AccountsIQ Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy sets out how we use and protect your personal information.
If we ask you to provide information by which you can be identified, it will only be used in line with this privacy statement which is based on these data protection principles:
We are open and honest about how we collect and use your personal data.
We aim to use your data to improve and personalise our services to you.
We are committed to protecting your data, so we adhere to industry-leading data protection policies.
What we collect
Personal Identifiable Information (PII) refers to any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data.
We may collect personal data directly from you when you:
- Register to use AccountsIQ Cloud Accounting
- Use the Service
- Contact the AccountsIQ support team
- Visit our website and record an enquiry, download a resource (such as a whitepaper), or register for a webinar.
We may collect the following types of personal data:
- Identity Data such as your first name, last name, and username
- Contact Data such as your billing address, email address and telephone numbers
- Technical Data such as login data, internet protocol addresses, browser type and version, browser plug-in types and versions, time zone setting and location, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our site as captured automatically by our hosting platform’s webservers
- Profile Data this may include your username and password, preferences, feedback, and survey responses
- Usage Data this may include information about how you use our website, products, and services
- Marketing and Communications Data this may include your preferences in receiving marketing communications from us and our third parties and your other communication preferences.
System users within client companies that use AccountsIQ may also collect information and input PII about someone else (e.g., their own customers and suppliers and related contacts within those organisations) as part of their normal finance system activities.
If these system users provide us with your personal information, they must ensure that they are authorised to disclose that information to us., We may then collect, use, and disclose this information to provide services to our client without taking any further steps required by applicable data protection or privacy laws.
The AccountsIQ client user in this sense acts as a Data Controller. They are responsible for ensuring they have your consent to collect your data and to make you aware of how your data will be used. Our clients will also tell you about your right to obtain access to your PII and your right to be forgotten under GDPR.
What do we do with the information we gather?
We need this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service for the following reasons:
- To personalise your experience. We use your information to provide services, such as processing transactions, log in authentications, and customer support.
- To resolve technical issues. We use your information to resolve any technical issues you may have, to answer your queries and to improve our services.
- For research and development. We are always looking for ways to make our software and services smarter, faster, more secure, integrated, and useful to you. We use collective learnings about how people use our services and feedback provided directly to us to troubleshoot and to identify trends, usage, activity patterns and areas for integration and improvement of our services.
- To market, promote, and drive engagement with us. We use your contact details and information about how you use our services to send personalised promotional communications about updates and improvements to our services and other topics of interest.
- For safety and security. We use information about how you use our services to verify accounts and activity, to monitor suspicious or fraudulent activity and to identify violations of service policies.
- To protect our legitimate business interests and legal rights. Where required by law, or where we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights, interests, and the interests of others, we use information about you in connection with legal claims, compliance, regulatory, and audit functions, and disclosures in connection with the acquisition, merger, or sale of a business.
- With your consent. We may use information about you for a specific purpose not listed above. For example, we may publish testimonials or feature customer stories to promote our services. We only do this with your permission. You can always and unconditionally withdraw your consent by sending us an email at: privacy@accountsiq.com
Marketing communications
We will send you marketing communications if you have:
- Requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us
- Downloaded free resources from our website
- Downloaded our free resources from AccountingWeb or other similar platforms and have opted in to receive marketing communications from us.
You can always opt out of receiving our marketing communications.
Opting out of communications
You can remove yourself from any mailing list not essential to our Service by emailing support@accountsiq.com or you can use the unsubscribe link in any email. Doing this will mean you no longer receive our marketing communications. We will still send you emails about billing, product, and service updates.
In the unlikely event that we want to share your data with a third party for marketing purposes, we will get your express opt-in consent before we do so.
How we protect your personal data
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorised access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take all reasonable measures to do so. We have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure your information.
Your personal information is stored on secure servers that have SSL Certificates issued by leading certificate authority GeoTrust RSA, and all data transferred between you and the Service is encrypted (SHA256withRSA). Please see our Security Pages for more information.
AccountsIQ hosts personal information on servers in three locations worldwide
To service our global user base, we host AccountsIQ on three primary host sites world-wide with our Hosting Provider:
- Microsoft Azure UK South for the UK customers
- Microsoft Azure EU Region for the EU customers
- Virginia (USA): Accessed via Virginia (USA)
Unless you expressly opt for the hosting in the USA your personal data will not be transferred outside the E.E.A. The decision to choose between the host sites stated previously rests solely with you and we will act strictly based on your instructions.
However, if you choose to have your personal data hosted outside of the E.E.A, by entering personal information into AccountsIQ, you consent to that personal information being hosted on servers located outside the E.E.A.
The personal information will be hosted by Microsoft Azure as our data processor and you can find out more about the hosting outside the E.E.A by accessing https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/compliance/regulatory/offering-eu-model-clauses.
Regardless of your decision related to hosting any personal data, it will always remain within AccountsIQ’s effective control. Our data hosting provider’s role is limited to providing a hosting and storage service to AccountsIQ, and we’ve taken steps to ensure that our data hosting provider does not have access to, and uses the necessary level of protection for, your personal information.
Transferring your data to third-party applications via AccountsIQ’s API
AccountsIQ can facilitate you, or another 3rd party integration user within the relevant AccountsIQ subscription to transfer PII to and from third-party applications via the AccountsIQ Application Programming Interface (API).
These applications are outside our control and as such AccountsIQ takes no responsibility for the privacy practices or content of these applications.
Please check the privacy policies of 3rd party applications that you have integrated with AccountsIQ to see how they handle your personal information.
AccountsIQ provides you with regulated account information services as an agent of Plaid Financial Ltd., an authorised payment institution regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 (Firm Registration Number: 804718) for the provision of payment services, including account information services.
How we use cookies
A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added, and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
If you want to find out about how and what cookies we are using, please read our Cookie policy.
How long do we keep your data?
We will only keep your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine this, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
By law we are required to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see below for further information.
In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes. We may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Your Legal Rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. These include the right to:
- Request access to your personal data.
- Request correction of your personal data.
- Request erasure of your personal data.
- Object to processing of your personal data.
- Request restriction of processing your personal data.
- Request transfer of your personal data.
- Right to withdraw consent.
You can see more about these rights here.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the details below.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. You can find a list of Supervisory Authorities here.
This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time
We will post any privacy policy changes on this page. If the changes are significant, we will add a more prominent notice to your login screen or send you an email. We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review. We encourage you to review our privacy policy whenever you use our Services to stay informed about our information practices and the ways you can help protect your privacy.
How to contact us
If you have questions or concerns about how your information is handled, please contact us at the details below:
Email: support@accountsiq.com
Tel: 00353 1 7074400