export CSV tools) for their long-term archival, legal, and financial auditing needs.

8. Prohibited Conduct

Users are strictly forbidden from engaging in any of the following activities:

  • Attempting to probe, scan, breach, or bypass platform authentication, multi-tenant Firestore security rules, or serverless API boundaries.
  • Deploying automated scrapers, bots, or unauthorized scripts against our web endpoints.
  • Reverse-engineering, decompiling, or attempting to derive the source code or proprietary algorithms of the platform.
  • Submitting fraudulent payment credentials or initiating unauthorized chargebacks via Paystack.
  • Uploading malicious payloads, viruses, or disruptive scripts into member notes or message bodies.

9. Intellectual Property

The Altar Suite GH platform, UI/UX design architecture, codebases, brand assets, logos, and custom typography remain the exclusive intellectual property of Altar Suite GH. Ministry clients retain full and exclusive ownership over their uploaded congregation records, membership data, and financial ledger records.

10. Limitation of Liability & Warranty Disclaimer

Altar Suite GH is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Altar Suite GH, its founders, engineers, and service partners shall not be held liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages resulting from platform downtime, telecommunication carrier SMS delivery delays, network outages, or data loss resulting from failure to export regular offline backups.

11. Governing Law & Ghana Data Protection Act Compliance

These Terms of Use shall be governed by, construed, and enforced in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Ghana, including the Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) and applicable National Communications Authority (NCA) regulations. Any legal proceedings arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts in Ghana.

12. Contact & Support

For inquiries, legal notices, or administrative support regarding these Terms of Use, please contact us:

Hotline: 0248 400 087
Portal: altarsuitegh.web.app