Privacy policy

Trade Mechanics is one system to run a trade business, from first call to final payment. It's made and run by Innovation Mechanics, LLC, as Trade Mechanics ("we", "us"), for businesses in the trades (contractors), each called a "company" here. It has two parts: the business app, used in the office, and Trade Mechanics Field, the crew's app on their phones. This policy covers both apps and this website, trademechanics.ai. It explains what we collect, how it's used, who it's shared with, and how long it's kept.

What the apps collect

Apart from what's needed to sign in, each company decides what to enter. Most of what's below is optional and used only when the company uses that feature.

• Signing in. If you sign in with Google or Microsoft, we receive your name, email address, and (from Google) your profile picture. If your company uses passwords, your password is held by Google Cloud Identity Platform, never by Trade Mechanics. Sign-in codes are sent to your email or, only if a mobile number is entered for you, by text message through Google. We use this only to check that you're allowed in and to show who did what. Each sign-in, and each try that doesn't work, is recorded with its time, the way in, the IP address it came from and the browser (just its name and system, such as "Chrome, Mac"), so a company's administrators can see who signed in and help someone who can't.
• The people who work for a company. A company's administrators enter each person's name, email, and role. A mobile number is entered only for texted sign-in codes or Trade Mechanics Field. A pay level and cost rate are entered only if the company tracks the cost of labor on jobs, and are visible only to its administrators.
• Time and location in Trade Mechanics Field. When a person clocks in or out, the app records the time and the job. Only if their company turns on saving locations, the app also records the phone's location at that moment, with the phone's permission. It records the location only at each clock tap or photo, never in between, and never tracks anyone in the background. A photo's file is kept without the location and other details a phone stores inside it, so a photo downloaded or forwarded carries only the picture.
• Photos and notes. Photos and notes are added only when people choose to, and are kept with their job. The people on the job and the company's office can see them.
• The company's business records. Trade Mechanics keeps what a company enters or brings in to run its business: its own customers and their contacts and addresses, jobs, estimates and proposals, schedules, hours worked, supplier invoices, the Customer Invoices it sends and the payments it records.
• Gmail (read only). With the mailbox owner's permission, the app reads messages in the company's chosen billing mailbox that come from its suppliers, and downloads their PDF supplier invoices. It doesn't change or delete any email.
• Email the app sends. The app sends email from mailboxes the company or Trade Mechanics has authorized: sign-in invitations, password resets and sign-in codes, and notices to the people a company's administrators choose (for example, when a supplier invoice can't be read, or a weekly check finds something to review).
• When something goes wrong. If the app hits an error, on our servers or in your browser, it records what failed, the screen it happened on, and your browser's name and system, so we can fix it. It never records what you typed. In Trade Mechanics Field, an error report waits on the phone until there's a signal. Our servers also keep logs to keep the service running; these can include some details from a company's records, such as a job's name in an error message.
• Paying for Trade Mechanics. Payments are made through Stripe. Your card details go to Stripe; we never see the card number. We receive from Stripe the company's name, billing email and address (for sales tax), its pack, and what it has paid.

This website

• No cookies, no tracking. This website sets no cookies and uses no analytics, advertising or tracking tools.
• Hosting. The website is hosted by Vercel. Like any web server, it keeps standard logs of each visit (the IP address, the page, the time and the browser) to run the site and protect it from abuse.
• Email you send us. When you write to hello@trademechanics.ai or support@trademechanics.ai, your email is kept in our Google Workspace mailbox and used to answer you and to follow up on what you asked about.

How we use it, and who it's shared with

The data is used only to provide Trade Mechanics to the company and its people. It's stored in a database and file storage hosted on Google Cloud in the United States, and shown only to the company's authorized users, according to what each person's role allows. Each company's data is kept apart from every other company's.

Some features use Anthropic's Claude API: reading supplier invoice PDFs (supplier, invoice number, job name, line items and totals), identifying the products on them, and suggesting products for estimate lines. What's sent is the supplier invoice or the product descriptions, never a person's sign-in details, time or location. We also use AI tools, including Anthropic's, to help us provide support: when a company asks for help, what we look at to find the problem may be sent to them. Anthropic doesn't use this data to train its models.

We don't sell data, use it for advertising, or share it with anyone other than the service providers needed to run Trade Mechanics:

• Google: Google Cloud (hosting, sign-in, text messages and Gmail) and Google Workspace (our email)
• Microsoft: only if you sign in with Microsoft
• Anthropic: the features and support above
• Stripe: payments and sales tax
• Vercel: hosting this website

We may disclose data if the law requires it.

When our staff look at a company's data

Trade Mechanics staff look at a company's records only with the company's permission: to set up its site, or when it asks for help with a problem. Each staff sign-in to a company's site appears in its Sign-in History. Our error and server logs, described above, are seen by our staff at any time to keep the service running.

Google API Services

Trade Mechanics' use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Cookies and storage on your device

The apps use cookies to keep you signed in and, if you sign in with a password, to remember your device for 30 days. They keep a few settings in your browser (such as a panel's size), and Trade Mechanics Field keeps clock taps and photos on the phone until it has a signal to send them. Google's reCAPTCHA checks that a sign-in by texted code is from a real person. Trade Mechanics doesn't use tracking or advertising cookies, and this website uses no cookies at all.

How long data is kept

• While a company uses Trade Mechanics, its data is kept. A company may ask for its data to be exported or deleted at any time.
• If a company cancels, for 30 days its people can still sign in, see everything and export it. After that its site is turned off. A week before day 90 its administrators get a warning email, and on day 90 its site, database, files and backups are deleted.
• Sign-in records are deleted after 12 months.
• A person removed from a company can no longer sign in; the records of their work (such as hours and comments) stay with the company's records.
• Gmail access can be taken back at any time from the Google Account's security settings.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest on Google Cloud. Access is limited to the company's authorized users and, as described above, Trade Mechanics staff.

Children

Trade Mechanics is for businesses and isn't directed to children under 16.

Changes

When this policy changes, we update the date at the top and, for significant changes, tell companies in the app.

Contact

Questions about this policy, or a request to export or delete data, can be sent to support@trademechanics.ai.