Privacy Policy

4.1 Your Account and Business

What: Your name, email address, password, business name, phone number, currency, and an optional business logo.

Why: To create your account, let you sign in on other phones, and run the service. Your password is stored on our server only as a secure hash, never as plain text.

4.2 Your Expenses

What: Amount, currency, category, description, payment method, date and time, how the expense was captured (typed, voice, receipt, or bank alert), and any payee or bank names read from a receipt or alert.

Why: This is the core of the service. Your expenses are saved on your phone and backed up to your account on our servers, so they stay in sync across your devices.

4.3 Receipts and Documents

What: Receipt images and files you choose to keep or attach to an expense.

Why: So you have evidence for your expenses. They are stored privately on your phone and uploaded to our cloud storage. Your plan sets how many documents you can store; on the Free plan, the limit is 50.

4.4 SMS (Bank Debit Alerts), Optional

This feature uses Android's "receive SMS" permission (RECEIVE_SMS). It is off until you turn it on.

• The app reads only new incoming SMS. It never reads your SMS inbox or old messages.
• Each message is checked on your phone to see whether it is a bank debit alert.
• Any message that is not a debit alert is discarded immediately (personal messages, OTPs, credit alerts, adverts). It is never stored and never sent anywhere.
• For a debit alert, the app picks out the amount, payee, description, bank, and time. It keeps the alert's text on your phone for up to 3 days while waiting for your confirmation.
• Only the expense you confirm is saved and backed up to your account.
• The SMS text leaves your phone only if you tap "Read with AI" on that alert.

We never use SMS data for advertising, and we never sell it or share it for that purpose.

4.5 Notification Access (Payment Notifications), Optional

This feature works only if you grant notification access to Patch Expense in your Android settings.

• It reads payment notifications from banking and fintech apps (e.g., OPay, Moniepoint, Kuda, PalmPay). Chat apps are excluded.
• Each notification is checked on your phone. Anything that is not a debit payment is discarded immediately and never stored or sent anywhere.
• Debit payments are handled like SMS alerts: kept on your phone for up to 3 days while waiting for confirmation. Only confirmed expenses are saved, and text leaves your phone only if you tap "Read with AI".

4.6 Photos (Receipt Screenshots and Camera Photos), Optional

This feature uses Android's photo access permission (READ_MEDIA_IMAGES). It is off until you turn it on.

• The app looks only at new screenshots and camera photos taken after you turn the feature on. It does not look through older photos.
• It uses Google ML Kit text recognition (which runs locally on your phone) to spot payment receipts.
• Images that are not receipts are ignored and are never copied or uploaded.
• A receipt image is kept and backed up only for expenses you confirm.
• When choosing or taking a picture manually, the app uses Android's system photo picker or camera.

4.7 Microphone (Voice), Optional

This feature uses Android's microphone permission (RECORD_AUDIO).

"Hey Jarvis" Wake Word:

• Runs entirely on your phone while switched on, showing an "Emmy is listening" notification.
• Audio is not recorded, stored, or uploaded.

Speaking an Expense:

• After the wake word or microphone tap, Android's built-in speech recognition converts speech to text.
• We use only the resulting text to create your expense. We do not receive or keep the raw audio.

4.8 Spoken Announcements, Optional

Your phone's built-in text-to-speech can read detected payments aloud. This processing happens entirely on your device.

4.9 AI Features

These features utilize our secure servers and cloud AI infrastructure.

• "Read with AI": Runs only when you tap it. The text of that specific receipt, SMS, or notification is sent to our server and AI provider to extract payment details.
• "Ask Emmy": Your query is sent along with aggregated metrics from your expense records to formulate an answer. The AI provider only formats the response text.

4.10 Accountant Collaboration (Business Pro Plan)

If you are on the Business Pro plan, you can invite an accountant by email and configure their specific permissions (e.g., view expenses, view receipts, comment, export reports).

Accountants see only your business based on granted permissions. All actions are recorded in an audit log visible to you.

4.11 Payments

Subscriptions are processed via Monnify (card or bank transfer). We never receive or store full card details. Monnify provides a payment reference and card token for recurring billing.

4.12 Push Notifications

We use Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google) to deliver push notifications. We store your phone's push token, platform, and app version alongside your account details.

4.13 Service and Security Data

To run the service, enforce plan limits, keep accounts secure, and manage updates, we maintain records of your plan tier, monthly usage counts, sign-in tokens, accountant audit logs, and app version.

4.14 What We Do Not Do

• We do not show adverts.
• We do not sell your personal data.
• We do not include third-party analytics or advertising tools in the app.