Privacy Policy

In short

GroundsRoute is crew scheduling software for landscaping companies. We collect the minimum needed to run it: your account details, the job and customer records you enter, and basic technical logs. We do not sell personal information, we do not run advertising, and we do not use the records you enter about your own customers for anything other than providing the service to you.

1. Who this policy covers

This policy explains how Chad Slaughter, an individual doing business as GroundsRoute(“GroundsRoute”, “we”, “us”) handles personal information in connection with the website at groundsroute.com and the GroundsRoute application (together, the “Service”).

It applies to two groups of people, and the distinction between them matters.

Subscribersare the landscaping companies that sign up for GroundsRoute, together with the owners and crew members who log in. For information about these people we act as the business that decides how the information is used — a “controller” under most privacy laws.

Your customersare the property owners and clients whose names, addresses, and job details a Subscriber enters into GroundsRoute. We hold this information on the Subscriber's behalf and act only on their instructions — a “processor” or “service provider”. We do not decide what is done with it, we do not use it for our own purposes, and we have no direct relationship with these individuals.

If you are a customer of a landscaping company that uses GroundsRoute and you want to know what that company holds about you, or want it corrected or deleted, contact that company directly. If you contact us instead, we will refer your request to them.

2. Information we collect

Account information.When a company signs up we collect the company name, the owner's name and email address, and a password. We never store passwords themselves — only an argon2 hash, from which the original password cannot practically be recovered.

Crew accounts. Owners create logins for their crew members consisting of a username, a display name, and a six-digit PIN. Crew members do not give us an email address and have no direct account relationship with us; their employer creates, manages, and removes their access. PINs are stored hashed, never in plain text.

Job and customer records.Subscribers enter information about their own customers and work: customer names, service addresses, contact details, job descriptions and notes, schedules, recurring service patterns, crew assignments, and completion status and timestamps. What goes into these records is entirely the Subscriber's choice.

Billing information. A payment card is required at signup, including to start a free trial. Payments are processed by Stripe. Card numbers, expiration dates, and security codes are transmitted directly to Stripe and are never stored on our systems. We receive and retain a Stripe customer identifier, the plan, trial and subscription status, and billing history. We also retain a record of your agreement to the subscription and trial terms, including the date and the version of the terms you accepted, for at least 3 years as required by automatic renewal laws.

Technical and log information. Our servers and infrastructure providers record IP addresses, browser and device type, requested pages, timestamps, and error diagnostics. We keep a database record for each active login session containing a hashed session token, creation and expiration times, and the associated account.

Email delivery information. Transactional email — password resets, email verification, address changes, and billing notices such as the reminder before a trial ends — is sent through Resend, which processes the recipient address and delivery status. We do not send marketing email unless you separately opt in.

What we do not collect. GroundsRoute does not track the physical location of crew members or vehicles. It does not access GPS, contacts, camera, or microphone. We do not use advertising cookies or tracking pixels in our email, and our email templates contain no externally hosted images or scripts.

3. How we use information

We use the information above to create and authenticate accounts and maintain login sessions; to display schedules to owners and the correct daily stop list to each crew; to generate future visits for recurring jobs; to process subscription payments and send billing notices; to send transactional email such as password resets; to respond to support requests; to monitor for abuse, investigate security incidents, and debug problems; and to comply with legal obligations.

We may also produce aggregated, de-identified statistics about how the Service is used — for example, how many companies use recurring scheduling — provided those statistics contain no personal information and cannot reasonably be re-associated with any individual or company.

We do not use Customer Data to train machine learning models, and we do not use it for any purpose other than providing the Service to the Subscriber who entered it.

4. How we share information

We share information only with service providers that help us operate the Service, each bound by contract to protect it and use it only for that purpose:

We may also disclose information to professional advisors such as lawyers and accountants under confidentiality obligations; to law enforcement or other parties when required by law, subpoena, or court order, or where necessary to protect our rights or someone's safety; and to a successor entity in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to affected Subscribers.

We do not sell personal information, and have not done so in the preceding twelve months. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose beyond those listed above.

5. Tenant separation and security

Because many independent companies share the Service, keeping their data separate is the central design constraint. Every database read and write in the owner-facing application is scoped to the requesting company's records at the data-access layer itself, rather than relying on individual pages or features to apply the restriction correctly. This separation is verified by an automated test suite that creates two companies and asserts that neither can reach the other's records.

We also use:

• TLS for data in transit;
• argon2 hashing for passwords and crew PINs;
• session cookies that carry only a random token whose SHA-256 hash is stored server-side, so that disclosure of the database alone does not yield usable sessions;
• account lockout after repeated failed login attempts;
• constant-cost login handling, so response timing does not reveal which email addresses or usernames are registered.

No system is perfectly secure and we do not represent that ours is. If we become aware of a security breach affecting your information, we will notify you without undue delay and as required by applicable law.

6. How long we keep information

Account and Customer Data are retained for as long as the trial or subscription is active. After a trial ends without payment, or after cancellation or termination, we retain the data for 30 days so that it can be restored or exported, then delete it. We will delete data sooner on written request, subject to any legal obligation to retain it. You can export your data at any point during that window from your settings page.

Records evidencing your consent to subscription and trial terms are retained for at least 3 years, as automatic renewal laws require. These are kept separately from your account, so they survive the deletion described above and are removed on their own schedule.

Session records expire automatically and are purged after expiration. Server logs are retained for approximately 90 days. Billing and tax records are retained for 7 years as required by law. Encrypted backups follow a rolling 30-day cycle and are overwritten in the ordinary course; data deleted from the live database may persist in backups until that cycle completes.

7. Your privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to obtain a copy of it, to correct inaccuracies, to request deletion, to obtain a portable copy, and to opt out of sale or targeted advertising — the last of which does not apply, because we do neither. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights.

To make a request, email support@groundsroute.com from the address associated with your account, or include enough detail for us to locate your records. We will verify your identity before acting, and we will respond within the time required by applicable law, generally 45 days. An authorised agent may submit a request on your behalf with written proof of authorisation.

If we decline your request, you may appeal by replying to our response with the word “appeal”. We will inform you of our decision on appeal in writing within 45 days, along with the reasons. If your appeal is denied, you may contact your state attorney general.

Requests about records that a landscaping company entered into GroundsRoute about its own customers must be directed to that company, which controls those records. We will assist them in responding.

8. Children

The Service is intended for use by businesses and is not directed to children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, and Subscribers must not create crew accounts for anyone under 13. Where a Subscriber creates a crew account for a minor of working age, the Subscriber is responsible for complying with applicable child labour and privacy laws, including obtaining any required parental consent. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete it.

9. Location of the Service

GroundsRoute is offered to businesses in the United States and its infrastructure is located in the United States. It is not intended for use by residents of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, and we make no representation that it complies with the requirements of those jurisdictions.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make a material change we will notify Subscribers by email or through the Service at least 30 days before it takes effect, and update the date at the bottom of this page. Continued use after the change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

11. Contact

Chad Slaughter, an individual doing business as GroundsRoute
[MAILING ADDRESS]
support@groundsroute.com

Our Terms of Service govern your use of the Service and incorporate this policy.