Frequently asked questions.

Dale is software for franchise work. It checks a Franchise Disclosure Document for compliance problems before you file it, answers questions about any franchise brand's FDD, puts the fees, royalties, and unit counts from thousands of FDDs into one table you can search, and helps you edit FDD language inside Microsoft Word.

Franchise attorneys and paralegals who prepare and review FDDs, franchisor legal and compliance teams, state examiners who review registration filings, and investment and research teams that need to compare franchise brands.

Four products. Use one or several. Each one has Ask Dale built in, a side panel where you can ask about whatever you are looking at in plain language.

• Dale ReviewUpload your FDD and get a list of compliance problems, each tied to the page and the rule.
• Dale ResearchAsk questions about any franchise brand, such as its royalty rate or transfer terms, without uploading anything.
• Dale LibraryThe fees, royalties, and unit counts from thousands of FDDs in one table you can filter and download to Excel.
• Dale for WordAsk for new or revised FDD language while you edit in Word, and Dale inserts it as a tracked change.

Dale comes with the franchise rules, the filings, and the market data already inside it, and it works directly in your reviews, your data, and your Word documents.

• It knows the rulesEvery review runs against the FTC Franchise Rule, the NASAA Guidelines and Commentary, the requirements of the 14 registration states, and your firm's own guidance. We keep those rules current as they change.
• It reads the whole filingDale reads all 23 items, the exhibits, and the financial statements together and flags where they disagree, such as a fee that does not match between Item 5 and the franchise agreement.
• Consistent results you can stand behindEvery review applies the same checks and produces a graded list of issues that you mark accepted or dismissed. That record stays with the file.
• Every answer shows its sourceEach issue and answer cites the page in the FDD and the regulation it relies on.
• The franchise data is already thereThe FDDs for thousands of franchise brands are loaded and organized, ready to search and compare.
• It works where you doInside the review, beside the data table, and in Word as tracked changes.
• Your documents stay yoursClient documents are never used to train AI models, under contract with every provider we use.

Dale is built from the ground up for franchise work. It knows the franchise rules, the structure of the FDD, and the franchise market, and it covers the work end to end: reviewing filings, researching brands, comparing the market, and drafting.

• Franchise rules built inDale checks each item of the FDD against the specific FTC, NASAA, and state registration requirements that apply to it, the way an examiner would, and we update those rules as they change.
• Built around the FDDDale knows the 23 items, the exhibits, and the state addenda, and how they should agree with each other. Issues are graded the way an examiner thinks: likely deficiency, inconsistency, judgment call, or compliant.
• Franchise market data includedResearch and Library come with the FDDs of thousands of brands, so you can compare fees, royalties, and terms across the market as well as review your own filing.
• Made for franchise teamsBuilt for franchise attorneys, franchisor compliance teams, state examiners, and franchise investors.

No. You can use one product or several. A firm that prepares FDDs might use Review and Word, while an investment team might use only Research and Library.

Dale shows its source every time. A compliance issue or an answer from Ask Dale cites the page in the FDD and the regulation it relies on. All claims link to the page they came from. You can check the original language before you rely on anything.

No. Dale is a tool, not a law firm. It does the first read and points out what to look at. You decide whether each issue is real and what to do about it.

Dale is sold to firms and companies, not to individuals buying a franchise. If you are considering a franchise, a franchise attorney can review the FDD with you. If your firm advises buyers, request a demo and we will show you how it fits your work.

Dale is offered under a custom agreement for each organization. A proposal reflects the products licensed and the number of users. To request a proposal, contact sales@dale.legal or request a demo.

Request a demo. We will walk you through the products that fit your work, then set up accounts for your team.

You upload your FDD and Dale reads all of it the way an examiner would, checking it against the FTC Franchise Rule, the NASAA Guidelines, and the requirements of the 14 franchise registration states. You get back a list of problems to fix, each tied to the page in your document and the rule involved.

The whole filing: the cover page, Items 1 through 23, the financial statements, the franchise agreement and other exhibits, and the state addenda. Dale also checks the document against itself, so a fee stated one way in Item 5 and another way in the franchise agreement gets flagged.

Yes. Run it on the whole FDD, the main body without exhibits, or a single item you just revised.

Minutes. A first pass that takes days by hand comes back in a few minutes for most FDDs.

A list of issues, each quoting the sentence in question and naming the rule. Every issue is labeled by how serious it is: likely to draw a deficiency comment, numbers that do not match across the document, a judgment call for you, or fine as written. Export it as a report when you are done.

Yes. Scanned or digital, Dale reads the whole filing, including tables, exhibits, and financial statements.

Yes. We update Dale as federal, NASAA, and state requirements change, so your next review runs against the current rules.

Yes. Past reviews are saved, so you can put this year's issues next to last year's and see which were fixed and which are new.

Yes. Share a link to a single review. They can read it and ask questions about it, and they see nothing else in your account.

No. Dale does the first read and flags what needs attention. Deciding what matters, advising the client, and signing off on the filing stay with you.

Ask Dale is the assistant built into every Dale product. It opens in a side panel next to whatever you are working on, whether that is an FDD, a review, a table of brands, or a document in Word, and lets you ask about it in plain language. Answers cite the page they came from and the regulation that applies.

No. It comes with every Dale product.

Everywhere you work in Dale.

• Dale ReviewBeside the FDD and the issues Dale found. Ask why something was flagged, or what a section actually says.
• Dale ResearchHighlight any passage in a brand's FDD and ask about that exact language.
• Dale LibraryBeside the table. Ask a question across every brand in view, such as the average initial fee.
• Dale for WordIn the panel next to your document. Ask for new language and get it back as a tracked change.

Whatever you would ask a colleague looking at the same screen. "List every fee in Item 6." "Why was this flagged?" "What is the average royalty for these brands?" "Rewrite this paragraph to disclose the new fee."

Yes. Every answer cites the page in the FDD and the regulation it relies on, such as a section of the FTC Franchise Rule or the NASAA Guidelines.

Dale already has the FDDs for thousands of franchise brands. Type a brand name and ask a question, such as "What is the royalty rate?" or "Can the franchisee transfer the business?", and get the answer with the item and page of the FDD it came from.

Checking out a brand before a client signs or invests, answering a client's question about a brand's FDD, reading exactly what one clause says, and comparing terms such as fees, territory, or renewal across several brands.

Yes. Add the brands you are comparing and ask once, for example "Compare the renewal terms." Each brand's answer points to its own FDD page.

Yes. Ask what changed since last year's FDD and get the answer with both pages cited.

No. Research is available on its own, and many investment teams use only Research.

Research gives you written answers to questions about specific brands. Library is a table of numbers, such as fees and unit counts, across thousands of brands that you filter and sort.

A spreadsheet-style table of the key numbers from thousands of FDDs, such as initial fees, royalty rates, investment ranges, and unit counts, by brand and filing year. Filter it, sort it, and download it to Excel. Every number links to the FDD page it came from.

Initial fees, royalties, investment ranges, the number of franchised and company-owned units, and the states each brand is registered in, across thousands of brands and several filing years. If your team tracks a figure that is not there, Dale can pull it from every filing for you.

Narrow the list to the brands you care about, for example restaurant brands registered in California, then sort by royalty or fee to see where a brand falls against its competitors. Download the result to Excel or send a link to a colleague.

Yes. Ask something like "What is the average initial fee for restaurant brands in 2025?" Dale calculates it across every matching brand and shows the brand-by-brand numbers behind the answer.

Yes. Save a comparison, such as the initial fee for every restaurant brand, and run it again next quarter to get the same table updated with the newest filings.

Private equity and investment teams comparing franchise systems, franchisors checking how their fees compare to competitors, franchise attorneys advising clients on what terms are typical, and industry researchers. Library is sold to organizations, not to individual franchise buyers.

No. Library is available on its own.

An add-in for Microsoft Word. While you edit an FDD, tell Dale what you need, such as "Raise the initial fee to $45,000" or "Add a right of first refusal to Item 12," and it writes the language and places it in your document as a tracked change.

As ordinary Word tracked changes. Accept, reject, or edit each one the same way you would a colleague's markup. Nothing is final until you accept it.

Yes. If a change touches more than one item, such as a new fee that appears in both Item 5 and Item 7, Dale proposes an edit in each place, each as its own tracked change.

Yes. Each edit notes the rule or requirement behind it, so you can see why the language reads the way it does before you accept it.

No. Dale for Word lets you review the changes you made in the document, then hands the filing off to Dale Review.

No. Your documents are used only to do the work you ask for. They are not used to train AI models, and every AI provider we use is bound by contract not to train on them.

Only the people in your organization you give access to. Your files are kept separate from every other customer's, and your administrator decides who can view, ask questions, download, or manage settings.

Your documents are encrypted while they travel to Dale and while they are stored. Dale staff can only access what they need to run the service, and our security controls are monitored continuously.

Yes. Dale has a SOC 2 Type II report, an independent audit of how our security controls work over time. Our Trust Center shows current control status and the vendors we use.

Dale uses large language models from established AI providers. Each one is bound by contract not to train on your data and not to keep it longer than needed to answer. The providers are listed by role in our Data Processing Agreement, and we name them under NDA.

Yes, at any time. When your contract ends, your data is deleted from our systems within 30 days and from backups within about 90.

Yes. Our Data Processing Agreement is published on this site and is part of every customer agreement.

Email support@dale.legal or open a ticket from the support page. We respond within one business day.

Your organization's administrator invites people and chooses what each person can do.

Yes. The user guide covers running a review, working through the results, and managing your team.

Our status page shows whether Dale is running normally, any current problems, and planned maintenance.