What happens to an invoice you give DDClear

Who this is written for, and who is writing it

DDClear is a tool for businesses, drayage motor carriers and the people who dispatch for them, and this page is written for the office manager deciding whether to drop a customer's invoice into it, or whether to forward the company's bills to the email pilot. DDClear is run by its founder, Matt Rusin, and the address for anything on this page is matt@ddclearapp.com. It is one person, and one person reads that inbox.

The website checker: what happens to your invoice

To read your invoice, DDClear sends it to two third-party AI services: Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini). DDClear keeps no copy of it. Nothing confidential is stored. DDClear's free checker stores nothing. Saving a dispute file to an account is a separate, opt-in choice.

1. You upload or paste it, and DDClear sends the file or text to two third-party AI services, Anthropic's Claude API and Google's Gemini API, and uses the fields they return.
2. DDClear's own rules engine judges it: deterministic code, not AI, makes every finding against 46 CFR Part 541, from what the invoice is missing to whether it was issued late.
3. On a free check, DDClear keeps your invoice in memory for the length of the check and stores no copy afterwards: nothing goes into a database, the page address, or your browser's storage.
4. If you save a dispute file to a DDClear account, DDClear stores the invoice fields, the findings, the deadlines it computed and any evidence you add, but not the original invoice file, unless you attach it and agree at that moment. You can delete a dispute file at any time: DDClear removes it immediately, purges it within 7 days, and purges everything 90 days after a subscription is cancelled. DDClear's free checker stores nothing.

What Anthropic and Google do with what they receive is governed by their own terms, which DDClear does not restate here:

• Anthropic's privacy policy
• Google's Gemini API terms

Read them before you send an invoice you are not free to share.

Website accounts and signing in

You never need an account to check an invoice. You need one only to save a dispute file, and the first thing the save dialog does is ask your permission, before any sign-in code has loaded.

Sign-in is handled by Clerk, an outside authentication service. Nothing from Clerk loads on the free checker: its script runs only inside the save dialog after you tick the consent box, and on the signed-in pages. From that point Clerk sets its own cookies in your browser, under its own privacy policy.

If you choose Sign in with Google, DDClear (through Clerk) asks Google for three permissions (openid, email and profile) and receives your email address, your name, and the web address of your profile picture if your account has one. DDClear uses that information for one purpose: to create your account and sign you in. DDClear does not sell it, does not share it with anyone else, does not use it for advertising, and asks for no other Google permission. It never touches your Gmail, Drive, Calendar or contacts.

Of what the sign-in passes to it, DDClear stores your email address and your name (if you gave one) in its own database, along with your organisation's name: the minimum needed to show you your own dispute files and nobody else's. DDClear does not store your profile picture; the account menu shows the one your sign-in service holds.

DDClear keeps a copy of each account event the sign-in service sends it (created, updated, deleted) for 30 days, so that a repeated delivery of the same event cannot be applied twice, then purges it. Those copies include every email address on the account.

What the sign-in services do with what they receive is governed by their own policies, which DDClear does not restate here:

• Clerk's privacy policy
• Google's privacy policy

What a saved dispute file holds

A dispute file is the check you just ran, kept. When you save one, DDClear stores, under your organisation:

• The invoice fields DDClear read or you typed: who billed you, the invoice number, the bill of lading number, the amount, the container numbers, and the dates the check turns on: invoice date, the date you received it, the last day a charge was incurred, and the equipment return date.
• The engine's exact input and exact output for that check, with the version of the rules that produced it, so the result can be replayed later and come out the same.
• Every deadline DDClear could compute, the basis it used, and any change you make to the file afterwards.
• Which account created the file, and your organisation's time zone.

When you tick the box to save a dispute file, DDClear records that you did: the version and a fingerprint of the exact text you agreed to, the time, your IP address and your browser's identification string. That record is what proves what was promised to you when the file was saved.

DDClear does not store your original invoice file. It is saved only if you attach it to a dispute file and agree at that moment. Evidence upload is not built yet; when it is, evidence you attach will be stored under the same rules as the file it belongs to, and this page will say where.

The email pilot: what DDClear keeps, and why

The email pilot (forwarding invoices to invoicechecker@getddclear.com, and the DDClear extension in Chrome) works differently from the website checker. It has to remember. A reminder before a deadline, the monthly summary, re-checking an invoice when you reply with a correction, and the screenshots behind a dispute all read records DDClear has kept. So for a company in the pilot, DDClear keeps the following.

• Your company and its people. DDClear keeps your company's name, SCAC and time zone, who signed it up and when, and the email addresses allowed to forward bills or sign in for it, with who added each one. When you give them, DDClear also keeps what your dispute letters print about you: your business address, the name and title of the person who signs, and a phone number. Why: So DDClear knows whose bill a forward is, who may get the answer, and what your letters say about you.
• Each email you forward. DDClear keeps who sent it and when, the sender checks your mail server attached to it, and each attachment's name, size and fingerprint. DDClear does not copy the email or the invoice file into its own storage. They stay with DDClear's email service, which is where DDClear reads them each time it checks or re-checks the invoice. Why: So a reply or a correction can be matched to the invoice it is about.
• What DDClear read and what its rules decided. DDClear keeps the facts it read from each invoice (the line, invoice and bill of lading numbers, containers, amounts and dates), the verdict, the amount to pay and the amount to dispute, both deadlines, any question it asked you and your answer. Why: For your reminders, your monthly summary, and re-checking an invoice when you reply.
• Your disputes. DDClear keeps each dispute's amounts and deadlines, the reminders it sent, whether you told it the dispute was sent, and the line's answer when you forward it. Why: So DDClear can remind you before a deadline and report how your disputes went.
• Every email DDClear sends you. DDClear keeps a copy of each one, including the draft dispute letter: its words, who it went to, and when. DDClear drops a sent email's attachments from that copy once it has gone; the screenshots themselves stay with your records. Why: So DDClear does not send the same thing twice, and can show what it told you.
• Screenshots. When you capture a terminal page with the DDClear extension, or email DDClear a picture, DDClear keeps the picture itself, its fingerprint, and what it read from it: the site, the page's own time stamp, the container, the date and whether the picture shows what the line asks for. DDClear uses a company's screenshots only for that company. The extension also saves each capture to your own computer, in your Downloads folder, where it is yours and DDClear cannot reach it. Why: So the screenshots from the right mornings can go with your dispute.
• Sign-in codes and devices. DDClear keeps a fingerprint of each 6-digit code it emails, never the code itself; a code works once, for 10 minutes. For each Chrome panel you sign in, DDClear keeps its name, the address that signed it in, when it was last used, and a fingerprint of its key. Why: So only the people on your company's list can sign in, and a device can be turned off.
• Error and check records. When something fails, and once a day, DDClear writes a short status note and emails it to the person who runs DDClear. A note can name your company, the address that forwarded a bill, and facts read from an invoice, such as its number or date. DDClear keeps those notes with the records above. Why: So DDClear can find and fix its own mistakes.

How long: DDClear keeps these records until the pilot ends or until you ask us to delete them, whichever comes first. Nothing in the pilot deletes them on a timer yet, so this page does not claim a shorter time.

To delete your company's pilot records, or one person's, email matt@ddclearapp.com from an address on your company's list and we delete it. There is no delete button in the pilot yet. DDClear does not delete the copies of forwarded emails and their attachments that Resend, DDClear's email service, holds: when those are deleted is set by Resend's own retention, not by DDClear.

Who handles pilot data, besides DDClear:

• Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini) read each invoice you forward and each screenshot DDClear checks. DDClear sends them the file and uses the facts they return. Code, not AI, makes every finding.
• Resend is DDClear's email service. Your forwarded email, with its attachments, reaches DDClear through Resend, DDClear reads it from there, and every email DDClear sends you leaves through it.
• Vercel runs DDClear and holds the screenshots and emailed pictures, in a private store.
• Neon hosts the database that holds the records listed above.
• Signing in to the pilot uses only the emailed code. The sign-in service behind website accounts is not part of the pilot.

What these services do with what they receive is governed by their own terms, which DDClear does not restate here. The links for Anthropic, Google, Vercel and Neon are on this page; Resend's are here:

• Resend's privacy policy
• Resend's data retention

Deletion: the promise, in plain terms

On the website checker, DDClear deletes your invoice when the check ends. It exists inside DDClear only while the check is running, held in memory for those few seconds, and DDClear writes no copy of it to a database, to the page address, or to your browser's storage. When your result renders, the working copy is gone. Close the tab and nothing of it remains.

The free checker has no account, so there is no history of past checks to go back through and nothing anyone could ask DDClear to hand over for one. If you save a dispute file to an account, that is stored, and the delete control sits on the file itself, at the bottom of the page for that file. You can delete a dispute file at any time: DDClear removes it immediately and purges it within 7 days. If you cancel, DDClear keeps your dispute files and evidence for 90 days so you can export them, then purges them automatically.

You can delete your account from the account menu on any signed-in page, or by emailing matt@ddclearapp.com. DDClear removes your record immediately and purges it within 7 days. Deleting your organisation puts its dispute files on the same clock.

On the website checker, the dispute letter DDClear drafts is generated in your browser from the result on screen. DDClear does not send it, does not receive a copy, and does not contact the line or equipment provider for you. You review it and send it in your own name.

The email pilot keeps the records listed in its section above until the pilot ends or you ask us to delete them. In the email pilot, DDClear emails the draft letter to you and keeps a copy of that email, so a reminder or a re-check can refer to it. DDClear does not send it to the line. To delete your company's pilot records, or one person's, email matt@ddclearapp.com from an address on your company's list and we delete it. There is no delete button in the pilot yet. DDClear does not delete the copies of forwarded emails and their attachments that Resend, DDClear's email service, holds: when those are deleted is set by Resend's own retention, not by DDClear.

Where DDClear runs, and what its servers see

DDClear's code runs on Vercel, so every request to DDClear, including an invoice you upload, passes through Vercel's servers. DDClear stores account data, dispute files and the email pilot's records in a Postgres database hosted by Neon, and the pilot's screenshots in Vercel's private file storage. DDClear uses both for one thing: running DDClear.

When the website checker fails to read an invoice, DDClear's server log records that it failed and which of three fixed kinds of failure it was. DDClear writes neither the invoice nor your network address to that log. In the email pilot, DDClear's server log records each step of a check under the email's id, and each attachment's name, size and fingerprint.

To keep the free checker from being drained by a script, DDClear counts requests per network address in the memory of the running server. DDClear writes that count nowhere; it is gone when the server restarts. Its database keeps one number for the whole site: how many checks ran each day, with no address and nothing from any invoice.

DDClear uses Vercel Web Analytics to count page views and a short list of named events (for example a video played, a question answered, a check started). It sets no cookie and writes nothing to your browser's storage, and the event data is a handful of short category labels, never an invoice field.

Both hosting services keep the operational records any hosting service keeps, under their own notices:

• Vercel's privacy notice
• Neon's privacy notice (Databricks)

What DDClear does not do

• Sell or rent anything about you. Not your email address, not your organisation's name, not the contents of a dispute file, not the fact that you checked an invoice from a particular line. To nobody, for nothing.
• Advertise. There are no ad networks on this site, no tracking pixels, and no cross-site cookies. A “do not track” or Global Privacy Control signal from your browser changes nothing, because there is nothing for it to turn off.
• Use your invoices to sell to you. The checker on this site sends no email: no reminders, no newsletter, no follow-up after a check, and it has no email field. If you forward invoices to invoicechecker@getddclear.com during the pilot, DDClear emails you back about those invoices and your account: its replies, a reminder before a deadline it could prove (reply stop to end them for that invoice), a monthly summary, and a confirmation when you forward a line's answer. No newsletter there either. DDClear may email businesses about DDClear from matt@ddclearapp.com; reply stop to end it, and nothing from an invoice is ever used for that.
• Text you. DDClear sends no text messages. If you give a cell number on the homepage form, it goes to Matt so he can reach you about the pilot.
• Watch a saved file's deadlines for you. A saved file shows every deadline DDClear could compute, but nothing about the file notifies you when one is near. Put the date in your own diary. The email product's reminders cover only invoices forwarded to it, and only deadlines it could prove.

“Deterministic rules engine”: what that actually means

It means the part of DDClear that decides anything is ordinary code, not AI. A fixed list of rules, walked in a fixed order: is this element on the invoice, yes or no; is the gap between these two dates more than thirty days, yes or no. Nothing in it is a judgement call, and nothing in it is generated.

Two things follow from that, and they are the reason it is built this way:

• The same invoice always produces the same result. Run it twice, run it next year, run it on someone else's machine: the answer does not wander, because no model is being asked to have an opinion.
• Every finding names the rule it came from, with a link to the regulation itself. You can check DDClear's work line by line instead of taking its word, which is what makes a result usable in front of a line.

The AI has exactly one job: reading. It turns a PDF or a photo into fields: invoice date, container number, rate. It is never asked whether a charge is owed, and its output is treated as data to be judged, not as an answer. Where the two models that read your invoice disagree, DDClear asks you rather than picking a side.

Your rights over what DDClear holds

Whatever the law where you are says, the offer is the same: email matt@ddclearapp.com from the address on your account and DDClear will tell you what it holds about you, give you a copy, correct it, or delete it. That covers the email pilot's records too. You do not need to give a reason. DDClear will not treat you differently for asking.

DDClear is a business tool and does not meet the thresholds that bring the California Consumer Privacy Act to bear. It is nowhere near the revenue line, holds data on nowhere near the number of Californians the law counts, and sells no personal information. If that ever changes, this page changes first. The same goes for the other state privacy laws written in the California mould.

DDClear is not directed at children and does not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has created an account, email the address above and DDClear will delete it.

If something goes wrong

If DDClear learns that account or pilot data it holds has been read or taken by someone who should not have had it, DDClear will tell every affected account holder at the email address on the account, say what was involved, and notify any authority the law requires, as soon as it can, and no later than the law where you are allows.

When this page changes, the review date at the top changes with it. If a change affects what DDClear stores about a saved dispute file, the save dialog carries a new version of its text and asks you to agree again before you save another one. That is what the consent version is for.

The honest position

DDClear is new and one person builds it. There is no badge to show you, and this page is not going to imply one. What protects your invoice here is structural rather than promissory: DDClear's free checker stores nothing, so a check leaves no archive to breach; what a saved dispute file holds is listed above and you can delete it; and the only moment a file leaves is the one described above, in the words of the services that receive it. The email pilot is the exception, and says so: it keeps the records listed in its own section above, because reminders and disputes need them, and DDClear deletes them when you ask.

If you are not free to share a customer's commercial invoice with an outside service, use the manual form or the three-date quick check, both reached from the sample check. Both stay on your machine, and both run the same rules engine.