Service Level Agreement

This Service Level Agreement ("SLA") is incorporated into and forms part of the Terms of Service between you, the Customer ("you", "your"), and Equa Finance Ltd. ("Equa Finance", "we", "us", "our"). This SLA sets forth the service availability commitments, performance standards, support levels, and remedies applicable to the EQUA Finance platform (the "Platform").

This SLA applies only to Customers with an active paid Subscription. Free trial and free-tier accounts are not covered by this SLA.

1. Definitions

• "Availability" or "Uptime" means the percentage of time during a calendar month that the Platform is operational and accessible, calculated as: ((Total Minutes in Month - Downtime Minutes) / Total Minutes in Month) x 100.
• "Downtime" means any period of five (5) or more consecutive minutes during which the Platform's core functionality is materially unavailable to the Customer, as measured by Equa Finance's monitoring systems. Downtime excludes Scheduled Maintenance and Excluded Events.
• "Core Functionality" means the primary features of the Platform, including user authentication, dashboard access, accounting transactions, invoice management, expense management, reporting, and API endpoints.
• "Degraded Performance" means a period during which the Platform is accessible but experiences significantly reduced performance (e.g., page load times exceeding 10 seconds, API response times exceeding 5 seconds for standard operations).
• "Scheduled Maintenance" means planned maintenance windows that are communicated to Customers in advance as described in Section 3.
• "Incident" means any unplanned event that causes or may cause an interruption to or a reduction in the quality of the Platform.
• "Service Credit" means a credit applied to the Customer's account as a remedy for failure to meet SLA commitments.

2. Service Availability Commitment

2.1 Uptime Target

Equa Finance commits to maintaining the following monthly uptime targets based on your Subscription tier:

Subscription Tier	Monthly Uptime Target	Maximum Permitted Downtime / Month
Starter	99.5%	~3 hours 39 minutes
Professional	99.9%	~43 minutes
Enterprise	99.95%	~22 minutes

2.2 Measurement

Availability is measured on a calendar month basis using Equa Finance's external monitoring systems. The monitoring checks the Platform's primary endpoints at intervals of no more than one (1) minute. Availability calculations are based on the entire calendar month, regardless of when the Customer's billing cycle begins or ends.

2.3 Excluded Events

The following events are excluded from the Availability calculation and do not constitute Downtime:

• Scheduled Maintenance: Planned maintenance windows communicated in advance as described in Section 3;
• Force Majeure Events: Events beyond Equa Finance's reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, terrorism, government actions, epidemics, pandemics, widespread internet outages, DNS provider failures, and similar events;
• Customer-Caused Issues: Downtime resulting from the Customer's actions, configurations, or third-party integrations configured by the Customer;
• Third-Party Service Failures: Outages of third-party services (e.g., payment processors, tax authority APIs, AI providers, email delivery services) that are not under Equa Finance's control;
• Network Issues: Internet connectivity issues between the Customer's location and Equa Finance's infrastructure that are outside Equa Finance's network;
• Abuse Response: Service disruption resulting from enforcement actions taken due to the Customer's violation of the Acceptable Use Policy;
• Feature-Specific Outages: Outages affecting only non-core features (e.g., AI Assistant, data import) while Core Functionality remains available;
• Beta Features: Outages affecting features designated as beta, preview, or experimental.

3. Scheduled Maintenance

3.1 Maintenance Windows

Equa Finance performs regular maintenance to ensure the Platform's security, performance, and reliability. Scheduled maintenance is typically performed during low-usage hours to minimize impact.

Maintenance Type	Frequency	Typical Duration	Advance Notice
Routine Maintenance	Weekly	Up to 30 minutes	48 hours
Major Updates	Monthly / As needed	Up to 2 hours	7 days
Emergency Maintenance	As needed	Variable	Best effort (may be retroactive)
Database Maintenance	Quarterly	Up to 4 hours	14 days

3.2 Maintenance Notifications

Scheduled maintenance will be communicated through:

• Email notification to account administrators;
• In-platform banner notification;
• Status page updates (where available).

Emergency maintenance (required to address critical security vulnerabilities or prevent imminent service failure) may be performed with reduced or retroactive notice. Equa Finance will make reasonable efforts to provide at least two (2) hours' advance notice for emergency maintenance.

3.3 Zero-Downtime Deployments

Equa Finance strives to perform the majority of software updates and deployments with zero downtime using rolling deployment techniques. Where a deployment requires downtime, it will be treated as scheduled maintenance with appropriate notice.

4. Incident Management

4.1 Incident Severity Levels

Severity	Description	Examples
Critical (P1)	Platform is completely unavailable or Core Functionality is non-operational for all Customers	Complete outage; data corruption; security breach; authentication failure for all users
High (P2)	Core Functionality is severely degraded or unavailable for a significant number of Customers	Major performance degradation; a core module is down; data not saving; critical API endpoints failing
Medium (P3)	Non-core features are unavailable or Core Functionality is degraded for a limited number of Customers	AI Assistant unavailable; export feature failing; slow report generation; single integration down
Low (P4)	Minor issues with limited impact on functionality	Cosmetic defects; minor UI issues; non-critical notification delays; documentation errors

4.2 Incident Response Times

Severity	Acknowledgment	Initial Response	Status Updates	Target Resolution
Critical (P1)	15 minutes	30 minutes	Every 30 minutes	4 hours
High (P2)	30 minutes	1 hour	Every 2 hours	8 hours
Medium (P3)	2 hours	4 hours	Daily	3 business days
Low (P4)	8 hours	1 business day	Weekly	Next scheduled release

Response times are measured during business hours (Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM WAT), except for Critical (P1) incidents which are monitored and responded to 24/7/365.

4.3 Incident Communication

During an active incident, Equa Finance will provide updates through:

• Email notifications to affected account administrators;
• Status page updates with real-time incident status;
• In-platform notifications (when the Platform is accessible).

4.4 Post-Incident Review

For all Critical (P1) and High (P2) incidents, Equa Finance will conduct a post-incident review and provide a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) report to affected Customers within five (5) business days of incident resolution. The RCA will include:

• Description of the incident and its impact;
• Timeline of events;
• Root cause analysis;
• Corrective and preventive actions taken or planned;
• Measures to prevent recurrence.

5. Customer Support

5.1 Support Channels

Channel	Starter	Professional	Enterprise
In-Platform Support Tickets	Yes	Yes	Yes
Email Support	Yes	Yes	Yes
Knowledge Base / Documentation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Priority Support Queue	No	Yes	Yes
Phone Support	No	No	Yes
Dedicated Account Manager	No	No	Yes
Onboarding Assistance	Self-service	Guided setup	White-glove onboarding
Custom Training	No	No	Yes (up to 4 hours/quarter)

5.2 Support Response Times

Priority	Starter	Professional	Enterprise
Critical	4 hours	1 hour	30 minutes
High	8 hours	4 hours	2 hours
Medium	2 business days	1 business day	4 hours
Low	5 business days	3 business days	1 business day

5.3 Support Hours

• Standard Support: Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM WAT (West Africa Time, UTC+1)
• Extended Support (Enterprise): Monday to Saturday, 7:00 AM to 10:00 PM WAT
• Critical Incident Response: 24/7/365 for all paid tiers

6. Performance Standards

6.1 Response Time Targets

Equa Finance targets the following performance benchmarks under normal operating conditions:

Operation	Target Response Time (95th Percentile)
Web page load (dashboard, lists, detail pages)	< 3 seconds
API response (standard CRUD operations)	< 500 milliseconds
API response (complex queries, reports)	< 3 seconds
Search operations	< 2 seconds
File export generation (CSV/PDF)	< 30 seconds (for standard datasets)
Data import processing	Varies by file size (documented per import type)
Tax filing submission to authority	< 30 seconds (excludes authority processing time)

Performance targets are measured from Equa Finance's infrastructure and do not include network latency between the Customer's location and Equa Finance's servers. Actual performance may vary based on data volume, query complexity, and network conditions.

6.2 Data Durability

Equa Finance maintains the following data durability commitments:

• Database Backups: Automated daily backups with point-in-time recovery capability;
• Backup Retention: Daily backups retained for 30 days; weekly backups retained for 90 days; monthly backups retained for 1 year;
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Maximum 1 hour of data loss in the event of a catastrophic failure;
• Recovery Time Objective (RTO): Maximum 4 hours to restore service from backup in the event of a catastrophic failure.

7. Service Credits

7.1 Eligibility

If Equa Finance fails to meet the Availability commitment for your Subscription tier in a given calendar month, you may be eligible for Service Credits. Service Credits are the sole and exclusive remedy for Equa Finance's failure to meet the Availability commitment.

7.2 Service Credit Schedule

Monthly Availability	Service Credit (% of Monthly Fee)
Below SLA target but ≥ 99.0%	10%
Below 99.0% but ≥ 98.0%	20%
Below 98.0% but ≥ 95.0%	30%
Below 95.0%	50%

7.3 Requesting Service Credits

To request Service Credits, you must:

• Submit a written request to support@equafinance.com within thirty (30) days of the end of the calendar month in which the Availability commitment was not met;
• Include your Organization name, the affected dates and times, and a description of the impact;
• Equa Finance will verify the request against its monitoring data and respond within fifteen (15) business days.

7.4 Service Credit Limitations

• Service Credits are calculated based on the monthly fee for the affected Subscription (or 1/12 of the annual fee for annual subscriptions);
• The maximum aggregate Service Credits for any calendar month shall not exceed fifty percent (50%) of the monthly fee for that month;
• Service Credits are applied as a credit to future invoices and are not redeemable for cash or refunds;
• Service Credits may not be transferred to other accounts or Organizations;
• Service Credits do not apply if the Customer's account is in breach of the Terms of Service or has outstanding unpaid invoices;
• Service Credits are the Customer's sole and exclusive remedy for any failure by Equa Finance to meet the Availability commitment.

8. Backup and Disaster Recovery

8.1 Backup Procedures

• Automated database backups performed daily with point-in-time recovery;
• Encrypted backup storage in geographically separate locations;
• Regular backup integrity testing and restoration drills;
• File and document backups synchronized with database backups.

8.2 Disaster Recovery

• Documented disaster recovery plan with defined procedures for various failure scenarios;
• Annual disaster recovery testing;
• Failover capabilities for critical infrastructure components;
• Communication plan for notifying Customers during disaster recovery events.

9. Platform Updates and Changes

9.1 Software Updates

Equa Finance regularly updates the Platform with bug fixes, security patches, performance improvements, and new features. Most updates are applied automatically without Customer action. Equa Finance will provide advance notice of updates that require Customer action or that materially change Platform functionality.

9.2 API Versioning

When breaking changes to the API are necessary, Equa Finance will maintain the prior API version for a minimum of six (6) months after the introduction of the new version. Customers will receive at least sixty (60) days' advance notice of API deprecations.

9.3 Feature Deprecation

If Equa Finance plans to deprecate a material feature, Customers will receive at least ninety (90) days' advance notice. Equa Finance will make reasonable efforts to provide migration paths or alternative solutions for deprecated features.

10. Changes to This SLA

Equa Finance reserves the right to modify this SLA at any time. Material changes (including changes to Availability targets, Service Credit schedules, or support levels) will be communicated via email at least thirty (30) days before they take effect. Changes will not apply retroactively to Service Credits already accrued.

11. Contact Information

For questions about this Service Level Agreement or to report a service issue, please contact:

Equa Finance Ltd.
Support: support@equafinance.com
Service Credits: billing@equafinance.com
Emergency: emergency@equafinance.com
Lagos, Nigeria