Privacy

Last updated 13 November 2026

VanBooks helps UK tradespeople keep their books. This page explains what we collect, why, who helps us process it, and your rights. Questions: [email protected]. VanBooks is run by Charter Enterprise, a UK sole trader, registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller, registration number ZC277218.

What we collect

• Your account: your email address, and the business details you add in Settings (business name, trade, address, phone, email for customers, bank account name, sort code and account number for your invoices).
• Your books: invoices and your customers' names, addresses and contact details that you enter, costs, mileage and journeys.
• Receipts: photos you take or upload, and the text read from them. If you take one with no signal, it's kept on your phone (in the app or browser's own storage, not shared with anyone) until it can be sent, then removed from the phone. Notes kept with no signal stay on your phone the same way until you read them on the Log screen.
• Contacts, only if you tap “From contacts”: the name, phone number, email and address of the one contact you pick are filled in on the invoice, quote, booking or customer you're adding, and saved only if you save it. VanBooks never reads, uploads or changes the rest of your contacts.
• Job photos and sign-offs: before and after photos you add to an invoice, and a customer's signature and name when they sign off the work. Your customer can see these on their invoice link.
• When invoices and quotes are opened: the date and time your customer first and last opened the link, so you can see it's been seen.
• Voice and typed notes: the text of notes you dictate or type on the Log screen. We don't store audio. Speech is turned into text by your phone or browser's own speech service (for example Google on Android) before it reaches us.
• HMRC (Making Tax Digital), if you connect it: your National Insurance number, the permission HMRC gives VanBooks (stored encrypted), your business's HMRC reference, and a copy of each update and tax return you send with HMRC's reference. HMRC requires us to send details of your device and connection with each submission (such as your IP address, screen size, time zone and a device identifier) to help prevent fraud.
• Phone notifications, if you turn them on in the app: a code that lets us send notifications to that phone (from Google for Android, from Apple for iPhone). It's deleted when the phone stops accepting them. Notifications say things like which customer opened or paid an invoice.
• Two-step sign-in, if you turn it on: the key for your authenticator app (stored encrypted) and scrambled copies of your backup codes.
• Billing: your subscription status. Card details go straight to Stripe; we never see or store them.
• Technical: a sign-in cookie, a cookie remembering light or dark mode, short-lived server logs used to fix problems, and when you last used VanBooks and on what kind of device (for example “iPhone app” or “Chrome on Windows”) so we can support the apps. If you arrive from an ad or another website, a cookie remembers which one (for example TikTok or Google) for 30 days, and it's saved with your account if you sign up, so we know which adverts work. Advertising cookies only if you accept them: see Cookies.

Cookies

VanBooks needs a few cookies to work: one keeping you signed in, one for light or dark mode and text size, one remembering which ad or website brought you here, and one remembering your cookie choice. They stay on vanbooks.uk.

On the website, we'd also like to use advertising cookies from Google Ads and the Meta Pixel(Facebook and Instagram), to see which of our ads bring people to VanBooks and whether they sign up or subscribe. These are off unless you click Accept on the cookie banner. If you do, Google and Meta receive the pages you visit on vanbooks.uk, that you signed up or subscribed, and technical details such as your browser and IP address, and they use it under their own privacy policies. They never get your books, invoices, customers or receipts. You can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of the page. The Android and iPhone apps don't use advertising cookies.

Why we use it

• To provide VanBooks: storing your books, making invoices, working out tax estimates and reading your notes and receipts. (Our contract with you.)
• If you switch on chasing, to email your customers reminders about late invoices on your behalf, using the email address you entered for them. (Our contract with you, and your legitimate interest in being paid.)
• To take payment for your subscription. (Our contract with you.)
• To keep the service secure and working. (Our legitimate interests.)
• To keep financial records the law requires. (Legal obligation.)
• If you accept advertising cookies on the website, to measure which of our ads work. (Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time with Cookie settings.)

We don't sell your data, and nothing in your books is ever used for advertising.

Who processes it for us

• Vercel: hosts the website and app. Our server code runs in London. Vercel Web Analytics counts page views without cookies and without identifying you.
• Neon: our database, in London.
• Vercel Blob: stores receipt photos, job photos and signatures, in London. We encrypt every one ourselves (AES-256) before it's stored.
• Anthropic: its Claude AI reads the notes you dictate or type, and your receipt photos, to fill in the details for you to check. Anthropic doesn't use this data to train its models. A job typed into “Try it now” on the home page is sent to Anthropic in the same way to show you the result, and isn't saved by VanBooks.
• Resend: sends sign-in emails, and one tips email if you haven't logged anything in your first few days.
• Stripe: takes subscription payments and keeps payment records.
• Google (Firebase Cloud Messaging) and Apple (Push Notification service): deliver phone notifications, if you turn them on in the app.
• Cloudflare: runs our domain name.
• Google (Google Ads) and Meta (Meta Pixel): measure our adverts, only if you accept advertising cookies on the website.
• HMRC: if you connect VanBooks to HMRC, we send them your figures when you ask us to, with the fraud prevention details they require. HMRC uses them under its own personal information charter.

Some of these companies are based in the US, so some data may be processed there. Where that happens, it's protected by the UK's approved safeguards, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

Sharing

Invoices you send, and receipt links you share, can be seen by anyone who has the link. Shared receipt links stop working after 30 days, or straight away if you withdraw them.

How long we keep it

We keep your data while you have an account. If you delete your account, we delete your books, receipts and business details straight away. Stripe keeps records of past payments for as long as the law requires. Receipt photos you took but never saved with a cost are deleted after two days. To protect against mistakes and faults, we keep a private, encrypted backup copy of the database each night for 6 months; after that it's deleted, so data you've deleted is gone from the backups within 6 months.

Your rights

• See and take your data: download your records from Tax at any time, or ask us for a copy.
• Correct it: edit anything in the app, or ask us.
• Delete it: delete your account in the app or website at any time.
• Object or restrict: email us.
• Complain: you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

VanBooks is for people running a business and isn't meant for anyone under 18.

Changes

If we change how we use your data, we'll update this page and tell you by email before it takes effect.