Privacy Notice

Alfa is accounting software made by Dot and Dash Consulting Ltd (“we”, “us”). This notice explains what personal data we collect when you use Alfa, the Alfa mobile app and this website, what we do with it, and the rights you have under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Dot and Dash Consulting Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company no. 15552561. Registered office: Apartment 8, Whiteley Wood House, 50 Woofindin Avenue, Sheffield, England, S11 7FG.

Questions or requests about your data: support@dotanddashconsulting.com.

We handle personal data in two different roles:

• As a controller for information about you as an Alfa user: your account, sign-in details, subscription and how you use the service. This notice covers that.
• As a processor for the records your business keeps in Alfa: clients and their contacts, invoices, expenses, bank transactions, receipts, shareholders and team members. Your business is the controller of that data and decides what goes in. We only process it to run Alfa for you, under the data processing terms in our Terms of Service. If you are one of our customers’ clients or staff, contact that business first about your data.

• To provide Alfa — storing your books, producing PDFs and reports, sending emails you ask us to send, reading receipts, and matching bank payments. Lawful basis: performance of our contract with you.
• To take payment for your subscription. Lawful basis: contract.
• To keep Alfa secure and working — audit logs, error logs, fraud and abuse prevention. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure service.
• To improve Alfa using aggregated, cookie-free analytics that do not identify you. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
• To contact you about your account, billing, trial ending and important service changes. Lawful basis: contract and legitimate interests.
• To meet legal obligations, such as keeping our own tax and accounting records. Lawful basis: legal obligation.

We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or share it with data brokers.

Some Alfa features use an AI model (Anthropic’s Claude), reached through Vercel AI Gateway:

• The AI bookkeeper: when you ask a question, your question and the figures needed to answer it (for example totals, client names, payments and categories from your books) are sent to the model.
• Suggested categories and receipt matching: bank payment descriptions, amounts and dates, and expense details are sent to the model.
• AI receipt reading, when your company uses it: receipt images and PDFs are sent to the model to read the supplier, date and amount. Otherwise receipts are read on our own servers without AI.

Only the data needed for that request is sent. The AI can read your books but cannot change them: nothing is saved until someone in your company accepts a suggestion. Under their commercial terms, our AI providers do not use this data to train their models. They may keep it for a short time to detect misuse.

We use these providers (sub-processors) to run Alfa. Each is bound by a contract that limits what they can do with your data.

We also share data when you ask us to — for example emailing an invoice to your client, or giving your accountant access — and where the law requires it. Company look-ups go to Companies House, which only receives the name or number you search for.

Your books are stored in a database in the UK (London). Some of our providers are based in, or process data in, the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, or on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

• Your books are kept for as long as your company has an Alfa account.
• When a company owner deletes the company in Settings, its records, files and member accounts are deleted straight away. Copies in encrypted backups are overwritten within a short period afterwards.
• UK law requires businesses to keep financial records for at least six years (companies) or five years after the Self Assessment deadline (sole traders). Download your accountant pack from Reports before deleting your company — once deleted, we cannot recover it.
• Service and error logs are deleted after 90 days.
• We keep our own billing records for as long as UK tax law requires.

• All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS), and data is encrypted at rest by our hosting and database providers.
• Receipts and documents are kept in private storage and only served to signed-in members of your company.
• Each company's books are kept separate, and every request checks that you belong to the company and have the right role.
• Changes to the books are recorded in an audit log.

If a data breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell you and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as the law requires.

Alfa only uses cookies that are needed for it to work:

• Sign-in session cookies set by our sign-in provider, Clerk.
• alfa_ui_prefs — remembers your display settings, such as text size and contrast, for one year.
• alfa_signup_plan — remembers the plan you chose while you finish signing up.

Our analytics (Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights) do not use cookies and do not track you across other websites. We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• access a copy of your personal data;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have your data deleted;
• restrict or object to how we use it;
• receive your data in a portable format;
• withdraw consent where we rely on it.

Email support@dotanddashconsulting.com and we will respond within one month. Owners, team members and accountants can also download the accountant pack (CSVs, PDFs and receipts) from Reports on every plan. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

We will update this notice when how we handle data changes, and tell you by email or in the app about significant changes. The date at the top shows when it last changed.

Dot and Dash Consulting Ltd — support@dotanddashconsulting.com