Last updated: 7 September 2026
“Sieve” is a trading name of Sieve Talent Limited (“Sieve”, “we”, “us”), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17290355, with its registered office at 124–128 City Road, London, England, EC1V 2NX. Sieve is an online marketplace that helps businesses (“Business Users”) find and connect directly with independent finance professionals (“Professional Users”), from bookkeepers through to fractional CFOs. By creating an account or otherwise using the Sieve platform (the “Platform”), you agree to these Terms & Conditions.
Sieve provides an introduction and matching service only. We are not a recruitment agency, an employment business, an umbrella company, or a party to any engagement, contract of employment, or contract for services agreed between a Business User and a Professional User. Any work, engagement, rate, IR35/employment status determination, right-to-work check, insurance, or contractual arrangement agreed following an introduction is entered into directly between the Business User and the Professional User, at their own risk and responsibility.
You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to register. Business Users must have the authority to register their organisation. Professional Users must provide accurate information about their skills, qualifications and experience. One account per business or individual — we may suspend duplicate or impersonated accounts.
Professional Users are asked to complete a short skills assessment of their claimed skills and experience before their profile goes live. This assessment is intended to give Business Users a useful signal of quality, but Sieve does not verify or vet a Professional User’s claims, references, qualifications, or right to work, and does not guarantee the accuracy, competence, conduct, or suitability of any Professional User. Business Users remain responsible for carrying out their own due diligence before engaging anyone.
Business Users search and shortlist candidates free of charge. Sending a connection request to a shortlisted Professional User requires one or more Connection Credits, purchased in advance in bundles as shown at checkout, plus any fixed connection fee displayed at the time. Connection Credits are non-refundable once purchased, whether or not they are used, save as required by law. Credits do not expire while your account remains active, but any unused Credits are forfeited if your account is closed. Sieve does not charge Professional Users a listing fee, a subscription fee, or any other fee for finding them work.
Success fee for CFO and Finance Director connections. Where a connection request is for a Chief Financial Officer, Finance Director, or equivalent senior finance role, a success fee applies in addition to the Connection Credit if the introduction results in the Professional User being engaged by the Business User. The success fee is a fixed amount, set by the band below into which the cost of engaging the Professional User for the first three months of the engagement falls (or its full duration, if shorter), calculated using the maximum rate and time commitment stated in the Business User’s original brief at the time the connection request was sent — not any different rate or terms later agreed between the parties. This is shown to Business Users at the time they create a brief for one of these roles.
| First 3 months’ cost (from brief) | Success fee |
|---|---|
| Up to £10,000 | £250 |
| £10,000 – £20,000 | £500 |
| £20,000 – £40,000 | £1,000 |
| £40,000 – £80,000 | £2,000 |
| Over £80,000 | £3,000 |
Launch offer — success fees discounted to zero. During Sieve’s current launch period and until we give notice ending it, the success fee set out above is discounted to 0%, so no success fee is currently payable on any connection, including CFO and Finance Director connections. We reserve the right to end or reduce this discount for future connections at any time, by posting an update on this page and notifying registered Users; any change will apply only to connections accepted after the change takes effect, not retrospectively. Connection Credit charges are unaffected by this discount and remain payable as set out above.
Sieve is not a party to, and does not review, verify, or adjust the fee for, any engagement terms negotiated directly between the Business User and the Professional User. Both the Business User and the Professional User agree to inform Sieve if a connection made through the Platform leads to an engagement, whether or not a success fee is currently payable, so that Sieve can maintain accurate records and apply the correct fee once (and if) the launch discount ends. As part of Sieve’s standard follow-up process, we will ask both parties to confirm whether a connection resulted in an engagement, and Sieve may rely on either party’s confirmation to invoice any applicable success fee.
Connection requests are anonymised and do not include either party’s name or direct contact details. A connection is only made, and contact details exchanged, once the Professional User accepts the request. One Connection Credit is reserved when a request is sent. If the Professional User declines the request, or does not respond within the response period shown at the time, the reserved Connection Credit is returned to the Business User’s available balance.
Users agree not to use information obtained through the Platform to circumvent Sieve in order to avoid paying applicable fees on an introduction made through the Platform within the preceding 12 months.
If Sieve reasonably believes that a connection has led to an engagement that a User failed to report as required by clause 5, or that a User has failed to respond to a reasonable request to confirm whether an engagement has resulted, we may treat this as a breach of these Terms and invoice the applicable success fee as if it had been properly reported, based on the best information available to us. This applies whether or not a success fee is currently discounted under the launch offer in clause 5, so that any success fee which becomes payable after that discount ends can still be applied correctly to engagements that were not disclosed at the time.
You agree not to: scrape, copy or bulk-extract profile data from the Platform; misrepresent your identity, business, or experience; send an excessive number of connection requests or contact attempts in a way designed to circumvent our fair-use limits; use the Platform to advertise unrelated services; or attempt to reverse engineer, disrupt, or gain unauthorised access to the Platform.
The Sieve name, logo, and Platform design are owned by Sieve Talent Ltd. Profile content remains the property of the User who submitted it; by posting it, Users grant Sieve a licence to display it on the Platform for the purpose of operating the matching service.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
Subject to the paragraph above, Sieve Talent Ltd’s total liability to you for any claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the Platform, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to Sieve in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) £1,000.
Sieve excludes all liability for any indirect or consequential loss, and for any loss arising from an engagement, work, or contract entered into between a Business User and a Professional User, since Sieve is not a party to that engagement. Business Users and Professional Users remain responsible for their own compliance with employment, tax, immigration, and other applicable law in respect of any engagement.
We may suspend or close an account that breaches these Terms, appears fraudulent, or poses a risk to other Users, with or without notice depending on severity. Users may close their account at any time via account settings. See clause 5 for the treatment of any unused Connection Credits on account closure.
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the revised version on this page with an updated date; continued use of the Platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.
These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
Questions about these Terms can be sent to legal@sieve.co.uk, Sieve Talent Ltd.