How I look after your information.

Plain English. Last updated 7 October 2026.

Draft. This policy is a working draft and hasn’t yet been reviewed by a lawyer. It describes how Officehand handles information today. If anything here is unclear, ask me and I’ll explain.

Who I am

Officehand is run by Richard Read, a sole trader based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. In this policy “I” and “me” mean Officehand. You can contact me on 0420 535 327 or at hello@officehand.com.au.

Small businesses are not always covered by the Privacy Act 1988. I follow the Australian Privacy Principles anyway, because the businesses I work with trust me with their data and their customers’ data.

What I collect

When you use this website

If you fill in the contact form: your name, business name, email, phone, trade, business size, the software you use, your message, how you heard about me, and whether you ticked the optional email box.
Basic technical information that every website host records, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. This site does not use advertising or tracking cookies.

When we work together

Your contact details, the agreement we sign, and invoices and payments.
For the Quotes & Cash Check: data from your job software and accounting software, through a read-only key you create or exports you provide. A read-only key can see jobs, quotes, invoices, customer names, phone numbers, addresses and messages. For the Check I use job numbers, dollar amounts, dates and statuses.
For a build and the monthly service: your business rules, price lists, quotes, supplier replies and the accounting data needed for the stages you choose.

How I use it

To reply to your enquiry and arrange a call.
To deliver the services you’ve asked for, and to invoice for them.
To send occasional emails with practical tips, only if you ticked the box. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
To meet legal, tax and record-keeping obligations.

I don’t sell, rent or trade personal information, and I never use your customer list for anything else.

AI tools

Nothing from your accounts goes into an AI tool during the Quotes & Cash Check. The calculations are done by ordinary code.

Once an assistant is built and running for you, it uses a mainstream AI provider to read your business rules and draft quotes and documents. I send the AI only what it needs for the task, I keep customer contact details out of it wherever the task allows, and I use providers whose terms say they don’t train their models on your data. Where it makes sense, the AI runs on an account in your own name. Xero data is never used to train AI models.

Who I share it with

I use a small number of service providers to run the business. They may store data outside Australia:

Website hosting (Vercel, United States and other regions).
Email delivery for the contact form (Resend, United States).
Email, documents and storage tools I use to run the business.
For clients only: the hosting, AI and connection providers used for your assistant, listed in your agreement.

I’ll also disclose information if the law requires it.

How I keep it safe

A password manager and multi-factor authentication on every account that holds client data.
Read-only access wherever possible. Access keys are stored securely and revoked when the work ends.
Check data is deleted within 7 days of the read-out. I keep the signed agreement, my invoice and a copy of the report with customer names replaced by job numbers.
When a monthly service ends, I return your data as an export and delete my copies within 30 days, except records the law requires me to keep.
If I become aware of a data breach affecting your data, I’ll tell you within 72 hours.

Your customers’ information

If you’re a client, your customers’ details stay yours. You remain responsible for telling your customers how you handle their information and for any consents you need to contact them. I can give you suggested wording for your own privacy notice.

Access, correction and complaints

You can ask to see or correct the personal information I hold about you, or ask me to delete it, by emailing hello@officehand.com.au or calling 0420 535 327. I’ll respond within 30 days.

If you have a complaint, tell me first and I’ll try to fix it. If you’re not satisfied, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

Changes

I’ll update this page if anything changes, and show the date at the top.