Privacy Policy

5. Gmail and other connected mailboxes (Google user data)

Connecting a mailbox is optional. You can connect a Gmail mailbox from the Account area so that Monkeep finds your invoices, receipts and utility bills for you. This section describes everything Monkeep does with the data it receives from Google, and it applies in the same way to a Microsoft Outlook mailbox.

Access we ask for

Monkeep asks Google for one permission only: read-only access to Gmail (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly). Monkeep cannot send, delete, move, label or change any email. The address of the connected mailbox is read from your Gmail profile with that same permission. If Google ever returns a grant with any wider permission, Monkeep refuses it and gives it back to Google straight away. For a Microsoft mailbox, Monkeep asks for Mail.Read (read-only mail access) and your basic profile, to know which address is connected.

What we look for

Monkeep searches the mailbox for invoices, receipts, utility bills, delivery notes and the supplier notices that go with them, such as price changes and payment reminders, and nothing else:

• emails from the businesses your bank account shows you pay, when they carry an invoice attachment, name an invoice or receipt in the subject, or announce a price change;
• emails from any sender that carry a PDF attachment and use an invoice word such as "invoice", "receipt" or "factura", so a new supplier's first invoice is not missed;
• for a bank payment that still has no invoice, that supplier's emails from around the date of the payment, or the invoice number the bank line names;
• senders you choose to add yourself.

For a personal account, only emails with a PDF that calls itself an invoice or receipt are read, such as your electricity, water and subscription bills; the names of people you pay are never searched for. Emails about employment, such as contracts and payslips, are excluded from every search. The first read goes back 120 days from the day you connect. If you turn on the accountant pack for your workspace, the mailbox is read back to the start of the year your accountant still asks about (1 January, or 1 January of the previous year until the end of March). After that, Monkeep reads only new emails, about every ten minutes. Emails that do not match these searches are never opened.

Some suppliers send a link to the invoice instead of attaching it, such as "View invoice" or "Descargar factura". When a matching email carries such a link, Monkeep opens it to download the invoice PDF, and only when the link is on the sender's own web domain and the sender's address was confirmed by the mail provider. Monkeep follows no other link in your emails.

What we keep

For each invoice, receipt or bill it finds, Monkeep keeps: the sender, the subject (with personal identifiers such as email addresses and phone numbers removed), the Gmail message id (so you can open the email in your own Gmail), the date the email was received, the invoice details read from it (supplier, invoice number, dates, amounts and tax), and the original PDF of the invoice, encrypted. Tax identification numbers printed on the invoice are read on our own servers and stored encrypted. For the mailbox itself, Monkeep keeps its address and the refresh token Google issues, both encrypted, and the permission Google granted. The short-lived access token is used in memory and never stored.

We do not keep the body text of your emails. An email is read in memory while it is processed and then dropped; Monkeep stores no email body, no HTML, no thread and no attachment other than the invoice PDF. When an email matches a search but turns out not to be an invoice, only the same short record is kept (sender, subject, date and what kind of email it was), so that it is not read again.

How we use it

Data from your mailbox is used only to provide features you can see in Monkeep: showing you your invoices and bills, matching them to your bank payments, preparing your books, writing the invoices you approve into your accounting software, preparing your accountant pack when you turn it on, following your household bills and supplier price changes, comparing supplier offers when you ask for that, and answering questions you ask Ask Monkeep. It is never used for advertising, never sold, and never used to decide creditworthiness or for lending.

AI processing

To read an invoice, Monkeep sends the text of the email and of its invoice attachment to Google Vertex AI in the European Union, after removing quoted threads, signatures and identifiers such as email addresses, phone numbers, bank account and card numbers and tax IDs. When the text is not enough, the invoice PDF itself is sent so the model can read the document. When you ask Ask Monkeep a question, the invoice details it needs to answer are sent to the same service. Under Google Cloud's terms, Google does not use this data to train its models. Monkeep has turned off Vertex AI caching; under the same terms Google may keep a request its automated abuse checks flag, for a limited period, only to investigate abuse. Monkeep does not use Google user data to develop, improve or train generalised or non-personalised AI or machine-learning models.

Sharing and transfer

Monkeep does not sell, rent or share Google user data, and does not transfer it to anyone except: the service providers that run Monkeep for us (Google Cloud, which hosts the app and its database in the European Union; Google Vertex AI, described above; Cloudflare, which carries traffic between your browser and the app; Resend, which delivers the emails Monkeep sends, such as alerts, your accountant's link and quote requests; and Zoho, which hosts Monkeep's own mailboxes, where support messages, replies to quote requests and requests you send to our team arrive), only as needed to provide the features above; the recipients you choose, described below, when you ask Monkeep to send something; when needed for security, such as investigating abuse, or to comply with the law; or with your explicit consent.

When you ask Monkeep to send it

Some features send data found in your mailbox to someone else, and each one does so only when you ask:

• Your accounting software. When you approve a purchase invoice into the accounting software you connected (Holded, QuickBooks or Xero), Monkeep writes the invoice details there and attaches the invoice PDF. Nothing is written without your approval.
• Your accountant. When you turn on the accountant pack and send it, by hand or automatically each quarter if you choose that, your accountant receives an expiring link to a download that includes the invoices found in your mailbox and their PDFs. You can revoke the link.
• Energy retailers. When you ask Monkeep to request quotes for your electricity or gas, the letter you read and approve, with your supply and consumption details (which can come from bills found in your mailbox), is sent to the retailers it names, at most five.
• Monkeep's team. When you ask us to find you a cheaper supplier, the same supply and consumption details are sent to Monkeep's team, so that a person can do it for you.

Who at Monkeep can see it

Monkeep staff do not read your emails or the invoices found in your mailbox, except: with your explicit permission for a specific item, for example when you ask us to look at a document or to find you a cheaper supplier; when it is necessary for security, such as investigating abuse; to comply with the law; or in aggregated, anonymised form for internal operations.

Ending access

You can disconnect a mailbox at any time in the Account area, or remove Monkeep's access from your Google Account at https://myaccount.google.com/permissions. Either way, Monkeep can no longer read the mailbox.

Monkeep's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.