Privacy — Stringline

Every section has the short version in a box, so you can read the boxes and know what matters. Last updated 17 October 2026.

Who we are

Short versionStringline is a New Zealand business. We're the ones responsible for how your information is handled, and you can reach us at hello@stringline.co.nz.

Stringline provides quoting, scheduling and invoicing software to trades businesses. We're based in New Zealand and we handle personal information under the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020. If you're a business using Stringline, you're responsible for your own customers' information under that Act too, and we look after it for you.

What we collect

Short versionWhat you type in, what your crew clocks, and the bare minimum about how the site is used. Nothing we don't need.

If you register interest, we keep your name, email, and whatever else you chose to tell us: your business, trade, phone, a note. All of that is emailed to us and stays there.

If you use Stringline, we store what you and your team put in it: your business details, your team's names and logins, your price book, and your customers: names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, quotes, jobs, invoices, time on site. All of it is yours.

If a customer of yours opens a quote, accepts one or fills in an enquiry form, we record what they sent and when, plus the address it came from, so you can see it and so we can tell a real enquiry from a bot.

Automatically, our servers keep ordinary logs: the address a request came from, the browser, the page, the time. They're there to keep Stringline running and secure. We don't run advertising trackers, and we don't sell or share usage data with anyone.

Why we collect it

Short versionTo run Stringline for you, to bill you, to get back to you, and to keep it running.

To run Stringline for you: the quotes, jobs, invoices and everything around them.
To send the emails you or your customers asked for: quotes, follow-ups, invoices, reminders.
To invoice you for your subscription.
To reply when you contact us, and to tell you about changes that affect you.
To keep Stringline secure, and to find out what went wrong when something breaks.

We don't use your data to train anything, we don't profile you, and we don't send marketing to your customers.

Who else sees it

Short versionA handful of companies help us run it, and what each one does is below. Nobody else sees it unless the law says so.

We use a small number of providers to run Stringline. They process data on our behalf, under their own privacy terms, and they can't use it for anything else. Ask us who they are and we'll tell you.

Hosting. The servers, the databases and the files you upload are in Sydney, and a backup copy of the files is kept in Singapore.
Email delivery. The emails Stringline sends go out through a provider in the United States: quotes, follow-ups, invoices and reminders.
Stripe handles card payments. We never see or store a card number. Stripe does, under its own terms.
Xero, if you connect it, holds a copy of the invoices and payments you choose to sync.
Anthropic, in the United States, reads the old quotes you upload when you set up your price book. There's more on that below.

Some of your information is stored or handled outside New Zealand. Where it is, we use providers whose protections are comparable to the Privacy Act.

We'll disclose information if the law requires it (a court order, say) and we'll tell you if we're allowed to.

We'll never sell your information, or your customers' information, to anyone.

If you import old quotes

Short versionThe documents go to Anthropic in the United States to be read. Anthropic doesn't train on them, and nothing lands in your price book until you've checked it.

When you set up your price book from old quotes, invoices or price lists, each document you upload is sent to Anthropic, the company that makes the Claude AI models, to be read. The whole page goes, as a PDF or a photo, so whatever is on it goes too. On an old quote that's usually your customer's name and address as well as the work and the price. We send the list of trades and price book categories to sort the work into, and nothing else from your account.

Anthropic reads the document and sends back the lines of work and what you charged for each. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, what we send it isn't used to train its models, and it's deleted within 30 days, unless their safety systems flag it or the law says they have to keep it. The documents themselves stay with us, like the rest of your data.

If you'd rather a customer's details didn't go, cover them or crop them out before you upload. The work and the prices are all we need.

If you connect Xero

Short versionWe hold the keys to your Xero and the ids of the invoices and payments we've synced. We can't see your ledger.

Connecting Xero hands us an access token and a refresh token for your organisation. Both are encrypted where they're stored, and the refresh token is replaced every time it's used. Alongside them we keep your organisation's Xero id and name, the permissions you granted, the two account codes you choose, and who connected it and when. Those two codes are the account sales post to and the bank account payments go against.

The permissions we ask for are narrow ones: contacts, invoices, payments, and read-only access to your chart of accounts so we can show you the codes to pick from. We don't ask for, and can't see, the rest of your Xero: your ledger, your bank feed, your payroll, your reports.

We read three things from Xero. Your chart of accounts and tax rates, so the codes on an invoice are ones your books actually have: we read those fresh when we need them and keep no copy, apart from the two account codes you pick. Your contacts, to look up a customer by name so an invoice goes on the contact you already have. And the payments against our invoices, below. We don't copy your contact list, your bank transactions or your reports.

Information comes back as well as going out. Once an hour, for each of our invoices that Xero holds a copy of, we ask whether anything has been reconciled against it. When something has, we record the amount, the date, the reference and Xero's id for that payment, which is how an invoice closes itself here and the reminders stop chasing somebody who has already paid. We also keep Xero's id for every invoice and payment we've synced, so nothing is sent or recorded twice.

You can disconnect at any time from the Xero page in your account, and the sync stops there and then. That doesn't revoke the token at Xero's end: to do that, go to the connected apps screen in Xero. What we hold is removed when the rest of your data is, on the timetable below.

Where it lives and how long

Short versionOn our servers, backed up, encrypted in transit, for as long as you're a customer and a short while after.

Each business's data is kept in its own database. Connections are encrypted. Backups are taken regularly and kept for a limited period so a mistake can be undone.

While you're a customer, we keep everything. If you cancel, your data stays for 30 days so you can change your mind or export it, and is then deleted from live systems, with backups expiring after. A free trial that ends without a card being saved gets the same 30 days: we'll email to say it's ended, remind you two days before, and delete it 30 days after that first email. Invoices we've issued to you are kept for seven years, because tax law says so.

Your rights

Short versionAsk us what we hold, ask us to fix it, ask us to delete it, take it with you. Email us and we'll do it.

Under the Privacy Act you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you and ask us to correct it. You can also ask us to delete it, and we will unless we're required to keep it. You can export your business's data from your account at any time.

If you think we've got something wrong and we haven't sorted it out, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz.

Cookies

Short versionOne to keep you logged in, one to remember light or dark. No tracking.

Stringline uses a session cookie so you stay signed in, and a security token so forms can't be forged. This website remembers your light-or-dark choice in your browser. That's it. No advertising cookies, no third-party analytics.

Changes

If this page changes in a way that matters, we'll email account holders before it takes effect. Small wording fixes just get made.

Your data, your customers' data, and what we do with it.