Quote encryption and your recovery code

Encryption is optional. Once it's on, your quotes, rate card and settings are encrypted in your browser before they reach the server. The server then only holds ciphertext. Without the key, nobody can read a client's name or a single rate from it.

Turning it on or off

After your first sign-in the app asks once whether you want to encrypt your quotes. Turn on encryption creates the key and shows your recovery code. Not now leaves the account unencrypted, and the question doesn't come back.

You can change your mind at any time in Settings → Account. When you turn encryption off, the app decrypts all your quotes and settings and deletes the key. It takes a few seconds.

Who can see your quotes

With encryption on, only you. The key is opened by your password or your recovery code. We don't know your password, because the server receives a secret derived from it in your browser, and that secret can't be turned back into the password or the key. So neither we nor the companies hosting our servers can look into your quotes.

Without encryption, quotes are stored in the database as they are, protected by your account password and the database's security, as in most apps.

Either way, we see what we need to run your account: your email address, plan, number of quotes, save dates and interface language.

Recovery code

When you turn encryption on, the app shows a recovery code, 40 characters in groups of four. Save it right away. Download it as a file or write it down and keep it off your computer, for example in a password manager. You'll need it in two situations.

• You forgot your password. After a password reset on another device, the app asks for the code. With the code, all your quotes come back. If you open the reset link in the browser you last worked in and didn't sign out of, you won't need the code.
• The key disappeared from your browser, for example after clearing site data. Entering your password again is enough, and if that doesn't work, the code.

If you lose the code, create a new one in Settings → Account. The old one stops working.

What if I lose both the password and the code

Then nobody can recover your quotes, not even us, because we do not have their key. After a password reset you can start again with a new key. The old quotes stay on the account, but they can't be opened. That's why it's worth saving important quotes to a .vidaset file from time to time (File → Save to file).

Settings backup file

Save your brand with logo, rate card, clauses, item sets, options and tool settings in one file with File → Save settings. File → Load settings restores them from such a file, also on another account. The open quote stays as it is. It's a regular, unencrypted file on your disk, so keep it where you keep your other business documents.

If that risk doesn't suit you, keep encryption off. Then a regular password reset by email restores access to everything.

New computer or another browser

Sign in as usual, with your email and password. The browser derives the key from your password, no code needed. When you sign out, the key leaves the browser along with the session.