Merchant Terms

Docket · Version 4 · Effective 13 November 2026

These terms are a legal agreement between you (the café) and Toby Jones trading as The Caffeine Media Company. You must read and agree to them before you can launch your store. If you don’t agree, don’t use Docket as a merchant.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

“we”, “us” and “Docket” mean Toby Jones trading as The Caffeine Media Company, a sole trader operating the Docket order-ahead platform (the website, web apps, kitchen dashboard, APIs, notifications and related services, together the “Platform”).
“you” means the business or person who registers a café account, and anyone you allow to use it (your “Staff”). If you register on behalf of a business, you confirm you have authority to bind it.
“Customer” means anyone who orders from your café through the Platform. “Order” means an order placed by a Customer.
These terms, together with anything we show you at sign-up or in your account settings (for example fee details), are the “Agreement”.

2. Our role: technology provider only

Docket is software. We provide a tool that lets Customers send orders to you and pay for them. We are not a party to any sale between you and a Customer. The contract for the food and drink is directly between you and the Customer, and you are the seller.
We do not prepare, sell, handle, inspect or deliver food or drink, we do not employ you or your Staff, and we are not your agent, partner or joint venture partner. Nothing in the Agreement creates any of those relationships.
We do not take payment for your goods ourselves. Card and Apple Pay payments are processed by Mollie (see section 7).

3. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18, be legally able to enter contracts, and run (or be authorised to act for) a lawful food and drink business in the United Kingdom.
You must give accurate information (including café name, address, postcode and VAT status) and keep it up to date.
Accounts use passwordless sign-in links sent to your email. You are responsible for the security of the email account and every device that can sign in, and for everything done through your account. Tell us promptly if you think it has been compromised.
You must be registered as a food business with your local authority and comply with all laws that apply to you (see section 9). You are solely responsible for holding every licence, registration and insurance your business needs.

4. Launching your store

Your café is not visible to Customers, and you cannot take Orders, until you have (a) agreed to these terms, (b) connected your own Mollie account, and (c) added a menu.
We may refuse, suspend or remove any café at our discretion, including where we reasonably think the Agreement is being breached, information is inaccurate, or Customers could be harmed or misled.

5. Your menu, prices and availability

You are solely responsible for your menu: names, descriptions, photos and logos, prices, options and extras, dietary tags, allergen information, opening hours, special hours and closures, preparation times, and which items are available at which branch.
Prices you set are what the Customer pays (plus any optional tip they choose). Prices are treated as VAT-inclusive. We do not add a separate service charge to the Customer. If you switch on “Off-hand service fee to customer”, the Platform raises each product and extra price by the amount needed for you to receive the price you entered after our platform fee (for example, a £1.00 product is shown at a slightly higher price so you still receive £1.00, before Mollie’s own fees). This changes the prices themselves; it is not a surcharge. You can switch it off at any time.
Price parity. The price a Customer pays on the Platform, including any increase from the option above, must be no more than 7.5% higher than the price of the same item in your café on the same day. You must not inflate base prices to recover our fee or Mollie’s fees beyond that limit. If you can’t stay within 7.5% with the option switched on, you must switch it off. We may ask for proof of in-store prices, and we may suspend or remove stores that breach this clause. You alone are responsible for complying with it and with consumer price-marking law.
Pickup times and “ready by” times shown to Customers are estimates based on the settings you choose. We don’t guarantee them.
You must keep your menu, availability, opening hours, closures and “paused” status current. If you cannot fulfil Orders, pause your store or the affected branch.
No alcohol. You must not sell, offer or list alcoholic drinks (including beer, wine, cider, spirits, liqueurs and any drink or menu item containing alcohol as an ingredient or option, such as an alcoholic coffee or a “shot” added to a drink) through the Platform. The Platform is not set up for age-restricted sales or alcohol licensing, and we may remove any item, or suspend or remove your café, if we reasonably think this section is being breached. This does not stop you selling alcohol in your café outside the Platform.
You confirm you have all rights needed in any logo, image, name or text you upload and that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights or break any law. You give us a free, non-exclusive licence to host and display it in the Platform and in notifications, emails, posters and Wallet passes for your café.

6. Orders and fulfilment

When a Customer pays, the Order is sent to your kitchen dashboard, to your printer if you use one, and, if enabled, as a notification to your devices. You are responsible for monitoring the dashboard and notifications, and for preparing Orders as accepted. We don’t guarantee that any notification, alert, sound, print job or email will be sent, delivered or seen on time (or at all). Devices, browsers, networks, printers and third-party push services fail.
By taking payment, the Customer has contracted with you. If you can’t or won’t fulfil an Order (for example, an item has run out), you must refund it promptly using the refund tool (section 8) or by other means.
You are responsible for handing Orders to the right Customer, for checking age restrictions where relevant, and for everything that happens in your premises.
You must honour the pickup time, “eat in” or “takeaway” choice and any customisations the Customer selected, as far as reasonably possible.
Marking an Order as “ready” or “collected” is your responsibility. Orders that are not collected remain your responsibility; we are not liable for wasted food or lost sales.

7. Payments, Mollie and fees

You must connect your own Mollie account through Mollie Connect. You agree to Mollie’s own terms, onboarding and verification requirements. Mollie, not us, holds and settles the money, and decides whether your account is approved, limited or suspended. We are not responsible for Mollie’s services, decisions, delays, holds, fees or outages.
Platform fee. We charge a platform fee of 5% of the total amount the Customer pays (including any tip), taken automatically as a Mollie application fee from your settlement. It is not added to the Customer’s price. A reduced fee of 2.5% applies for periods when you hold a referral reward (see section 12). We may change our fees on at least 30 days’ notice (shown in your account or sent by email); if you do not agree to a change you may close your account before it takes effect. Fees on orders made before the change are unaffected.
Mollie’s own processing fees, and any fees from your bank, are separate, are charged by them, and are your responsibility.
If VAT is chargeable on our fees we may add it to our fee. You are responsible for any tax, accounting and reporting on your sales, tips and our fees.
Settlement timing, payouts and currency are controlled by Mollie and your agreement with Mollie.
If Mollie or a card scheme reverses a payment (a chargeback or dispute), you bear the loss, any associated fees, and the Platform fee is not returned to you.
We may use test mode while the Platform is being set up. Test payments are not real and produce no payout.
Store test mode. You may switch on “Test mode” in your settings to view your store as a Customer and place fake orders without paying. While it is on, only you can see your store. Test orders are marked as such, charge nobody, earn no loyalty stamps, and are excluded from sales figures and fees. You must not use test mode to hide a live store from Customers for longer than necessary.

8. Refunds and cancellations

Who refunds. Refunds are issued by you, as the seller, from your Mollie balance. In the kitchen dashboard you can use “Refund…” on an order to refund specific items or the whole of what is left (including any tip, when the whole order is refunded) to the original payment method. Item refunds take account of any discount applied to the order.
Our fee is not refunded. Mollie application fees are non-refundable. When you refund an order, the Platform fee on that order is kept by us and you bear it. In effect, you receive back the order total less that fee, and the Customer receives the full amount back. Our fee also isn’t reimbursed for chargebacks.
Funds. You must keep enough balance and a working Mollie connection to fund refunds. If a refund can’t be made, the order stays as it was and you are still responsible to the Customer.
Timing. Banks and card schemes decide how long a refund takes to appear (often several days). We have no control over this and are not liable for delays.
Your legal duties. Nothing here limits the rights Customers have under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 or other law. Those obligations are yours as seller. In particular, you must refund, repair, replace or otherwise put right any order that is not as described, is not of satisfactory quality, or isn’t delivered as promised. Prepared-to-order food is generally exempt from the 14-day cancellation right, but that doesn’t remove your other duties.
Loyalty and offers on refunds. If an order is refunded, any loyalty stamps it earned are removed and any stamps spent on a reward are returned. Offer codes used on it are not restored.
Dispute Resolution Centre. A Customer who has collected an order can ask for a refund through Docket Support, with an explanation and optional photos. The request appears in your Disputes page. You may accept it (the refund is issued from your Mollie balance), or refuse it with an explanation and your own evidence. If you do not respond within 7 days of the request, the refund is granted automatically and issued from your Mollie balance. Replying or adding evidence pauses the automatic refund until you make a decision, but you must still decide promptly. You must keep your account active and able to fund refunds.
Refunds issued by Docket. Where a Customer complains to us about an order and we think a refund is fair, we may issue a full or partial refund on your behalf from your Mollie balance, and we will email you when we do. You agree to this, and you remain free to dispute it with us. The Platform fee is not returned on any refund.
We do not otherwise decide disputes between you and a Customer, and we are not obliged to refund anyone ourselves. Customer complaints about a café may be reviewed by us, and we may remove a store that attracts repeated justified complaints. If we choose to help, we do so without admitting any liability.

9. Food safety, allergens and legal compliance

You alone are responsible for food safety, hygiene, allergen and dietary information, labelling and every other legal requirement affecting what you sell, including the Food Safety Act 1990, retained food hygiene regulations, the Food Information Regulations 2014 and “Natasha’s Law”, and trading standards, weights and measures, age-restriction and licensing laws.
Allergen information (the 14 major allergens) and dietary tags (such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free and halal) are entered by you. We do not check them. The Platform may display them, filter by them, warn Customers who have chosen to avoid certain allergens, and send a Customer’s chosen allergens to you with their Order. These features are conveniences only. They are not a safety system, they may fail or be incomplete, and you must not rely on them. You remain responsible for asking about and managing allergies at the point of service and for preventing cross-contamination.
Food hygiene ratings. The Platform automatically looks up and displays Food Standards Agency hygiene ratings by matching your café’s name and postcode to public FSA data, and re-checks periodically. This is third-party data. We don’t guarantee that a match is correct, complete or current, and we aren’t responsible for any rating shown, not shown or mismatched. If you believe a rating shown for your café is wrong, contact us and we will try to correct or remove it. We aren’t obliged to display any rating.
Minimum hygiene rating. Food businesses with a Food Hygiene Rating of less than 4 (that is, 3 or below, or “Improvement Required”) are not permitted on the Platform. The automatic FSA lookup hides any café or branch whose matched rating is 3 or below, and it will become visible again once a re-check shows a rating of 4 or 5. By signing up you confirm that each of your premises holds a rating of 4 or 5 (or has not yet been rated). We may refuse, hide, suspend or remove any store that doesn’t meet this requirement, and we are not liable for orders lost as a result, including where the match is wrong or out of date.
You must tell Customers and us promptly about any food safety incident or recall affecting Orders placed through the Platform and cooperate with any investigation.

10. Loyalty cards, offers and promotions

You choose and fund any loyalty card (how stamps are earned, how many are needed, and the reward) and any offer codes. The cost of rewards and discounts is yours and comes out of your sales. We never fund them.
Stamps belong to the Customer’s Docket account and are recorded against your café. They have no cash value. You can change or switch off your loyalty card at any time; we aren’t responsible for Customer expectations or complaints about changes. You must still honour rewards a Customer has already earned for a reasonable period after any change, as a matter of consumer law and fair dealing.
Your promotions must be honest and legal, and comply with consumer-protection and advertising rules.
Stamp and reward totals can be wrong, delayed or lost because of errors or outages. We aren’t liable for that.

11. Reviews and Customer content

Customers may leave star ratings and comments. Reviews are the Customers’ opinions, not ours. We don’t verify them. We may show averages only after a minimum number of reviews, and we may remove reviews at our discretion.
You must not post or solicit fake reviews, offer unfair incentives for reviews, pressure Customers, or try to identify or retaliate against reviewers.

12. Referral programme

Your account has a referral code. When a café you refer registers using it and takes its first paid order, both cafés pay the reduced 2.5% platform fee for 30 days. Rewards stack by extending the end date.
Referral rewards are a discount on our fee only. They have no cash value, are not transferable, and can’t be earned by referring yourself, related businesses or accounts created for the purpose. We may withhold or cancel rewards for abuse or suspected abuse, and may change or end the programme at any time.

13. Customer data and privacy

We process Customer and merchant personal data under UK data protection law (UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). For Orders, each of us acts as an independent controller of the personal data we handle for our own purposes: you for running your café and fulfilling Orders, and us for operating the Platform, payments, security, fraud prevention, accounts and customer support.
Customer details you receive through the Platform (such as name, email, order contents and any allergens the Customer chose to send) may be used only to fulfil that Order, to comply with the law, to handle complaints and refunds, and for purposes the Customer would reasonably expect. You must not use them for marketing, sell them, or share them, unless you have a lawful basis and the Customer’s consent where the law requires it. You must keep them secure and delete them when you no longer need them.
You must handle any request or breach affecting data you control in accordance with the law and tell us promptly of any breach involving Platform data.
Our use of personal data is described in our privacy information, which we may update.

14. Notifications and communications

We may email you service messages (sign-in links, orders, account and legal notices) and may send push notifications to devices you enable. You are responsible for keeping notification permissions, sound, volume, battery and connectivity working on your kitchen devices.
We send emails and notifications to Customers (receipts, status updates, “ready” alerts and refunds, including through Apple Wallet) in your café’s name. Delivery can fail or be delayed. They are courtesy services only.

15. Acceptable use

You must not: use the Platform unlawfully, fraudulently or to sell anything illegal or unsafe, or to sell alcoholic drinks (section 5); attempt to access others’ accounts or data; interfere with, overload, reverse-engineer or scrape the Platform; submit false orders to manipulate fees, loyalty or reviews (orders placed through your own store’s test mode are allowed); circumvent the Platform fee (for example by steering Customers to place the same order elsewhere to avoid the fee after they have started an order through Docket); misrepresent your café; or use the Platform in a way that harms Customers, us or others.

16. Availability, changes and support

The Platform is provided “as is” and “as available”. We don’t promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure or free of defects, or that any particular feature will always exist. We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of it, with or without notice, for any reason, including maintenance and security. We will try, but don’t promise, to give reasonable notice of significant changes.
We provide support on a reasonable-efforts basis only, with no guaranteed response time.
You are responsible for your own backups of anything you need (for example, your menu and records). Download your sales exports regularly.

17. No liability: please read carefully

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

We (including Toby Jones, The Caffeine Media Company and anyone who works for or with us) are not legally or financially liable to you or to anyone else, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, misrepresentation, under indemnity or otherwise, for any loss, damage, cost, claim, fine, refund, chargeback, complaint or expense of any kind arising out of or connected with the Platform, the Agreement, any Order or Customer, or your use of or inability to use the Platform. This includes (without limitation): lost orders, missed, late or undelivered notifications; downtime or errors; incorrect or lost data; loss of profit, revenue, sales, goodwill, savings or business; food waste; allergic reactions, illness, injury or death connected with food or drink you sell; incorrect allergen, dietary or hygiene-rating information; payment, payout, refund, chargeback or Mollie issues; tax or VAT errors; loyalty or offer errors; security incidents or unauthorised access; the acts or omissions of Mollie, Apple, push-notification providers, email providers, hosting providers, FSA or any other third party; Customer behaviour or reviews; and any indirect or consequential loss.
You use the Platform at your own risk and you are responsible for your business decisions and for checking that the Platform is right for you.
If, despite the above, a court decides we are liable to you, our total aggregate liability for all claims arising in any 12-month period is limited to the platform fees you actually paid us in the 3 months before the event that gave rise to the claim (or £100 if lower or if you paid none).
Nothing in the Agreement excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any other liability which the law does not allow us to exclude. Where the law requires any part of this section to be narrower than written, it applies to the maximum extent allowed and the rest remains in force.

18. Indemnity

You will indemnify and hold harmless Toby Jones, The Caffeine Media Company and anyone acting for us against all claims, losses, liabilities, fines, penalties, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: your food, drink, premises, Staff or Orders; any allergen, dietary, labelling, hygiene or food-safety issue; your breach of the Agreement or of any law; content you upload; your promotions, loyalty cards and offers; refunds and chargebacks; any claim by a Customer, regulator or third party relating to your café; and anything done through your account.

19. Intellectual property

The Platform, its code, design, name, brand and content belong to us or our licensors. We give you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Platform for your café while the Agreement lasts. You keep ownership of your own content (section 5.5 licence applies). You may not copy, resell or build a competing product from the Platform. If you give feedback, we may use it freely.

20. Ending the Agreement and deleting your account

You may stop using the Platform at any time. You can delete your account in your account settings. Deletion is permanent. It removes your café profile, branches, menu, categories and items, offers, loyalty cards and customer stamps for your café, reviews, notification subscriptions, referral records and sign-in from our servers. You can’t delete while you have open orders; complete or refund them first.
Transaction records are kept. We keep order and transaction details (including amounts, tips, VAT, fees, refunds, items ordered and the Customer details attached to them) after deletion, because we need them for accounting, tax, fraud prevention, dispute handling and legal obligations, generally for at least six years. These records stay linked only to an internal ID. You should export your own records first. Deleting your account does not disconnect Mollie; remove our app’s access in your Mollie dashboard.
We may suspend or terminate your account at any time, immediately and without liability, if we think you have breached the Agreement, create risk or harm, or for any other reason on reasonable notice, or if the Platform is discontinued.
On ending: your café stops being visible; platform fees on completed orders remain payable (and are taken by Mollie automatically); and sections that by their nature should continue (including 7, 8, 9, 13, 17, 18, 20, 22 and 23) continue to apply.

21. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time, for example to reflect new features, law or fees. We’ll tell you through your account or by email, and the new version applies from the date stated (for changes that are materially worse for you, at least 30 days after notice). If you keep using the Platform after that date you accept the new terms; if you don’t agree, close your account before then.

22. General

Entire agreement. The Agreement is the whole agreement between you and us about the Platform and replaces anything said or agreed before.
Force majeure. We aren’t responsible for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of internet, hosting, payment, email or notification providers, power failure, cyber-attack, industrial action, epidemic, war, or government action.
Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations without our written consent. We may transfer ours (for example, to a company that takes over the business).
Severability and waiver. If any part of the Agreement is unenforceable, the rest continues. If we don’t enforce a right, we haven’t given it up.
No third-party rights. Nobody other than you and us (and those protected by sections 17 and 18, who may rely on them) has rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
Notices. We may give notice by email to your account address or through the Platform. You may contact us by replying to any Docket email.
Electronic agreement. Clicking to agree in your account, and using the Platform, is your signature on the Agreement. We record the date and version you accepted.

23. Governing law and disputes

The Agreement and any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes) are governed by the law of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except that we may seek urgent relief in any court. Before starting a claim, please contact us and give us 30 days to try to resolve it.

These terms are a general template and do not constitute legal advice. Docket’s operator is Toby Jones, trading as The Caffeine Media Company.

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