Your information, handled with care.

Accounting Pilot respects privacy and processes personal information in accordance with applicable South African law, including the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). This policy is intended to be clear and practical and does not reduce any rights available under law.

1. Who is responsible for your information

Accounting Pilot is the responsible party for personal information it determines how and why to process, including website enquiries, account administration, subscription records, security logs and support communications.

When a customer enters personal information about its own customers, suppliers, employees or other people into an Accounting Pilot workspace, that customer will generally be the responsible party and Accounting Pilot will process the information as its operator and service provider. Customers remain responsible for having a lawful basis and appropriate authority to use that information.

2. Information we collect

Account and contact information

This may include your name, email address, company name, user role, contact details and account preferences. Passwords are hashed and managed through Supabase Auth; Accounting Pilot does not store readable passwords in its business database.

Business records

Depending on the modules used, a company workspace may contain customer and supplier details, products, quotes, invoices, expenses, stock and purchase information, jobs, scheduling, employee attendance, uploaded documents, notes and related transaction records.

Enquiries and support

When you use the contact form or request support, we may collect your name, email address, company, selected topic, message and the correspondence needed to resolve the request.

Billing and payment information

For paid plans, we may process subscription status, amounts, payment references and limited billing details. Hosted payment providers such as PayFast process payment credentials under their own privacy and security terms. Accounting Pilot does not receive full card numbers from a hosted PayFast checkout.

Technical and usage information

We may collect IP addresses, browser and device information, authentication events, timestamps, error logs, security events and information about how service features are used. This helps us operate, secure and improve the service.

3. How we collect information

Information is collected when you create or use an account, enter records, contact us, submit a form, use a service feature, make a payment or interact with the website or app. We may also receive limited information from authorised company administrators, payment providers and technical service providers.

4. Why we use information

• Provide, administer and support the Accounting Pilot website, app and company workspaces.
• Authenticate users, manage permissions and protect accounts.
• Process trials, subscriptions, billing and payment confirmations.
• Respond to enquiries, service requests and support matters.
• Maintain records, backups, service reliability and business continuity.
• Detect, investigate and prevent fraud, abuse and security incidents.
• Comply with legal, regulatory, tax and contractual obligations.
• Improve features and performance using aggregated or de-identified information where appropriate.
• Send service communications and, where legally permitted, marketing that you may opt out of.

We process personal information where it is necessary to provide a requested service or perform a contract, to comply with law, with consent where consent is required, or for a legitimate operational or security purpose that is lawful and does not unjustifiably prejudice the data subject.

5. Sharing and service providers

We do not sell or rent personal information. We may share only the information reasonably necessary with trusted operators and service providers that help deliver the service, including cloud hosting, database, authentication, email, support, backup, security and payment providers. Supabase supports authentication and related cloud services, and PayFast may process hosted payments.

We may also disclose information to professional advisers, regulators, courts or law-enforcement bodies when required by law or reasonably necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal rights. Operators are expected to protect information and process it only for authorised purposes.

6. International processing

Some service providers may process or store information outside South Africa. Where personal information is transferred across borders, we take reasonable steps to use recipients, agreements and safeguards that provide an appropriate level of protection as required by POPIA.

7. Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, to provide and support the service, to resolve disputes, to maintain security and backups, and to meet legal, tax, accounting and contractual requirements. Retention periods vary by record type.

After an account closes, information may remain for a limited period in backups or records that must be retained. It is then securely deleted, de-identified or rendered inaccessible when retention is no longer required.

8. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect personal information against loss, unauthorised access, interference, modification, disclosure or destruction. Measures include encrypted connections, authentication, role-based access, password hashing, logging, backups and restricted administrative access where appropriate.

No online service can guarantee absolute security. If a personal-information security compromise occurs, we will investigate, mitigate it and notify the Information Regulator and affected data subjects when required by POPIA.

9. Your POPIA rights

Subject to applicable law, you may ask whether we hold your personal information and request access to it. You may also request correction or deletion, object to certain processing, withdraw consent where processing depends on consent, and object to direct marketing.

Send a request to support@accountingpilot.co.za. We may need to verify your identity and authority before acting. Some information cannot be deleted immediately where retention is required by law, a contract, security needs or the rights of another person.

If your request concerns information entered by an Accounting Pilot customer, please contact that customer first. We will assist the customer with an appropriate request where Accounting Pilot acts as its operator.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

The website and app may use essential cookies or similar browser storage for authentication, security, preferences and reliable operation. Optional analytics or marketing technologies will be used only with the notice and choice required by applicable law. You can control cookies through your browser, although blocking essential cookies may prevent sign-in or other features from working.

11. Children and automated decisions

Accounting Pilot is a business service and is not intended for use by children. Customers must have lawful authority before entering information about a minor. We do not currently make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects for website visitors or account users.

12. Customer responsibilities

Company administrators and users must collect and enter personal information lawfully, keep account access secure, assign appropriate permissions, maintain accurate records and respond to data-subject requests where the company is the responsible party. Users must not share passwords or use Accounting Pilot to process information they are not authorised to hold.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when the service, our providers or legal requirements change. The current version will be published on this page with its effective date. Material changes may also be communicated through the website, app or email where appropriate.

14. Contact and complaints

For privacy questions, requests or complaints, contact Accounting Pilot at support@accountingpilot.co.za.

You may also lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa) through its eServices portal. The full Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 is available from the South African Government.