BookMate Privacy Policy

Last updated: 3 November 2026. BookMate is an app by VIP Tech, Dublin, Ireland. Contact: viptechviptech@gmail.com.

What BookMate does

BookMate helps small businesses keep receipts, invoices, income, expenses and VAT figures, and share them with their bookkeeper.

What we collect

• Account: your email address and, if you use Google sign-in, your Google account name and email. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication and we never see them.
• Your books: entries you add (supplier or customer, date, amounts, VAT, category, notes), your business name and VAT number, and photos or files of receipts you add. Receipt photos are shrunk before upload.
• Sharing: email addresses of bookkeepers you invite, and whether they can view or edit.
• Subscription: Google Play handles payment. We receive only whether a subscription is active.

How receipts are read

Receipt photos are read on your phone using Google ML Kit text recognition. If you choose to turn on AI help, see below.

Optional AI help

If you paste your own Anthropic API key in Settings, BookMate sends receipt images or text, supplier names for categorising, and your questions with the relevant entries from your books directly from your phone to Anthropic to get an answer. The key is stored only on your phone in secure storage. We do not receive your key or these requests. Anthropic's own privacy policy applies to that processing. If you do not add a key, nothing is sent to Anthropic.

Where data is stored

Your books and receipt photos are stored in Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore and Cloud Storage) in the European Union. Access is limited by security rules to you and the bookkeepers you invite.

Who can see your data

Only you and the bookkeepers you invite. We do not sell your data, show ads, or share it with third parties other than the service providers named here (Google Firebase, Google Play, and Anthropic if you turn on AI help).

Reminders

VAT reminders are scheduled on your phone. They do not send data anywhere.

Keeping and deleting your data

You can delete your account and all your entries, receipt photos and settings at any time in the app: Settings, then "Delete my account and data". You can also email us to ask for deletion. Irish law may require you to keep business records for six years, so export what you need first (VAT PDF or Excel in the app).

Your rights

Under GDPR you can ask to access, correct, export or delete your data, or complain to the Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie). Contact us at the email above.

Children

BookMate is for business use and not for children under 16.

Changes

If this policy changes we will update the date above.