Privacy policy
VoltAdmin · Last updated 14 October 2026
This policy explains what VoltAdmin holds about you, the contractor using it, and why. What you put into VoltAdmin about your own customers and staff is covered separately, by the operator agreement — because that data is yours, not ours, and the difference decides who answers for it.
Written in plain language on purpose. Where the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) uses a term of art, it is named the first time and then used normally.
1. Who we are
VoltAdmin is operated by [registered entity name] (registration number […]), of [registered address].
- Information Officer: [name], [email]
- General enquiries: [support email]
For the data described in this policy we are the responsible party — the one who decides why it is collected and what happens to it.
2. What we collect, and why
We collect four things, and a fifth only if you connect an accounting package. Nothing else.
2.1 Your account
Your name, email address and password (stored only as a scrypt hash — we cannot read it, and neither can anyone who takes a copy of our database). If you signed in with Google, we hold the verified email address Google gave us and nothing from your Google account beyond it.
Why: to know who you are and to let you back in. Without it there is no account.
2.2 Your business
Trading name, registered name, registration and VAT numbers, address, phone, email, logo and banking details.
Why: these print on your quotes and invoices. Your banking details are printed so your customers can pay you; they are stored so you do not retype them on every document, and we never initiate a payment with them.
2.3 Your subscription
Which plan you are on, the date you are paid up to, and a record of each payment: the amount, the date, the gateway's reference, and the invoice we issue for it.
Why: to bill you and to prove what you paid. An invoice keeps your business's name, postal address and any VAT number, as they printed. No card details ever reach VoltAdmin, and we store nothing that could be used to charge a card.
2.4 What happens in the account
An activity log — who did what and when — and technical logs of requests, each carrying a correlation identifier, a timestamp and, where our rate limiting needs it, an IP address.
Why: so you can answer "did I actually remove that person's access?", and so we can investigate a fault or an attack. §6.11 puts the activity log in the product for exactly the first reason.
2.5 Your accounting connection
Only if you connect an accounting package: which package and which of your organisations in it, the access that package gives us to your books, which of your records matches which of its records, and a log of each time we sync. The access is encrypted, and it is deleted when you disconnect, as soon as the package confirms the disconnection.
Why: to keep your clients, invoices and payments the same in both places, because you asked us to, and to recognise what was already sent if you connect the same books again, so that nothing is sent twice.
3. What we never do
- We do not sell your personal information, or your customers'.
- We do not share it for advertising, and there are no advertising or analytics trackers in the product.
- We do not use your business data to train machine-learning models.
- We do not read your records except when you ask us to help with a specific problem, and then only as far as that problem needs.
4. Who else can see it
Only where the work requires it, and each is bound to confidentiality:
| Who | What they see | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Our hosting | Everything, at rest, on the server | [hosting location] |
| Our email provider (Amazon SES) | The address, subject and body of mail we send you — invitations, password resets, retention notices | [SES region] |
| Our payment gateway (Paystack) | Your email address and the amount, when you pay. The card details you type on its page go to it directly, never through us | [Paystack processing location] |
| Our development staff | Only what a specific support request requires; no general access to production data, and no root database access (§10) | South Africa |
If any of these change, this policy changes with it. Section 72 of POPIA restricts sending personal information outside South Africa, so where the server and the backups physically sit is stated above rather than left vague.
Accounting packages you connect
These are not our sub-operators. You choose them, and you have your own agreement with each. We send a package only what it needs to keep your books, only while you keep it connected, and we stop the moment you disconnect. Nothing is sent to a package you have not connected.
| Package | What it receives from us, and why | Where it keeps it |
|---|---|---|
| Xero, when you connect it | Your clients' names, contact people, email addresses, phone numbers, billing addresses and VAT numbers; each invoice you issue, with its number, dates, client, lines, VAT and totals; and the payments you record (amount, date and reference), if you choose to send them — so that your books hold the same clients, invoices and payments as VoltAdmin. It never receives map pins, gate and access notes, your private notes, document language, jobs, staff, pay, stock or expenses | [Xero processing location] |
From the package we bring back your customers, the invoices raised there (which you can only view in VoltAdmin) and the payments and credits recorded against invoices, and hold them as we hold the rest of your records.
Our part ends when a record reaches the package. What the package holds is then governed by your agreement with it, not by this policy. Disconnecting stops the sync and deletes the access we held; it does not delete what the package already holds, because those are your books.
5. How long we keep it
| While your subscription is live | Everything, until you delete it |
| After it lapses | One year, readable and exportable the whole time |
| Then | We email you a link to download everything. The link lives 30 days |
| After that | Everything is deleted |
| If you close your business yourself | Deleted seven days after you ask, so a mistake can be undone. Signing in during those seven days cancels it |
| Your accounting connection | The access is deleted when you disconnect, once the package confirms it. Which of your records matches which in the package is kept while your business is, so that connecting the same books again recognises what was already sent instead of sending it twice; it goes when your business does. The log of each sync is kept 30 days |
Two things outlast a deletion: our invoices to you, which tax law has us keep for at least five years, and a small record that it happened — the business's name, the date, who asked, how many rows went — because data we deleted cannot answer a regulator.
Your account survives your business. If you do the books for two contractors and one closes, your login and the other business are untouched.
6. Your rights
Under POPIA you may:
- See what we hold. Settings → Export everything gives you the lot as a spreadsheet, immediately, without asking us.
- Correct it. Every field in the product is editable by you.
- Have it deleted. Settings → Close this business. You do not need our permission or our help.
- Object to processing, and complain — to us first, at the Information Officer above, and then to the Information Regulator, whose complaint form and contact details are at inforegulator.org.za.
We answer requests within 30 days, and sooner where the product does not already answer them instantly.
7. How it is protected
- TLS everywhere, with HTTP Strict Transport Security.
- Passwords hashed with scrypt — memory-hard, salted, never reversible.
- Session tokens stored only as SHA-256, so a copy of our database yields no usable sessions.
- Accounting connections encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM), under a key kept outside the database and outside its backups.
- Optional two-step sign-in (an authenticator app), which we recommend for any business with staff.
- Every business's data scoped in the query, not in the interface, and tested for it on every change.
- Encrypted, off-site backups, with restores rehearsed rather than assumed.
- A Content Security Policy and the rest of the browser's defences, set in our own code so they are reviewed like everything else.
8. If something goes wrong
Section 22 of POPIA requires notification of a breach. If personal information under our control is accessed by someone who should not have it, we will notify the Information Regulator and every affected person as soon as reasonably possible, in writing, saying what happened, what it means for you, and what to do about it. Our internal runbook for this is a working document, not a marketing one, and it is rehearsed.
9. Cookies
Six, and none of them for tracking. Three last; the other three live ten minutes, only while you sign in with Google or connect an accounting package:
| Cookie | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
va_session | Keeps you signed in | 30 days, or until you sign out |
va_lang | Remembers English or Afrikaans before you sign in | A year |
va_recovery | Only on the data-recovery page, after you prove who you are | 30 minutes |
va_oauth | Only while you sign in with Google: ties Google's answer to the sign-in you started | 10 minutes |
va_oauth_2fa | Only after a Google sign-in, while you enter your two-step code | 10 minutes |
va_books_oauth | Only while you connect an accounting package: makes sure the package's answer comes back to the browser that asked for it | 10 minutes |
No analytics, no advertising, no third-party cookies. Nothing to consent to, because there is nothing here that a consent banner would be asking about.
10. Children
VoltAdmin is a business tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect the personal information of anyone under 18.
11. Changes
We will post a new "last updated" date here, and email you before anything that materially changes what we do with your information.