Contracts Guide
Who Owns Your Restaurant's Data?
Last updated: August 2026
You generated every row — the orders, the guests, the gift cards. Whether you can take those rows with you is decided by the contract and the export screen, not by fairness. Most owners discover the difference the week they try to leave.
Data ownership has three layers people blur together: what the contract CLAIMS, what the product actually EXPORTS, and what format the export arrives in. You need all three to line up — a right you cannot exercise is not a right.
The Data, Class by Class
Sales and transactions
Summaries — daily totals, tax reports — export from most systems. Full line-item history at original fidelity is much less universal, and often the first thing that stops being reachable after cancellation. For accounting, what matters is keeping history readable: export the reports you use while the account is still alive.
The menu
Items and prices export or rebuild easily; the real asset is the structure — the modifier encoding that took weeks to get right. Whichever direction you migrate, that structure is the part worth carrying deliberately.
Customers and loyalty
The contested class. Contact lists usually export; loyalty balances sometimes do not; and on marketplace-style platforms the diner may be treated as the platform's user rather than your customer — you serve them, but the relationship data is not yours to take. Read how the contract defines whose customer they are.
Gift card balances
Outstanding balances are money you owe your guests, and they follow you only if you carry them: card numbers and balances as of a stated date. Exports here can be gated or simply absent — we have rebuilt a restaurant's full card book from photographs of the old system when no export existed.
New in the AI era: recordings and transcripts
Phone AI creates a data class that did not exist three years ago: recordings and transcripts of your customers' voices. Before signing any voice product, ask three things — where they are stored and for how long, whether the vendor may train models on them, and whether you can export and delete them on request.
The Contract Language That Decides It
Five places in the agreement settle every question above:
- -How Customer Data is defined — and whether a separate Platform Data or aggregated-analytics definition quietly claims everything derived from it.
- -Export rights on termination: do they survive cancellation, and for how many days?
- -Deletion rights: can you require your data — including recordings — to be deleted?
- -Training and aggregation rights: may the vendor use your sales and your customers' voices to build products?
- -Assignment: what happens to all of the above if the vendor is acquired?
Five Lines to Demand in Writing
None of these are exotic requests; a vendor that resists them is answering a different question — about what leaving will be like:
- -All data classes above are exportable in documented formats (CSV or JSON) at no fee.
- -Exports remain available for a stated number of days after termination.
- -The customer list is Customer Data, owned by the restaurant.
- -Gift card numbers and balances are exportable on request.
- -Call recordings: retention period, ownership, and deletion on request are stated explicitly.
Ginger's position is simple: the data is yours, and no contract holds it hostage — service is month to month. We have imported other vendors' data from exports, spreadsheets, and photographs; we would rather keep you with the product than with an exit fee. The full contracts guide
Frequently Asked Questions
Do POS vendors own my sales data?
It depends on the contract, and on the gap between what the contract claims and what the product exports. Many agreements grant the restaurant ownership of Customer Data while a separate clause claims derived or aggregated data for the platform. Check both the definitions section and the actual export screens — a right you cannot exercise through a working export is not a right.
Can I export my customer list when I leave a POS?
Usually yes for contact lists; loyalty point balances vary; and marketplace-style platforms may treat diners as their users rather than your customers, in which case the relationship data does not leave with you. The time to establish which kind you are signing is before you sign — ask to see the export, not just the clause.
What happens to gift card balances when I switch POS?
They are a liability you owe guests, and they move only if you carry them: card numbers and balances as of cutover day, loaded into the new system. Exports here are the least standardized of any data class — if none exists, photograph the old system's screens before you lose access; we have rebuilt a full card book that way.
Can a POS vendor charge me to export my own data?
Some vendors do charge export or data-migration fees, and nothing stops them unless your contract does. That is why no-fee export in documented formats belongs in writing before you sign — it costs nothing to ask at signing time and can cost real money at leaving time.
Who owns the recordings my restaurant's phone AI makes?
A genuinely new question, and most contracts answer it vaguely or not at all. Three things to pin down with any voice AI vendor: where recordings and transcripts are stored and for how long; whether the vendor may train models on them; and whether you can export and delete them on request. If the contract is silent, ask for the answer in writing.
Bring Us the Data Clauses
Send us the agreement and we will walk the data definitions, export rights, and recording clauses with you — in plain language, in writing. Ginger itself has no contract to read.
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