Privacy

Last updated 29 October 2026 (accounts, Google sign-in and Contact the team added). Written for South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) and the EU/UK GDPR.

The short version

Your budget and your bank statements never reach us. Budget HQ reads statements in your own browser and keeps your budget only on your device. If you make an account, we keep your email, your name and how you sign in; besides that we store only what you post on Feedback, messages you send the team, and simple visit counts that can't identify you.

Your account

• What we keep: your email address, the name you choose (optional), when you joined and last signed in, and either a scrambled form of your password (it can't be turned back into the password) or, if you use Google, Google's ID number for your account.
• Who sees it: your name shows with what you post on Feedback. Your email is never shown to other members; only the Budget HQ team can see it, and only to answer you.
• Signing in with Google: if you press "Continue with Google", your browser goes to Google, which tells us your name, email address and that Google has confirmed the address. We don't get your Google password or anything else from your Google account. Google handles that step under its own privacy policy.
• Only for Budget HQ: your account isn't shared with, or used to sign in to, any other website.
• How long: until you delete it under My account > Delete my account. Your posts and comments then stay on the board (so discussions still make sense) but show "Deleted member", and your private messages to the team are deleted.

Your statements and your budget

When you add a statement (PDF, CSV or pasted lines), it is read by code running in your browser. The file, your account number, your transactions, your categories and your budgets are kept in your browser's storage on your device and are never sent to us or anyone else. A PDF password you type is only used on your device to open that file and isn't kept. Because we never have your figures, we can't see, lose, sell or recover them: use "Download backup" to keep a copy, and "Delete everything" (or clearing your browser's site data) removes them.

The Feedback page

• What you post is public: the title, details, comments and your account name - never your email. Posting and commenting need an account. Please don't post personal details - posts with links, email addresses or phone numbers are refused.
• Stopping spam: to limit how often anyone can post, we keep a one-way scrambled code made from your internet (IP) address and a secret key. It changes every day, can't be turned back into your address, and is deleted after 24 hours.
• How long: posts and comments stay up so the discussion keeps making sense, until we remove them. Ask us (below) to remove something you posted and we will.

Messages to the team

"Contact the team" is private: only you and the Budget HQ team can read the conversation. We keep it for as long as we need it to help you, and delete it when you delete your account.

Counting visits

We count visits with our own simple visit counter so we know how many people use Budget HQ and which features help them. It stores nothing on your device (no cookie). For each visit it receives the page, the site you came from, your country and whether you use a phone or a computer, and when you read a statement or post feedback, that this happened - never the contents. To tell visitors apart on the same day it turns your IP address and browser details into a scrambled code that changes daily; your IP address itself is never kept. The counts are kept for at most 13 months, aren't shared and are never used for advertising.

Cookies

Visitors who don't sign in get no cookies. Signing in sets one cookie, bhq_session, that keeps you signed in for up to 30 days (we store only a scrambled form of it); signing out removes it. Pressing "Continue with Google" sets a short cookie for up to 10 minutes that checks the answer really comes from the sign-in you started. Both are strictly necessary for signing in. There are no advertising or third-party trackers, and our fonts are served from our own site.

Who handles it

Budget HQ runs on Cloudflare (Cloudflare Pages and its database), which stores accounts, Feedback posts and team messages and processes connection details to keep the site working and secure, under its own data-protection terms. Google is involved only if you choose to sign in with Google. Cloudflare's servers may be outside South Africa; POPIA section 72 allows this where the provider is bound to protect the information to a similar standard.

Why we may use it

Your account and messages: to provide the service you signed up for (POPIA section 11(1)(b)). Feedback posts: because you chose to post them, to improve Budget HQ (section 11(1)(a) and (f)). Spam codes and visit counts: our legitimate interest in running a safe, useful site (section 11(1)(f)). Budget HQ is meant for adults.

Your rights

You may ask what we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. You can change your name and password and delete your account yourself under My account. For anything else, sign in and use Contact the team (choose "Privacy or my data") - it's private between you and the team. In South Africa you may also complain to the Information Regulator (inforegulator.org.za).