Privacy Policy
Toolie ("Toolie", "we", "us") provides job, quoting, money and compliance software for New Zealand builders. This policy explains how we handle personal information, consistent with the Privacy Act 2020 and its Information Privacy Principles (IPPs).
1. Information we collect
Toolie is offline-first. If you use it without signing in, your data stays on your device and we don't receive it. When you sign in, the following is synced to our cloud so you can back it up and work across your devices:
- Account information — your name, business name, email, phone, LBP number, NZBN and billing details.
- Content you create — jobs, quotes, invoices, timesheets, site-diary entries, notes, and the client and crew details you enter.
- Photos and attachments — photos you capture or attach to jobs. Plans and documents you load for take-off are processed on your device.
- Location — only if you switch on a location feature (such as the GPS time-clock or placing a job site on a map). We then collect approximate and precise location to record where time was logged or to map the site. The GPS time-clock checks how far you are from your own job sites on your device, and only while Toolie is open on screen; we do not keep a trail of where you go. What is saved to your Toolie account (and synced with it): a job's site pin — looked up from the site address, or the spot you were standing on when you tapped "I'm on site" — and, on a timesheet, the location you clocked on from when it was away from the site pin or the clock was started by hand. To find a site pin from a typed street address, your device sends the address to OpenStreetMap Nominatim, a mapping service run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation on servers outside New Zealand; like any web request it also receives your IP address, browser/device details and the referring page (see sections 4 and 7). If you set up the optional iPhone arrival shortcut, our server (Cloudflare) stores a private code for your account, whether you "arrived" or "left", and the time — no location, address or job. We keep at most the newest 40 of these per code, delete any older than 30 days, and delete all of them when you tap "Remove iPhone arrival" in Settings or delete your account. While you are clocked on, our server also keeps a short-lived note that a shift is open on one of your devices since a given time (so another device doesn't offer to start a second shift); it is deleted when you clock out, when you tap "Remove iPhone arrival", when you delete your account, and at the latest 3 days after the shift started. The feature is off by default, shown a disclosure before it turns on, and you can decline the permission or disable it at any time, in which case it simply won't run.
- A copy of what Toolie emails for you (on by default; you can switch it off) — when Toolie sends an email on your behalf (a quote, invoice, receipt, payment reminder, variation or Record of Work), it adds you as a hidden (blind) copy recipient in the same message, at your business email, or your sign-in email if none is set, so you have your own record. It is the same email your client received, sent by the same email delivery provider already named below, and it goes only to you. Emails sent from a crew login are not copied. Your client does not see your address on the copy. Switch it off in Settings → Data & Backup → Email sending (owner or admin).
- Supplier invoices by email (optional, off until you ask for your address) — if you open the Supplier invoice inbox in Bills, Toolie gives you a private email address that only you know. Emails you send or forward to it (and their PDF or photo attachments) are held on our servers (Cloudflare, which already runs Toolie's API and database) until you confirm or dismiss them: confirming or dismissing deletes the email text and attachment straight away, anything you leave untouched is deleted after 30 days, and deleting your account or tapping “Delete my inbox” removes everything at once (an address that goes unused for 120 days is also closed and emptied). Attachments sit in Cloudflare's file storage (R2) under your account only. After you confirm or dismiss an email we keep a short duplicate-check record for 60 days — the sender's email address, the attachment's file name, the email's message ID and a one-way fingerprint of the file — so the same invoice isn't added twice; it holds no invoice text, figures or file contents. Only PDF and photo attachments are kept; programs, web pages and other file types are discarded unread. Reading an invoice uses the same receipt reader (and AI provider) as scanning a receipt in the app: it runs only when you tap “Read it”, sending that one email's text or attachment for reading and using one of your AI updates; nothing is read automatically. Nothing becomes a bill until you tap Confirm. You can limit the inbox to senders you list.
- Monday money email (optional, off by default) — if you switch it on in Settings → Data & Backup → Automations, Toolie keeps a short summary of your money picture on our servers so it can email it to you on Monday mornings while the app is closed: client and job names, invoice, quote and deposit amounts, dates, and the hours and bills not yet billed. It does not include addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or notes. It is built from records Toolie already holds for you, is emailed only to your business email (or your sign-in email if none is set) by our email delivery provider (the one already used for Toolie's other emails), and is never sent to your clients. Switching it off, or using the turn-off link in any of the emails, deletes the summary straight away, and deleting your account deletes it too. A summary older than four weeks is never emailed.
- Voice dictation — when you dictate notes, your device's built-in speech recognition converts your speech to text. Toolie keeps only the resulting text, not any audio recording.
- Payment information — subscription payments are handled by our payment processor, Stripe. We receive your subscription status and invoices but never store full card numbers.
- Client portal interactions — when you share a project portal or invoice link and one of your clients opens it, we record the timestamp of that open, and of any "Accept" or "Decline" they tap, against your job so we can show you (the builder) an alert — much like a read receipt on an email. For invoices we also record which invoice was opened. For ordinary opens and views we do not record their location, how long they looked, or what they read, and clients see no tracking pixel, cookie banner or third-party analytics script. When a client accepts a quote, we additionally record the IP address and device (browser/operating system) they accepted from, as evidence of that electronic signature under the Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017. These events are stored in our own systems, shown only to you, and never shared with advertisers or third parties.
- The free "Try Toolie" demo — when you type a job into the no-signup demo (toolie.co.nz/?try), we keep what you typed so we can check the estimates it gives and improve Toolie's quotes. Before it leaves your browser we try to remove contact details: email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses and people's names are replaced with placeholders such as [email] or [address]. This is automatic and not perfect, so please don't type your own or anyone's details. We do not keep the site address you type, only the town Toolie matched it to. Alongside the text we keep what Toolie worked out from it (the job type, size and estimate), a random session number, a daily-changing visitor code, how you reached the demo (for example a link or search referral) and whether you were on a phone or a computer. The visitor code is a pseudonym: our server makes it from your internet (IP) address using a secret key that changes every day, so we can count how many demo quotes came from the same visitor on the same day. We don't store your IP address and we don't use the code to find out who you are. Because the key changes daily, the visitor code can't be matched to the same visitor on another day. The random demo session number is different: your browser keeps it for up to 30 days, so it does link the demo quotes made from one browser across those days. We don't record it for signed-in Toolie users.
- From the demo to your account — the demo shows you what Toolie understood about your job (the job type, size, scope and materials list) but not the price. The price is unlocked once you sign in and start your free trial. When you click Unlock, the job you typed is saved on your device and, once you have an account, carried into it as your first quote, so it is waiting for you. We also link the demo to the account: your browser keeps the random demo session number for up to 30 days (then replaces it, and removes it from your device as soon as it has been linked), and when you create an account we store that number against the account. That means the Toolie team can see which demo quotes (the scrubbed text, the town and what Toolie worked out) belong to an account created afterwards. We use this to count how many demo visits turn into sign-ups and to see what people try before they join; it is not used for advertising and is not shared. We only link a brand-new account, and only the random session number goes with it, never your name or email. The demo quotes and the link between a demo session and an account are only visible to the Toolie team and are deleted after 180 days. Please don't type anything private into the demo.
Our own usage events. Toolie records simple first-party events about how the app is used (for example that the demo was opened, a sign-in code was sent or verified, a quote was created or sent), each with a random session number, how you arrived, and your account where you are signed in. On the sign-in steps they can include the random demo session number described above, which is how a demo visit is linked to the account it led to. They hold no names, addresses or exact dollar amounts (at most a broad size band for a quote). The one free-text item is what you type into the pricebook search when it finds nothing (or when you add a custom item instead): we record that search phrase, with emails, phone numbers and links removed and cut to 80 characters, so we can see which items the pricebook is missing. Please don't type personal details into the pricebook search. Only the Toolie team can see them, and they are deleted after about 13 months.
No third-party tracking or advertising. Toolie does not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels, session recording, cross-site trackers or cookie-based profiling, and we don't sell your information. The only client-portal activity we record is the open, accept and decline receipts described above, shown only to you. Our hosting and payment providers keep limited technical logs (such as IP address and timestamps) only to keep the service secure and reliable.
2. How we use it
- To provide, maintain, secure and improve the Toolie service.
- To process subscriptions and billing.
- To provide support and send service-related communications.
- To generate the AI-assisted content you ask for, such as client updates or quoting help.
- If you turn on sharing (section 1), to produce combined, anonymised price ranges and benchmarks that we show to Toolie users. Your own figures are never shown to anyone else on their own.
- To meet legal and regulatory obligations.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not use your business content to train AI models.
3. Storage and security
Toolie is offline-first: your data is held on your device and synced to cloud infrastructure when you sign in. We use reputable cloud providers and apply reasonable technical and organisational safeguards. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security.
If a privacy breach happens that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm, we will notify the Privacy Commissioner and the people affected as soon as practicable, as Part 6 of the Privacy Act 2020 requires (the Commissioner expects notification within 72 hours of becoming aware). If it involves records you keep in Toolie about your clients or staff, we will tell you promptly so you can meet your own duty.
4. Disclosure
We may share information with service providers — hosting, payment processing (Stripe), email delivery, and the AI provider that powers Toolie's AI features — who process it on our behalf under confidentiality obligations, or where required by law. These providers act on our instructions and are not permitted to use your content for their own purposes, including training AI models. If you use the GPS time-clock, typed job-site street addresses are sent from your device to OpenStreetMap Nominatim (OpenStreetMap Foundation) to find the site pin; Nominatim is a public service under its own usage and privacy policy, not our processor. Your clients/crew information that you enter remains yours; you are responsible for having a lawful basis to provide it.
5. Your rights
Under the Privacy Act 2020 you may request access to, and correction of, personal information we hold about you. You can export your data from within Toolie, and request deletion of your account. Contact us using the details below.
6. Data retention
We retain account and content data while your account is active and for a reasonable period afterwards to meet legal, tax and operational requirements, then delete or anonymise it.
Text typed into the free demo (with contact details removed, as described in section 1), and the link between a demo session and an account created afterwards, are deleted after 180 days.
Shared prices (section 1) are deleted once they are 2 years old. Shared accuracy and benchmark figures are replaced with your latest figures (at most once a day). When you turn a sharing switch off, what your business shared through it is deleted the next time Toolie opens on a device that shared it, and it drops out of the combined figures: from the regional figures it was counted in straight away (if your business hasn't withdrawn in the previous 30 days; otherwise within about 8 days), and from the national figures at the next daily update. You can also ask us to delete it, and deleting your account deletes it.
7. Overseas storage
Where your data is held, and overseas disclosure (IPP 12). Your synced Toolie data and job photos are stored by our database provider, Supabase, in Sydney, Australia (AWS region ap-southeast-2). Some other providers listed here process data in the United States or at the nearest global edge. A provider that only stores or processes information for us, and does not use it for its own purposes, holds it as our agent under section 11 of the Privacy Act 2020: sending it to them is not a disclosure under information privacy principle 12, and Toolie stays responsible for it as if we held it in New Zealand. We only use providers that are bound to protect it, and the providers that store or process your Toolie records for us may not use them for their own purposes (such as advertising or training AI models). Stripe also handles card details as a payment provider under its own privacy policy. If we ever disclose personal information to an overseas organisation for its own use, we will do so only on a ground IPP 12 allows (for example, where the recipient is required to protect it with safeguards comparable to the Privacy Act) and tell you first.
Your clients' information. The details you keep in Toolie about your own clients, crew and subcontractors are your business's records: your business is the agency responsible for them under the Privacy Act, and Toolie holds them for you as your agent. You can download all of it at any time (Settings → Account → Export my data).
Job-site address lookups and arrival notes
If you use the GPS time-clock, typed job-site street addresses are sent from your device to OpenStreetMap Nominatim (OpenStreetMap Foundation), which processes them on servers outside New Zealand (with your IP address and browser details, as for any web request) to return map coordinates. This is a disclosure to an overseas organisation under IPP 12 of the Privacy Act 2020; send only addresses you are happy to look up on a public map. Arrival notes from the optional iPhone arrival shortcut (a private code, "arrived"/"left" and the time) are stored by Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc.) for our API, at the nearest global edge, as our agent.
AI photo renders
If you use "Show it on a photo", the site photo you pick and a short description of the work (size, material and colour — no prices, names or address) are sent to Google's Gemini API (Google LLC), which processes them on servers outside New Zealand to draw an illustration of the finished work. This is a disclosure to an overseas provider under IPP 12 of the Privacy Act 2020. Before a photo is sent, Toolie removes its location data (GPS) and other camera details — on your device and again on our server. Under Google's paid Gemini API terms, Google does not use this content to train its models. The illustration is saved to the job in Toolie's own storage, is marked "Illustration only — not to scale", and is shown to your client only if you approve it. Photos of a client's home should only be used with their permission.
8. Changes
We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified in-app or by email, and the version/date above will change.
9. Contact
Privacy queries or complaints: privacy@toolie.co.nz. You may also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (privacy.org.nz).