Privacy Policy

Who operates ConsulBooks

This policy explains how Dr. Michael Lyons P.C., operating ConsulBooks, collects, uses, discloses, retains, and protects information when business owners, accountants, applicants, and website visitors use ConsulBooks. Contact us about this policy or your information at privacy@consulbooks.com.

Information we receive

When you sign in, ConsulBooks receives an account identifier and may receive your email address and display name from the sign-in provider. After verified account access, we keep a server-side record of the accepted Terms and Privacy versions, the signup acceptance time supplied with the request, and the server recording time. We store the business profile, normalized transactions, categorization choices, vendor rules, settings, report inputs, and audit history you create in your workspace.

If you connect a financial institution, Plaid handles institution search, authentication, and permission selection. ConsulBooks receives a protected connection token and the account names, partial account identifiers, balances, and transaction data you authorize. ConsulBooks does not receive or store your online-banking password.

CSV, OFX, and QFX statement files are parsed in your browser. ConsulBooks receives the normalized transaction fields needed for bookkeeping, not the original statement file. Account identifiers included in supported text statements are reduced to a masked last-four display before upload.

When an owner invites an accountant, we store the invitation email, status, and access events. After accepting with the same confirmed email and completing MFA, the accountant can see basic identity, activity-count, and books-through information for the expressly permitted workspace and download its read-only accountant package until access is revoked.

If you apply to the ConsulBooks Advisor Network, we collect the name, work email, firm, role, location, approximate client count, and comments you choose to submit so we can evaluate and respond to the application.

Consent and how we use information

We use workspace information to provide transaction importing and synchronization, categorization, review, bookkeeping reports, exports, and change history. Choosing to connect an account and completing Plaid Link authorizes Plaid and ConsulBooks to retrieve and process the accounts and transaction history you select for those purposes. You may withdraw that permission by disconnecting the institution.

We also use limited technical logs to operate and secure the service, prevent abuse, and investigate errors. We do not use financial information for advertising.

Plaid and your financial-institution connection

Completing Plaid Link authorizes Plaid and ConsulBooks to retrieve and process only the accounts and transaction data you select for bookkeeping. Plaid separately processes information under the Plaid End User Privacy Policy. Plaid and your financial institution control their own systems and retention practices.

Disconnecting an institution in ConsulBooks stops future synchronization and requests revocation of the Plaid connection. Previously imported bookkeeping entries remain so the ledger stays complete until you delete the workspace. Depending on the institution and Plaid's services, you may also be able to view or manage connections through Plaid Portal.

Privacy-preserving website measurement

On public marketing pages, ConsulBooks counts page views and estimates daily unique visitors so we can understand which pages and campaigns are useful. We store the public page path, external referring domain, strictly limited campaign labels, coarse country and device category, and a pseudonymous code scoped to one day. The code is calculated from the connecting address, the date, and a protected service secret; we do not store the raw address, full browser identifier, referring URL, page query string, or an analytics cookie for this first-party measurement.

We skip this measurement when the browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, and we filter recognized automated traffic. We target a 90-day retention period and purge expired measurement records during normal service operations. The admin dashboard shows aggregate traffic estimates, not the identity or financial activity of individual visitors.

Advertising measurement (Google Ads)

On consulbooks.com we use the Google Ads tag to measure whether our ads lead to three outcomes: a completed new account, a first paid subscription, and an accountant partner enrollment or application. For these events we send Google only an opaque event identifier and, for a paid subscription, the amount and currency paid. We never send your name, email address, bank or card details, transactions, or other financial records, and we do not use enhanced conversions or customer matching.

The tag sets advertising cookies. Visitors in the EEA, UK, Switzerland and Canada are asked first and the tag does not load unless they accept; rejecting is as easy as accepting. Elsewhere it loads by default. We honor Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track as an opt-out everywhere. You can change or withdraw your choice at any time using “Cookie settings” in the site footer; we keep a record of your choice, when you made it, and which notice version you saw in your browser. Learn how Google uses data at business.safety.google/privacy.

AI-assisted processing

ConsulBooks first applies saved vendor rules and conservative categorization logic. External AI is off for a workspace unless its owner enables the AI suggestion control in Business setup. When enabled, only uncertain items are sent to the AI service. The request may include a shortened merchant name and memo, whether money moved in or out, a coarse amount range, the business industry, and entity type. ConsulBooks does not send the exact transaction amount, account number, owner email, or bank credentials in that categorization request.

ConsulBooks asks the AI provider not to store response state by setting store: false. The AI provider may retain limited content in abuse-monitoring logs for a short period under its standard API data controls. The AI service returns a category suggestion and confidence; model-only suggestions never post to the ledger automatically and remain subject to owner review. The owner can disable external AI at any time to stop future AI requests. ConsulBooks retains the resulting category, confidence, and a standardized explanation as part of the workspace record and audit workflow.

Do not upload information you are not authorized to process. Transaction descriptions can contain personal information supplied by a bank or merchant, so review imported records before enabling external AI.

Service providers and disclosures

Current service providers include our application hosting provider and Cloudflare for hosting, storage, protected delivery, and technical logs; Supabase for account authentication, MFA, sessions, and account messages; Plaid for institution connection and authorized financial-data access; Zoho Mail for ConsulBooks business email; and Stripe for subscription checkout, billing, and payment processing. The AI provider processes minimized categorization inputs only when a workspace owner expressly enables external AI.

These providers process information for their contracted service and under their own legal obligations. ConsulBooks does not sell personal or financial information and does not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We may disclose information when required by law, to protect customers or the service, or as part of a business transaction subject to appropriate safeguards.

Security and storage

ConsulBooks uses authenticated, isolated workspaces; required authenticator MFA; encrypted HTTPS connections; encrypted hosted storage; restricted production access; protected secrets; verified Plaid webhooks; and audit history. Plaid access tokens receive an additional layer of application encryption. Authorized support personnel can view limited workspace, connection-health, and application information needed to operate the service, but the admin portal does not display bank credentials, Plaid access tokens, account or routing numbers, or customer passwords. No internet service can promise absolute security, so we continually review safeguards and limit the information we collect.

Retention, disconnection, and deletion

We retain workspace information while your account is active so ConsulBooks can provide your books and audit history. Disconnecting an institution revokes the Plaid feed and stops future imports; previously imported bookkeeping records remain so your ledger stays complete.

You can permanently delete the entire bookkeeping workspace from Business setup. ConsulBooks first requests revocation of active Plaid connections, then deletes the business profile, connected-account records, imported transactions, rules, journal entries, and workspace audit history from active storage. Workspace deletion does not by itself remove the separate sign-in identity or every support, advisor-application, website-measurement, security, or legally required record. Request broader account-data deletion at privacy@consulbooks.com; we verify requests before acting.

Encrypted backup copies may remain inaccessible until they expire through the hosting provider's normal backup cycle, and limited records may be retained when law, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, or security requires it.

Advisor Network applications and accountant-access records are retained while we evaluate and operate the program or need to document granted and revoked access. Applicants can request deletion at any time. ConsulBooks plans to add and publish a formal periodic retention-review schedule as the partner program matures.

Your choices and rights

You can review and correct workspace information, enable or disable external AI, change learned rules, disconnect financial institutions, link or revoke an accountant, and export an accountant package containing transactions and core bookkeeping reports. Depending on where you live, you may also request access, correction, portability, deletion, restriction, or an appeal of a privacy decision by emailing privacy@consulbooks.com. We will not discriminate against you for exercising an applicable privacy right. We may verify your identity and an authorized agent's authority before completing a request.

Keep your own copies of records required for accounting, tax, or legal purposes before deleting them.

Children and U.S. service

ConsulBooks is a business bookkeeping service and is not intended for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. The current service is directed to U.S. businesses and may process information in the United States and other places where the providers named above operate, subject to their safeguards and applicable law.

Payments and policy changes

Stripe subscription billing is active in test mode. When you subscribe, Stripe collects payment information through its checkout and processes the charge. The site will clearly ask before collecting any payment information, and this policy will be updated if the processor or billing terms change.

We may revise this policy as the service changes. The effective date at the top of this page will change when an update is published, and we will provide additional notice of material changes when reasonably practical. Questions and requests belong at privacy@consulbooks.com; do not email bank credentials, passwords, access tokens, or full account numbers.