Privacy Policy

1. Responsible party and Information Officer

• Supplier: Jacobus Pretorius t/a Margin Mate (sole proprietor)
• Physical address: 22A Marais Street, Lydenburg, Mpumalanga, 1120
• Email: info@marginmate.co.za · Phone: 067 011 3108
• Website: https://www.marginmate.co.za

Information Officer: Jacobus Pretorius — info@marginmate.co.za. Contact the Information Officer about anything in this policy or to exercise your rights.

2. What we collect

• Account details: your name, email address and password (stored only as a secure hash by our authentication provider), your language choice and the businesses you belong to.
• Business details: business name, VAT status and rate, pricing preferences and, if you add one, your logo.
• Business records you enter: ingredients, suppliers, prices, recipes, photos, production plans and quotes — including the names and contact details of your own clients if you put them on a quote.
• Uploaded documents: invoices and recipe cards you choose to scan are read and then discarded; we keep only what was read from them (such as supplier name, invoice number, line items and the file name).
• Billing: your plan, subscription status and payment reference numbers. Card details are handled by Paystack and never reach us.
• Technical: sign-in session cookies, a language cookie and a cookie that remembers which business you are working in, plus standard server logs (IP address, browser, time) kept for security. We use no advertising or tracking cookies.

3. Why we use it

• To provide MarginMate to you and your team: to sign you in, store and calculate your data, and produce sheets, lists and quotes (to perform our agreement with you).
• To bill your subscription and to send you service messages such as sign-up confirmation, password resets, payment notices and changes to these terms.
• To keep the service secure, prevent misuse and fix problems (our legitimate interest in running a safe service).
• To meet legal obligations, for example tax records.

We will not use your information for marketing by other companies. We will only send you our own product news if you agree, and you can opt out at any time.

4. Who we share it with

We use trusted service providers ("operators" under POPIA) who process information only on our instructions and under written agreements requiring them to keep it secure:

• Supabase — database, file storage and sign-in.
• Vercel — hosting of the web application.
• Paystack — subscription payments.
• Anthropic — reading invoices and recipe cards you choose to upload (only when you use those features). Under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use this content to train its models.
• Our email provider — sending sign-up, password and account emails.

We disclose information to authorities only where the law requires it.

5. Information sent outside South Africa

Some of these providers store or process information outside South Africa (for example in the European Union or the United States). As required by section 72 of POPIA, we only use providers bound by agreements and laws that give your information protection substantially similar to POPIA. By using MarginMate you acknowledge this transfer, which is necessary to provide the service.

6. Your clients' information

When you record your own clients' details (for example on a catering quote), you are the responsible party for that information and we process it on your behalf. Only add what you need, and make sure you are entitled to share it with us.

7. How we protect it

• All traffic is encrypted (HTTPS). Data is stored with an established cloud provider with encryption at rest.
• Each business's data is separated at database level — a member of one business cannot read another's records.
• Access is limited to the people in your business you invite, and within our team to those who need it to support you.
• If a security compromise affects your personal information, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

8. How long we keep it

We keep your information while your account exists. After you cancel, your data remains available (read-only) for at least 12 months so you can return or export it: the business owner can download all of it as CSV files at any time, on every plan, under Settings › Account. You may ask us to delete your account and business data at any time; we will do so within 30 days, except for records we must keep by law (such as billing records, kept for 5 years). Server logs are kept for a limited period for security.

9. Your rights

• Ask whether we hold personal information about you and request a copy.
• Ask us to correct or delete information that is inaccurate, out of date, excessive or unlawfully obtained.
• Object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and opt out of our product news.
• Complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa) — inforegulator.org.za — if you are unhappy with how we handle your information. We'd appreciate the chance to sort it out first.

Send requests to info@marginmate.co.za. We may need to confirm your identity first, and will respond within a reasonable time and as POPIA requires.

10. Children

MarginMate is a business tool for people aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect information about children.

11. Changes

We will tell you about material changes to this policy by email or in the app before they take effect. The version is shown at the top of this page.