VIMA← Back to home
Download PDF

Terms of Service

Version 1.1 · Effective August 2026

1. Who we are

VIMA ("VIMA", "we", "us", "our") is a practice-management platform for UK therapists, operated by VIMA MATCH LIMITED, a company registered in Scotland (company number SC839660), registered office 36/6 Hawthornvale, Edinburgh, EH6 4JN. Contact: hello@govima.co. These Terms govern your use of VIMA at govima.co and the VIMA application (the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

2. Who can use VIMA

VIMA is designed for counsellors and psychotherapists, and it is open to anyone who works with clients — including coaches, supervisors, students and trainees, and practitioners in related fields. You do not need to be registered with a professional body to use VIMA.

You confirm that you are at least 18 and are using VIMA in a professional capacity. Many of our users are registered with a body such as BACP, UKCP, NCPS or BABCP, and others are working towards registration or practise in fields with different arrangements. Whatever applies to you, it applies to you — you are responsible for practising lawfully and in line with any professional, regulatory, insurance and ethical obligations that govern your own work. VIMA does not verify qualifications, registration or fitness to practise, and nothing about holding a VIMA account implies that we have.

You are responsible for keeping your login secure and for all activity under your account.

Some features are limited to particular groups. The trainee programme is available only to those training towards a recognised counselling or psychotherapy qualification, and access to the UK Therapist Network community is at our discretion. We will say clearly wherever that is the case.

3. The Service

VIMA helps you manage your practice — scheduling, client records, notes, documents, invoicing and payment links, supervision and CPD logging, and analytics. We provide it on a software-as-a-service basis and may improve or change features over time. VIMA is a practice-management tool. It is not a medical device and does not provide clinical, legal, financial or tax advice. Clinical judgement and professional responsibility for your clients remain entirely yours.

4. Plans, trials and billing

Standard plan: £18/month or £180/year (saving £36); one plan, every feature included, no tiers or add-ons.

Free trial: 28 days, no card required; at the end your account freezes (you can still log in and export) until you add a card and subscribe — we do not automatically charge you at the end of a free trial.

Trainee plan: free for 9 months' full access. No card required. Near the end we'll prompt you to pause, move to Standard, or close your account, and you are not charged automatically unless you opt in.

Auto-renewal: paid subscriptions renew automatically each period until cancelled.

Cancellation: cancel any time from account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current paid period, and you keep full access until then. Nothing changes on the day you cancel.

Refunds. Except where required by law, all fees are non-refundable. You are buying access for a period, and you receive that access in full whether or not you use it.

Specifically, and for the avoidance of doubt:

  • Cancelling part-way through a monthly period does not entitle you to a refund of that month. You keep access to the end of it.
  • Cancelling part-way through an annual term does not entitle you to a refund, rebate or pro-rata credit for the unused months. You keep access for the remainder of the year you have paid for.
  • Downgrading, reducing your usage, or ceasing to use VIMA during a paid period does not entitle you to a refund for that period.
  • Account credits, including any credit arising from the referral programme, may only be applied against future invoices. They cannot be exchanged for money, refunded, or transferred to another account, and they are cancelled if your subscription ends.
  • Losing a reduced referral price because your subscription ended is not a basis for a refund or compensation.

We may, at our sole discretion and without creating any precedent or obligation, make a refund in exceptional circumstances. Nothing in this section affects any right you have that cannot be excluded by law.

Failed payments: if a payment fails we may retry it. If it cannot be collected, your subscription may lapse, which ends any reduced referral price under section 4.

Price changes: we may change prices with reasonable notice before your next renewal.

Referral programme. Every account has a referral code. When a therapist signs up with your code and makes their first successful payment, that counts as one confirmed referral. A free trial that does not convert to a paid subscription does not count. There is no minimum usage requirement. If that payment is later refunded or reversed the referral becomes unconfirmed, though any reward already granted is not withdrawn.

If you sign up using a referral code, you receive one free month in addition to your 28-day free trial. Your trial and your first month run as normal, and when your first payment succeeds we credit your account with the value of one month — £18 on the monthly plan, or £15 against renewal on the annual plan — which clears your following month. The credit may be used once per account, is not available again on reactivation, is withdrawn if that first payment is refunded or reversed, and is unaffected by anything that subsequently happens to the account that referred you.

Your first and second confirmed referrals each earn one free month, granted as credit against your next invoice (£18 for monthly subscribers, £15 for annual). A maximum of two free months may be earned per account. At 3 confirmed referrals your subscription price reduces to £9/month (£90/year) and is locked at that rate, and no further free months are earned. There is no limit on how many accounts can reach this, and no closing date. The reduced price takes effect at your next billing date, with no proration or mid-cycle refund; annual subscribers move at renewal.

A locked price applies for as long as your subscription remains continuously active. If your subscription ends, whether by cancellation or non-payment, you lose the locked price and your referral count resets to zero; renewing within the 30-day window in section 9 does not count as ending. Referrals made before a subscription ends do not carry over.

A locked price will not increase if therapists you referred later cancel, and is not affected by future increases to our standard price. Referral pricing cannot be combined with any other discount, offer or trainee pricing; where more than one would apply, the lowest single price applies and discounts do not compound.

What a locked price includes. A £9 subscription provides identical access to a £18 subscription — nothing is removed, limited or gated. All future core practice-management features we release are included at your locked price at no additional cost, and we will not move a feature that was included when your price locked into a separately charged add-on.

AI features are an exception. AI features are an optional add-on, charged as a separate monthly fee in addition to your subscription at any price. They are not included at £18 or £9. You pay for them only if you choose to enable them, and declining them does not affect any feature you already use.

Referral pricing applies to your subscription only. The processing fee in section 5, and Stripe's own card fees, are unaffected at every price.

You may not use your own code, or codes across accounts belonging to the same person, sharing a payment method, or using related email addresses. We may withhold, void or revoke a referral or a locked price where we reasonably believe the programme has been misused.

Full referral terms are at govima.co/referral-terms.

5. Client card payments and the processing fee

VIMA lets you send clients invoices and card payment links. Card payments are processed by Stripe through a Stripe account connected to you; funds are paid to you directly by Stripe, and VIMA never holds your or your clients' money. Your use of Stripe is subject to Stripe's own terms.

For payments you collect through VIMA, a 0.7% processing fee applies (collected as a Stripe Connect application fee). Together with Stripe's own card fee (standard UK rate 1.5% + 20p), the all-in cost is approximately 2.2% + 20p per transaction, separate from your subscription. This fee may change on reasonable notice.

6. Data protection — your clients' data

In relation to your clients' personal, clinical and case data, you are the data controller and VIMA is your data processor (see the Privacy Notice and our Data Processing Agreement). You decide why and how your clients' data is processed; we process it on your instructions.

As controller, you are responsible for having a lawful basis to process your clients' data, for any consents or notices they require (including explicit consent for special category data such as health information), for retention and deletion decisions, and for using VIMA in line with your professional and legal obligations. You must not use VIMA unlawfully or upload content you have no right to upload.

As processor, we are responsible for the security of the Service, for processing your clients' data only on your instructions, for notifying you without undue delay if we become aware of a personal data breach affecting it, and for the other obligations set out in our Data Processing Agreement. Those responsibilities are ours and are not transferred to you by these Terms.

Separately, in relation to your own account, profile and billing data, VIMA is the data controller. Our Privacy Notice explains both roles.

7. Availability and support

We aim to keep VIMA reliable but do not guarantee uninterrupted service; there may be downtime for maintenance or reasons beyond our control. Support is by email at hello@govima.co.

8. Intellectual property and acceptable use

We (and our licensors) own all rights in the Service and everything that makes it up — the software and source code, design, layout, look and feel, branding, logos, text, graphics and other content. Using VIMA — whether on a free trial or a paid subscription — gives you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for your own practice while your access is active. It gives you no ownership of, or right to, our intellectual property.

While using the Service (the website and the application), you must not:

  • copy, reproduce, republish or otherwise reproduce the design, layout, look and feel, branding, code or content of the Service, except incidental copying necessary for your normal use;
  • modify, adapt, translate, reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to extract the source code;
  • scrape, harvest, bulk-download or systematically extract data or content, other than exporting your own practice data through the features we provide;
  • use the Service, or anything you copy or learn from it, to build, train or operate a competing or similar product or service;
  • resell, sublicense, rent or otherwise make the Service available to any third party, or share your login with anyone;
  • remove or obscure any copyright, trademark or other proprietary notice; or
  • use the Service unlawfully, to infringe others' rights, or to upload content you have no right to upload.

You keep ownership of the data and content you put into VIMA, and grant us only the limited rights needed to store and process it to provide the Service to you. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of this section.

9. Ending your subscription, export and deletion

If your subscription ends, whether you cancel or simply don't renew, you keep full access until the end of the period you have already paid for. Nothing changes on the day you cancel.

From the end of that paid period, your account becomes read-only for 30 days. You can log in, view and export your data, but not create or edit. You can renew at any point during those 30 days to restore full access.

After the 30-day window, your account is closed and all your practice and client data is permanently and irreversibly deleted. We do not retain a copy and we cannot restore an account once the window has passed.

Because of this, you are responsible for exporting and keeping your own records to meet your professional retention obligations. Depending on your professional body, that is typically a minimum of seven years after last contact for adult clients, and longer for clients who were minors. It is your responsibility to know what applies to you and to act within the window.

We retain only our own business and accounting records (for example, your subscription payments) as required by law.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you materially breach these Terms.

10. Liability

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud). Subject to that, we are not liable for loss of profits or business, or indirect or consequential loss; and our total liability to you in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in that period. The Service is provided "as is". You remain responsible for keeping your own backups and exports of important data.

11. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes we'll give reasonable notice (e.g. by email or in-app). Continuing to use VIMA after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

12. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the law of Scotland, and the Scottish courts have jurisdiction, subject to any mandatory rights you have as a consumer.

13. Contact and complaints

Questions or complaints about the Service: hello@govima.co. For data-protection complaints, see the Privacy Notice.