Legal, privacy & security center

📌 1 · What this portal is for

This portal lets you view your own pay information, submit or correct your personal details, complete your Form W-4 elections, acknowledge the employee handbook, and (for store logins) report hours worked.

It is a self-service convenience tool. It is not payroll advice, tax advice, legal advice, or an employment contract, and nothing here changes the at-will nature of your employment where at-will employment applies.

✍️ 2 · Your responsibility for the data you enter

You certify that every item you enter or approve — name, address, Social Security number, bank or contact details, W-4 elections, and hours reported — is true, complete, and correct to the best of your knowledge.

Federal law (including 26 U.S.C. §7205 and the instructions to IRS Form W-4) imposes penalties for a false withholding certificate. Deliberately misreporting hours may be treated as time-theft and may be grounds for discipline, termination, and recovery of overpayments as permitted by your state's wage laws.

You are responsible for reviewing each pay statement promptly and reporting any discrepancy to your employer without delay.

🔒 3 · Privacy & data protection notice

We collect and process your personal information solely to administer payroll, tax withholding and reporting, benefits, leave accruals (including paid sick and safe time), and required federal, state, and local filings.

Sensitive identifiers are protected: your Social Security number is stored encrypted and displayed only as the last four digits unless an authorized supervisor performs a logged reveal. Every view, edit, and export in this portal is written to an immutable audit log.

We do not sell your personal information. It is shared only with your employer's authorized payroll personnel, government agencies, and service providers (banking, tax filing, document delivery) strictly as needed to run payroll and meet legal obligations.

Records are retained for the periods required by the Fair Labor Standards Act, IRS regulations, and applicable state law, and are then securely disposed of. Depending on your state of residence you may have rights to access, correct, or request deletion of certain personal information; submit those requests to your employer's payroll administrator, who is the data controller.

Never share your login. You are responsible for all activity performed under your credentials, and you must notify payroll immediately if you suspect unauthorized access.

Full Social Security numbers are encrypted at rest, masked by default, and may be viewed or changed only after a fresh multi-factor authentication challenge by an authorized user. SSN changes require matching double entry and are audit logged.

Ascendum Corporate Advisory LLC develops, owns and maintains AscenPay as the software provider. The customer employer controls its workforce and payroll records and determines the lawful purposes for which employee data is processed.

🧾 4 · Service scope & employer responsibilities

AscenPay provides software for payroll calculation, workflow control, recordkeeping, document generation, and supported tax-filing processes. AscenPay does not currently initiate direct deposit, hold client funds, or act as a bank or money transmitter.

The employer remains responsible for the accuracy and completeness of source data, final payroll authorization, wage funding and delivery, tax deposits, agency registrations, filing elections, employee classifications, and compliance with applicable law. Software warnings and reconciliations assist review but do not replace professional judgment.

Access to AscenPay is invitation-only. Customer and portal access must be approved through the platform hierarchy; no customer, employee, store or cluster user may self-authorize or elevate a role.

Availability of a form, calculation, export, or workflow does not mean that AscenPay has assumed the employer's legal obligation or guaranteed agency acceptance. The employer must review confirmations, notices, rejections, and deadlines promptly.

⚠️ 5 · Disclaimer of warranties

THE PORTAL AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION.

Figures shown — including estimated taxes, accrual balances, and year-to-date totals — are calculated from the data available at the time of display and may change after review, correction, reconciliation, or agency guidance. Your official records are the payroll register, pay statement, and Form W-2 issued by your employer, which control in the event of any conflict with this portal.

No warranty is made that the portal will be available at any particular time, that transmissions will be secure against every threat, or that stored data will be free of loss or corruption.

Third-party agency, communications, identity, hosting and filing services remain subject to their own availability and rules. AscenPay does not guarantee acceptance by any tax or unemployment agency.

🛡 6 · Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE FEDERAL AND STATE LAW, NEITHER YOUR EMPLOYER, ITS AFFILIATED ENTITIES, OWNERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PAYROLL SERVICE PROVIDERS, NOR SOFTWARE VENDORS (COLLECTIVELY, THE "COVERED PARTIES") SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST WAGES, LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, PENALTIES, OR INTEREST, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PORTAL, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

The Covered Parties assume no responsibility whatsoever for errors, omissions, delays, outages, unauthorized access, or interruptions of any kind associated with this portal, or for decisions you make in reliance on information displayed here.

Nothing in this agreement waives, limits, or releases any right you have that cannot lawfully be waived — including your right to be paid all wages actually earned under the Fair Labor Standards Act and applicable state wage-and-hour law, your rights under workers' compensation and unemployment insurance statutes, and your right to file a charge with, or participate in an investigation by, any federal, state, or local agency such as the DOL, IRS, EEOC, NLRB, or a state labor department. If any provision is found unenforceable, it is limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remainder stays in force.

⚖️ 7 · Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Covered Parties from and against any claims, demands, actions, assessments, penalties, interest, back taxes, liabilities, losses, costs, and reasonable attorneys' fees arising out of or relating to: (a) information you submitted that was inaccurate, incomplete, fraudulent, or not timely corrected; (b) withholding elections you made or failed to update; (c) hours you reported or approved; (d) your misuse of the portal or sharing of your credentials; or (e) your violation of this agreement or of any applicable law.

This obligation does not apply to any loss caused by the gross negligence or willful misconduct of a Covered Party, and does not extend to any liability that may not lawfully be shifted to an employee under the law of your state.

🖊 8 · Electronic records, signatures & delivery

Under the federal E-SIGN Act (15 U.S.C. §7001) and applicable state UETA statutes, you consent to receive pay statements, tax forms, notices, and other payroll documents electronically, and you agree that typing your name in this portal is your legally binding electronic signature with the same effect as a handwritten one.

You may withdraw this consent, or request paper copies at no charge, by contacting your payroll administrator. Withdrawal applies going forward only and does not affect documents already delivered. You are responsible for keeping your email address and contact information current so notices reach you.

🏛 9 · Governing law, disputes & changes

This agreement is governed by the laws of the state in which you primarily perform work, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and by applicable federal law. Any dispute not resolved informally will be brought in the state or federal courts serving that location, unless a separate signed arbitration agreement between you and your employer governs, in which case that agreement controls.

These terms may be updated. When they are, you will be asked to review and re-accept the new version at your next sign-in. Continued use after acceptance constitutes agreement.

Questions, corrections, or privacy requests: contact your payroll administrator directly.

📶 10 · Offline copy on your phone or computer & device security

So the portal keeps working when you have no signal or the service is unreachable, a limited read-only copy of your most recent screens (such as your employee card, pay history summary and leave balances) is stored on the device you sign in from. This copy is only ever created on the device you used — it is never transmitted to any third party.

Highly sensitive values are deliberately excluded from that on-device copy: your full Social Security number, bank routing and account numbers, and uploaded identity documents are never written to offline storage and always require a live, authenticated connection to view.

The offline copy is cleared automatically when you sign out, and it is replaced with fresh data every time you reconnect. Information shown while offline is a snapshot with the date and time it was captured and may be out of date; the live portal and your official pay statement always control.

You are responsible for the security of the device you use — keep a screen lock enabled, do not install the portal on a shared or public device, and sign out when you are finished. Notify payroll immediately if a device holding your portal session is lost or stolen.

🎙 11 · Voice commands & biometric notice

The microphone in this portal is optional. Every screen and every action can be completed by typing and tapping, and nothing is captured unless you deliberately press the microphone button.

When you do use it, a short audio clip of your command is converted to text so the assistant can open a screen, read back a figure, or ask you to confirm an action. The audio is processed and then discarded — AscenPay does not create, store, compare, sell, lease, trade or otherwise profit from a voiceprint or any other biometric identifier.

The text of your command is retained with your account activity log and destroyed within twelve months, or sooner if you withdraw your consent. Audio is destroyed at the end of the request that converts it.

Consistent with the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14) and comparable state laws, you are shown this notice and asked for a written electronic release before the microphone is opened for the first time. You may withdraw that consent at any time, after which the microphone stays disabled for your account.

🗄 12 · How long records are kept

Payroll registers, pay statements, time records and wage computations: at least four years after the tax is due or paid, per IRS Reg. §31.6001-1 and 26 U.S.C. §6001; time and earnings records at least three years under the Fair Labor Standards Act (29 CFR 516), with supporting computation records kept two years.

Form W-4 and state withholding certificates: for at least four years after the last return that used them. Forms W-2 and 1099 and their filing confirmations: at least four years.

Form I-9 and its supporting documents: three years after the date of hire or one year after employment ends, whichever is later (8 CFR 274a.2).

Access, reveal and change audit logs: seven years, to support wage claims, agency examinations and security investigations. Voice command text: twelve months. Offline copies stored on your own device: cleared when you sign out.

When a retention period ends, records are securely deleted or de-identified, except where a legal hold, open audit, claim or agency inquiry requires them to be preserved.

🧰 13 · Security program & breach notification

AscenPay maintains a written information security program covering access control, encryption of sensitive identifiers at rest and in transit, multi-factor authentication for privileged actions, least-privilege role scoping, immutable audit logging, automatic sign-out after inactivity, vendor oversight and periodic risk assessment, consistent with the FTC Safeguards Rule (16 CFR Part 314) as it applies to payroll and tax preparation providers, and with IRS Publication 4557 guidance.

A named security coordinator oversees this program, and a written incident response plan governs detection, containment, investigation and notification.

If a security incident affects your personal information, you and your employer will be notified without unreasonable delay and within the timeframe required by the applicable state breach-notification statute — including Minnesota (Minn. Stat. §325E.61), Illinois (815 ILCS 530), Texas (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §521.053, 60 days), Wisconsin (Wis. Stat. §134.98, 45 days), Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas — together with what happened, what data was involved, and the steps being taken. Where required, regulators, attorneys general and credit reporting agencies will also be notified.

Suspected compromise of your credentials or device should be reported to your payroll administrator immediately so the session and access can be revoked.

📬 14 · Your privacy rights & how to use them

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what personal information is held about you, to receive a copy, to correct inaccuracies, to request deletion of information that is not subject to a legal retention requirement, to limit the use of sensitive information such as your Social Security number, and not to be retaliated against for exercising these rights. California employees and applicants have these rights under the CCPA as amended by the CPRA; similar rights exist under Texas, Minnesota, Iowa and other state privacy statutes.

AscenPay does not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and does not use payroll data for automated decisions that produce legal effects without human review.

To exercise a right, contact your employer's payroll administrator, who is the controller of your records; AscenPay acts as the service provider or processor and will assist. Requests are verified against your portal identity and answered within the period the applicable law allows, normally 45 days. You may appeal a refusal, and where state law provides, complain to your state attorney general.