Verbench Terms of Service

Last updated: 16 October 2026

These terms apply when an organisation uses Verbench. Please read them before you create an account or buy tests.

1. Who we are

Verbench is a trading name of Sugar Social Networks Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 12497429). Registered office: 17 Green Lanes, London N16 9BS. VAT number: GB 497 3127 60.

Contact: info@verbench.com. Privacy questions: privacy@verbench.com.

In these terms, "we" and "us" mean Sugar Social Networks Ltd. "You" means the organisation that opens a Verbench account, and the people who use the account on its behalf.

2. What Verbench is

Verbench provides online knowledge tests for finance and accounting roles, and a report on each completed test. You invite candidates, they take the test, and you receive a report.

• The tests and reports help you decide who to interview or hire. They are not a qualification, a certification or a guarantee of performance.
• A person at your organisation must make every hiring decision. Do not use a Verbench result as the only basis for rejecting or appointing someone.

3. Business use only

Verbench is for businesses, such as employers and recruitment agencies. By creating an account, you confirm that you are acting for a business and not as a consumer.

4. Your account

• You must give accurate details and keep them up to date.
• You are responsible for everything done through your account. Keep sign-in links private and tell us at once if you think someone else has used your account.
• We may suspend an account if we reasonably believe these terms have been broken, or to protect candidates, other clients or the service. We will tell you why, unless the law or a security reason prevents us.

5. Prices and payment

• Prices are shown on the Billing page. All prices exclude VAT, which is added at the current rate.
• Everything you buy is paid in full at the time of purchase, by card through our payment provider, Stripe. You receive a VAT invoice for each purchase.
• Launch prices: if you buy at launch prices, you keep those prices for 12 months from your first purchase.
• We may change prices for future purchases. A change never affects tests you have already bought.

6. Tests you buy

• Validity: single tests and extra roles are valid for 12 months from purchase. A 5-test pack is valid for 6 months and a 10-test pack for 12 months. Unused items expire at the end of their validity.
• Reserving and using tests: when you send an invite, the tests it needs are reserved. A test is used when the candidate starts it. If the invite is cancelled, or the link expires before the candidate starts, the test returns to your balance until its own expiry date.
• Extra roles: an extra role lets the same candidate take a test for a second or third role on the same invite.
• Free and pilot tests: we may give free tests, for example one free test for each company email domain on sign-up, or pilot tests agreed with you. They have no cash value and cannot be exchanged.
• Refunds: purchases are not refundable, including unused tests. This does not affect any rights you have that cannot be excluded by law. If we close the service or your account without fault on your part, we will refund unused, unexpired purchases.

7. Inviting candidates

When you invite a candidate, you agree that:

• you have a genuine recruitment reason to assess them;
• you will tell them that you are using Verbench, and that we will process their data on your behalf as described in our Privacy Policy;
• you will consider reasonable adjustments, such as extra time, for candidates who need them;
• you will use the results fairly, lawfully and in line with equality law;
• you will not invite anyone under 18.

8. Acceptable use

You must not:

• copy, record, share or publish test questions, answers or any part of the question bank;
• help a candidate cheat, or take a test on a candidate's behalf;
• try to access another organisation's data, or interfere with the security or working of Verbench;
• copy, scrape or reverse-engineer the service, or use it or its content to build a competing product or to train an AI model;
• use Verbench for anything unlawful.

9. Candidate data

For candidate data, you are the controller and we are your processor. Schedule 1 (Data processing) forms part of these terms and sets out how we handle that data. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle data for which we are the controller, such as your account details.

10. Our content

The tests, question bank, reports, software and the Verbench name and design belong to us or our licensors. You may use reports for your own recruitment, and share them with people involved in that recruitment, including your own clients if you are a recruitment agency. No other rights are granted.

11. Availability and changes

• We aim to keep Verbench available at all times, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may pause it for maintenance or urgent fixes.
• We may improve or change the service. We will not make a change that materially reduces what you have already paid for.

12. Our responsibility to you

• Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.
• We are not responsible for hiring decisions you make, or for losses that come from relying on a test result as the only basis for a decision.
• We are not liable for loss of profit, revenue, business or goodwill, or for any indirect or consequential loss.
• Our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the amount you paid us in that period.

13. Ending the agreement

• You can stop using Verbench at any time and ask us to close your account.
• We can end these terms if you seriously break them and do not put it right within 14 days of our notice, or straight away for a serious breach of section 8.
• When the account closes, unused purchases lapse, except as stated in section 6. We delete candidate data as described in Schedule 1, and keep invoices for as long as tax law requires.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We will tell you about important changes by email or in your dashboard at least 30 days before they apply. If you continue to use Verbench after that, the new terms apply.

15. General

• These terms, the Privacy Policy and Schedule 1 are the whole agreement between us about Verbench.
• If any part of these terms is found invalid, the rest still applies.
• We may transfer our rights and obligations to another business as part of a sale or reorganisation, and will tell you if we do.
• These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

Schedule 1: Data processing

This schedule applies to personal data about candidates that we process for you. It is intended to meet Article 28 of the UK GDPR.

1. Roles. You are the controller of candidate data. We are your processor and act only on your documented instructions, which are these terms and your use of Verbench.

2. What we process.

We do not process special category data and do not ask candidates for it. Extra time is recorded only as a percentage, never with a reason.

3. Confidentiality. Anyone we authorise to process candidate data is bound by confidentiality.

4. Security. We use appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encryption in transit, access controls that keep each organisation's data separate, and private, unguessable links for tests and reports.

5. Sub-processors. You give general permission for us to use the sub-processors listed in our Privacy Policy. We will tell you at least 14 days before adding or replacing one, and you may object on reasonable data protection grounds. We remain responsible for our sub-processors.

6. Transfers. Where a sub-processor processes data outside the UK, we make sure an approved safeguard is in place, such as UK adequacy regulations or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

7. Helping you. We will help you, at reasonable request, to respond to candidates exercising their rights, and with security, breach notification and data protection impact assessments. We will tell you without undue delay, and within 48 hours, after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting candidate data.

8. Deletion. Candidate data is deleted automatically 12 months after the test, or after the invite expires if the test was never taken. You can delete a candidate sooner at any time from your dashboard. If your account closes, we delete candidate data within 30 days, unless the law requires us to keep it.

9. Records and audits. We will make available the information reasonably needed to show we meet this schedule, and allow reasonable audits on 30 days' notice, no more than once a year unless a breach has occurred.

10. Anonymised statistics. We may use anonymised, aggregated test statistics, which cannot identify any candidate or client, to calibrate and improve our questions.