Legal

Privacy policy

Last updated: [DATE]

Showbooks helps creatives in the UK keep their books, work out their tax, send invoices and plan their money. To do that, you trust us with personal and financial information. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we share it with and the choices you have.

1. Who we are

Showbooks is run by [COMPANY NAME LTD], a company registered in England and Wales (company number [NUMBER]), registered office [ADDRESS]. We are the controller of the personal data described here. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, registration number [ICO NUMBER].

Questions about privacy: privacy@showbooksapp.com.

2. What we collect

1. Account details: your name, email address and password (stored only in scrambled form).
2. Your profile: the kind of work you do, how you trade (sole trader, company or both), where you live for tax purposes and the answers you give when you set up.
3. Financial records you add: bank statements you upload, the transactions in them, the categories and notes you give them, receipts, remittance slips, income and expenses you enter, budget figures, and tax and company figures worked out from them.
4. Invoices and clients: invoices you create and the names, addresses and email addresses of the clients and agencies you invoice.
5. Questions to Alicia: what you ask our AI assistant and her replies.
6. Payment details: if you buy a paid plan, our payment provider Stripe collects your card details. We never see or store your full card number; we receive a record of the payment and your plan.
7. How you found us and use the site: the link or campaign that brought you (for example an Instagram post), pages visited, device and browser type, and approximate location from your IP address. We use cookie-free analytics for this.
8. Messages: anything you send us when you contact support.

Some of what you upload, such as bank statements, may include other people's names (for example people who paid you or whom you paid). Only upload what you need for your own books.

3. Why we use it, and our lawful basis

We do not sell your data, and we do not use your financial records to show you advertising.

4. AI features

Alicia, our AI tax assistant, and our AI sorting feature are powered by Anthropic's Claude models. When you use them, the question you ask and the relevant figures and transactions from your account are sent to Anthropic to produce a reply. Anthropic processes this on our behalf under a data processing agreement and does not use it to train its models.

AI answers can be wrong. Alicia gives guidance, not regulated tax advice, and every change she suggests is shown to you to approve before anything in your records changes.

5. Who we share it with

We use trusted suppliers who process data on our behalf and only on our instructions:

1. Supabase for secure database storage and sign-in, hosted in the UK (London).
2. Vercel to host the website and app.
3. Stripe to take payments.
4. Anthropic for Alicia and AI sorting.
5. [EMAIL PROVIDER] to send account and service emails.

We may also share information if the law requires it, to protect our rights or users' safety, or with a buyer if Showbooks is ever sold (in which case this policy would continue to apply).

Showbooks does not file anything with HMRC on your behalf. If you give your figures to an accountant or HMRC, you do that yourself.

6. International transfers

Some suppliers, including Vercel, Stripe and Anthropic, may process data in the United States or elsewhere outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on the UK government's adequacy regulations (including the UK-US data bridge) or the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so your data keeps the same level of protection.

7. How long we keep it

1. Your account and records are kept while your account is open.
2. HMRC expects you to keep business records for at least 5 years after the 31 January filing deadline (6 years for companies). If you close your account, we delete your records within 90 days, so download your records before you close your account.
3. Payment records are kept for 6 years because our own accounts need them.
4. Backups are overwritten within 35 days.
5. Analytics data is kept in summary form only.

8. Keeping it safe

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Each person can only reach their own records, staff access is limited to what is needed to support you, and we review our suppliers' security. No system is perfectly secure; if something goes wrong that puts your data at risk, we will tell you and the ICO where the law requires.

9. Your rights

You can ask us to:

1. give you a copy of your data (you can also export it from the app at any time);
2. correct anything that is wrong;
3. delete your data;
4. restrict or object to how we use it;
5. move it to another service in a common format;
6. stop marketing emails (use the unsubscribe link or email us).

Email privacy@showbooksapp.com. We reply within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, though we would like the chance to put it right first.

10. Cookies

We only use cookies and similar storage that the app needs to work, such as keeping you signed in and remembering your light or dark mode choice. Our analytics do not use cookies. If we ever add cookies that are not essential, we will ask first.

11. Children

Showbooks is for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

12. Changes

If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will tell you by email or in the app before the change takes effect.