What the app is for

Simar Skanner is a tool for the clients and staff of Simar OÜ, an accounting firm. You use it to photograph invoices, receipts and other accounting source documents and send them to your accountant at Simar. There is no public sign-up for client accounts: your account is linked to the e-mail address you have given to your accountant. You can sign in with a code sent to that address, with a code from your accountant, or with Smart-ID or a password through Simar's client portal.

The app also has a free scanner that anyone can use without an account: the pages you photograph or choose from your photo library become a PDF file that stays on your phone. If you would like to become a Simar client, you can send us an enquiry from the app.

If you use the app as a client of Simar, your company is the data controller of its accounting documents and Simar OÜ processes them on your company's behalf in order to provide accounting services. For the app and client portal user account, sign-in, security logs and enquiries about becoming a client, the data controller is Simar OÜ.

What data the app processes

When you are logged in as a Simar client or staff member, the app processes the following data. For signing in with Smart-ID or a password, the free scanner and enquiries about becoming a client, see below.

E-mail address and name – to log you in and to make sure a document is filed under the right company.

Documents you photograph or select (PDF) – to keep accounting source documents and make accounting entries. The app uses the camera only when you photograph a document yourself; from your photo library and files it reads only what you choose.

Text and data read from the document (supplier, invoice number, dates, amounts, invoice lines) – so that your accountant does not have to enter the data by hand. Text is recognised on your phone; the data fields are extracted on Simar's server. Documents may contain personal data, such as a private person's name on an invoice; it is processed for accounting purposes only.

Note to the accountant – your own comment attached to a document.

Device name and operating system version (for example “iPhone, iOS 27”) – to show which device a document was added from and to allow access from a lost device to be revoked.

Activity log (who added, changed or approved a document, and when) and the number of login attempts per IP address and e-mail for up to 24 hours – for accounting traceability and to prevent password guessing.

The app does not collect location, contacts or advertising identifiers. The app contains no advertising, and Simar does not collect app usage statistics.

The Android app and Google ML Kit. In the Android app, page edges are detected and text is recognised by Google's ML Kit software, which runs on your phone: documents and images are not sent to Google. ML Kit sends Google diagnostic and usage data about its own operation: device model and operating system version, app name and version, a device or installation identifier, performance metrics, image format and size, and event and error codes. Google encrypts this data in transit and does not transfer it to third parties. In the iOS app, recognition is done by Apple's on-device software.

The legal basis is the contract between your company and Simar OÜ and the obligations arising from the Estonian Accounting Act; for security logs, our legitimate interest in protecting our clients' data.

Signing in with Smart-ID or a password

To sign in with Smart-ID or a password, the app opens Simar's client portal, klient.simar.ee, in your phone's browser. The sign-in data is processed by the client portal on Simar OÜ's server in a Hetzner data centre in Finland, in the European Union. With an e-mail code or a code from your accountant, you sign in directly in the app.

Password. You can set a password in the client portal after signing in there with an e-mail code or with Smart-ID linked to your account. The password itself is not stored: we keep only a hash computed from it, from which the password cannot be recovered. When you change your password, we close your earlier sessions and send you an e-mail about it.

Smart-ID. To sign in with Smart-ID, you enter your personal identification code in the client portal. The portal sends it to SK ID Solutions AS, the provider of the Smart-ID service, and you confirm the sign-in in your Smart-ID app. In return, we receive the name and personal identification code on your certificate and check whether this Smart-ID is linked to your account. SK ID Solutions AS processes the data as the Smart-ID service provider under its own terms.

Linking Smart-ID to your account. Before you sign in with Smart-ID for the first time, it must be linked to your account: you sign in to the client portal with an e-mail code or a password and confirm the link with Smart-ID. We store your personal identification code and the name on your certificate in the link request. A Simar administrator checks whether the Smart-ID belongs to the account holder and approves or rejects the request; we send you an e-mail about the decision. On approval, the personal identification code stays linked to your account and the request, including the name, is deleted. If no decision is made within 30 days, the request is deleted together with the personal identification code and the name.

In the client portal and in logs, your personal identification code is shown only partly hidden (for example 3********14). The Skanner server and the app never receive your personal identification code or password: after you sign in, the portal gives the app a one-time code, which the app exchanges on Simar's server for device access. For this, the Skanner server receives only your account ID and name from the portal.

Logs and limits on attempts. For every sign-in and failed attempt, we log the time, the sign-in method, the result and the IP address; the log is kept for one year. To prevent password guessing and misuse of Smart-ID notifications, we count attempts by IP address, e-mail address and a hash of the personal identification code; these records are deleted after 24 hours. The client portal uses only the cookies needed for signing in. A portal session ends after 24 hours of inactivity or after seven days at the latest.

The legal basis is the contract between your company and Simar OÜ; for logs and limits on attempts, our legitimate interest in protecting accounts and our clients' data. Using Smart-ID or a password is optional: you can always sign in with an e-mail code instead.

The free scanner

The free scanner works without logging in. The pages you photograph or choose from your photo library are turned into a PDF file that is stored only on your phone, in the app's private folder. The files are not sent to Simar's server or anywhere else, their text is not read, and they are not backed up to the cloud. A file leaves your phone only if you share it yourself through your phone's share menu. The files are deleted when you delete them in the app or remove the app from your phone.

Simar does not collect any data about your use of the free scanner. For the Android app, see also “The Android app and Google ML Kit” above.

The “Become a Simar client” enquiry

With the “Become a Simar client” form in the app, you can send us an enquiry about our accounting services. You do not need to log in, and the enquiry is sent only when you tap “Send enquiry”.

Name, company name and e-mail address (required) and, if you wish, phone number and message – so that we can contact you, reply to your enquiry and make you an offer.

App platform, version and language (for example “Android, version 1.0, English”) – so that we reply in the right language and know which app the enquiry came from.

Documents, PDFs made with the free scanner and other data on your phone are not sent with the enquiry. The data is not sold or used for any other purpose, such as sending newsletters or advertising.

The enquiry is stored on Simar OÜ's server in a Hetzner data centre in Finland, in the European Union, and sent by e-mail to Simar OÜ's mailbox; our e-mail service provider processes the data on our behalf in the European Union. Our reply goes to the e-mail address you gave. Only Simar OÜ staff can see the enquiry.

To prevent abuse, we count how many enquiries come from one IP address per hour. The IP address is not stored with the enquiry, and the count is deleted from the server within 24 hours.

The legal basis is taking steps at your request prior to entering into a contract; for counting IP addresses, our legitimate interest in protecting the service from abuse.

Retention. The enquiry is deleted from the server automatically after one year; for backups, see “How long we keep data” below. We keep the enquiry e-mail and other correspondence about an offer that does not lead to a contract for up to one year. If your company becomes a Simar client, Simar OÜ's general privacy notice (in Estonian) applies from then on. If you would like us to delete your enquiry sooner, write to [email protected].

Where the data is kept and who can see it

Documents and the database are kept on Simar OÜ's server in a Hetzner data centre in Finland, in the European Union. Simar OÜ keeps backups and the document archive in Hetzner's storage service in Finland, in the European Union. The archive is private and only Simar OÜ has access to it. The connection between the app and the server is encrypted. Traffic is delivered by Cloudflare, which processes technical data (IP address) for security and reliability under its privacy policy.

On your phone, the login key is kept in the device's secure key store. Documents waiting to be sent are kept in the app's private folder, are not backed up to the cloud, and are deleted from the phone after a successful upload.

Documents can be seen by the users of your company who have access to your company in the app, and by the staff of Simar OÜ. Your accounts are handled by a designated accountant, but the firm's staff cover for one another when needed, so documents are visible to all Simar staff. Data from approved documents is entered into the accounting software Simar uses for your bookkeeping; its provider processes the data on our behalf in the European Union. Data is not sold or used for marketing.

Artificial intelligence. Documents are first read by rule-based software on Simar's server. If that does not yield the data of an invoice, receipt or credit note, the document may be sent to an AI service for reading – but only documents of companies with which this has been agreed in writing. At present we use this only for documents of Simar OÜ itself and its related companies; client documents are not sent to AI until this has been agreed with the client in writing. What is sent: the document file, its already recognised text, and the name, registry code and VAT number of the company the document belongs to; the e-mail text, the sender's address and user data are not sent. The service is provided through OpenRouter, Inc. (USA) as an intermediary, and the document is read by Google's Gemini language model, run on Google Cloud (Vertex AI); no other providers are used. Every request requires a zero-data-retention (ZDR) endpoint: the submitted data is not retained and is not used to train models. Processing may take place outside the European Union (for example in the USA). Every transmission is logged (document identifier, service, model and time); the content of the document is not stored in the log.

VAT number check. We check the seller's VAT number against the European Commission's VIES service; only that number is sent, not the document or your data.

How long we keep data

We keep accounting source documents for seven years from the end of the financial year, as required by the Estonian Accounting Act. A document removed in the app disappears from the list; if it is already in use in the accounts, it is kept until the end of the statutory period. A copy of a removed document does not disappear from the archive and the backups immediately: it is kept until the end of the retention period or until a deletion request is fulfilled. An approved document can be removed only by an accountant. Login-attempt data is deleted from the Skanner server and the client portal after 24 hours. A device's access ends when you log out or when your accountant revokes it. The client portal's sign-in log is kept for one year. An unapproved Smart-ID link request is deleted after 30 days; a personal identification code linked to an account is deleted when the link is removed or the account is closed. We delete the password hash together with the user account. An enquiry about becoming a client is deleted from the server after one year. The databases are backed up, so deleted data may remain in the backups for some time: Hetzner's daily backups expire after seven days, and only the most recent copies are kept on the server. Database backups made to Simar's computer are deleted once they are more than a year old; the most recent copy of each kind is kept. Database copies kept in Hetzner's storage service are deleted manually. PDFs made with the free scanner are kept only on your phone and are deleted when you delete them or remove the app.

Your rights and data deletion

You have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict processing, to object and to data portability, unless the law requires the data to be kept. To close your account and app access, to remove a Smart-ID link or to request deletion of your data, write to [email protected] or contact your accountant; we will reply within one month. You may lodge a complaint with the Estonian Data Protection Inspectorate (aki.ee).

Children

The app is a business accounting tool and is not intended for anyone under 18.

Changes

When this notice changes, we publish the new version on this page with its effective date; we announce significant changes, such as a new service provider, before they take effect. This notice is also available in Estonian. Simar OÜ's general privacy notice (in Estonian) is on the page Privaatsusteade.