Privacy Policy

Defined Terms

A few terms have specific meanings throughout this Privacy Policy, so they're defined here before getting into the details.

When you see "we," "us," or "our" in this document, those terms refer to Footnote.

Footnote respects your privacy and is committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your information when you visit our Website or interact with us and our services.

If You're a Bookkeeping Client

If you've signed an Engagement Letter with Footnote, it governs how we handle the financial records and other confidential information you share for bookkeeping services. This Privacy Policy still applies to your use of the Website, our forms and client management tools, and our email list. If this Privacy Policy and your Engagement Letter conflict, your Engagement Letter controls.

Collecting and Using Your Personal Information

Contact Information

When you fill out our inquiry form, communicate with us, schedule a meeting, engage us for services, or make a purchase, we collect the information you provide so we can communicate with you.

This might include your name, mailing address, phone number, and email address.

If you've given us your physical address, we sometimes send promotional gifts, like stickers.

If you provide your social media profile or account information, we may use it to view your social media presence and learn more about you or your business. The information available to us depends on your profile and privacy settings.

Profile Information

When you fill out our inquiry form, schedule a meeting, engage us for services, or make a purchase, we may create a profile for you so we can identify you and provide the requested services or products. If you purchase a digital product, then we use your information to provide you with access to your purchase.

During the inquiry, discovery, proposal, and onboarding process, you may also provide information about your business, including its structure, revenue sources, financial accounts, transaction volume, bookkeeping practices, and tax preparation status. We use this information to understand your needs, determine whether they fall within the scope of our services, recommend appropriate services, prepare proposals, and establish an engagement.

Financial Information

When you make a payment to us, you may provide billing, bank account, credit card, or other payment information to our third-party payment processor so that your payment can be processed. Footnote does not directly collect or store the payment credentials you enter into our third-party payment processor.

When you engage Footnote for bookkeeping services, we may receive and process accounting records, bank and credit card transactions, financial statements, previous tax returns, invoices, receipts, and other business information needed to provide the agreed services. These records may contain sensitive personal information, including Social Security numbers, as well as personal information about your customers, vendors, contractors, or other individuals. We use this information to perform the services, communicate with you and your authorized representatives, maintain appropriate records, and meet applicable legal obligations.

Usage Information

When you visit the Website, our hosting provider and other service providers may process technical information, such as your IP address, browser type, and requests made to the Website, to deliver and maintain the Website and its services.

With your consent, Google Analytics 4 uses cookies and similar technologies to collect information about Website visits, including pages viewed, time spent on the site, device and browser information, and approximate location derived from technical data such as IP addresses. We use this information to improve the Website and evaluate our communications and marketing.

Email Marketing

If you subscribe to Footnote's email list, we want you to know what you're signing up for and how your information will be handled. Your email address is used to send the updates and resources you've chosen to receive, and we won't sell your contact information or share it with promotional partners.

We use Kit to manage our email list and send marketing communications. When you subscribe, we use a double opt-in process that requires you to confirm your subscription by email. Kit also uses tracking technologies to measure email engagement, including opens and link clicks.

You may also provide your email address when requesting a free resource from Footnote. We use that information to deliver the requested resource and, when you have subscribed to ongoing communications, to send newsletters, educational content, and other emails described at the time of signup.

Footnote's emails will comply with applicable laws including the CAN-SPAM Act. Each email will clearly identify that it is from Footnote along with a place for you to unsubscribe from our email list. Occasionally, the technological systems we rely on to remove you from our email list may fail to unsubscribe you. If you continue receiving unwanted emails, please reach out to us.

Unsubscribing from Footnote's email list will remove you from our routine promotional emails and informational emails about resources we may have to share. However, you may still receive information about services, programs, or products you have bought from Footnote.

Cookies, Pixels, and Tracking Signals

Cookies are small files that websites may store on your device to remember information about your visit. They can help a website function properly, remember your preferences, and provide information about how visitors use the site. For more on cookies, see this article from the Federal Trade Commission.

Our Website and the third-party services connected to it may use cookies and similar technologies to support website functionality, maintain sessions, remember preferences, and provide forms and other services. You can adjust your browser settings to block or delete cookies, although doing so may affect the functionality of some parts of our Website.

Cookies, pixels, and similar technologies may collect technical information about your device and browser and your interactions with our services.

Footnote uses Google Analytics 4 to understand website visits and usage. Google Analytics 4 is optional and loads only after you accept analytics. You can decline analytics or change your choice at any time through Cookie Settings in the footer. Footnote stores your consent preference locally on your device. Dubsado and Kit are separate embedded services, and the technologies they use are not governed by Footnote's Google Analytics consent setting.

Dubsado also loads payment-related scripts from Stripe on its public-facing pages, including forms that do not collect payments. These technologies may support payment functionality and fraud prevention.

Some browsers transmit a "Do Not Track" signal, but there is no uniform standard for how websites respond to these signals. Footnote does not currently respond to Do Not Track signals.

Who Exactly Sees Your Information?

Footnote does not sell your personal information. Footnote will disclose your personal information only when necessary to provide services, programs, or products to you; as you direct or authorize, such as sharing records with your tax preparer; or when necessary to work with third parties like lawyers or collection agencies to enforce our agreements with you or collect amounts owed. We may also disclose your information when we are otherwise legally required to do so.

The service providers we use are listed below.

Analytics

We use the following company for analytics:

• Google Analytics 4

Website Hosting

We use a third-party hosting provider to operate our Website. Our hosting provider may process technical information, including IP addresses and server request information, as necessary to deliver and maintain the Website. The Website's fonts are hosted with the Website itself rather than by a third-party font service.

Our website hosting provider is:

• DreamHost (website hosting)

Client Management and Communications

We use third-party service providers to manage relationships and communications with prospective and current clients, including inquiries, discovery questionnaires, scheduling, proposals, agreements, onboarding, invoices, payments, meetings, and ongoing client communications. We also use third-party services to manage email subscriptions, deliver free resources, and send newsletters and other communications to subscribers.

Our client management and communications service providers are:

• Dubsado (inquiries, discovery, scheduling, proposals, agreements, and client management)
• Google Workspace (email, meetings, and document collaboration)
• Kit (email subscriptions, newsletters, free-resource delivery, and email engagement)

Client Bookkeeping and Financial Reviews

When providing bookkeeping services to engaged clients, we use additional third-party systems to maintain accounting records, process transactions and supporting documents, and communicate financial information. These systems are used in connection with client services, rather than ordinary browsing of our Website.

• Xero (accounting records, transactions, and financial reporting)
• Hubdoc (receipts, statements, and supporting financial documents)
• Loom (personalized video explanations and financial reviews)

Payment

We use Stripe to process payments, including ACH Debit payments for invoices sent through Xero. Stripe maintains its own privacy policy and adheres to Payment Card Industry security standards.

Securing Your Information

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards to protect personal information, including access-controlled systems that limit access to client records. We also rely on third-party service providers to help securely collect, process, and store information.

How Long We Keep Your Information

We keep your Contact Information only as long as necessary for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, including as required by law and as needed to enforce legal agreements and resolve disputes.

We keep your Profile Information as long as necessary for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Payment information you enter is processed by Stripe, which may retain your information for its own purposes. You can review Stripe's privacy policy for more information. We may retain transaction records and financial information necessary to provide our bookkeeping services and comply with our records retention obligations.

For bookkeeping clients, Footnote retains client records and Footnote's workpapers for the period stated in the Engagement Letter, subject to any different retention or disclosure requirements imposed by applicable law.

Usage Information collected through Google Analytics 4 is kept according to the retention settings in our Google Analytics account: event-level data for 2 months, and user-level data for 14 months after a visitor's most recent activity on the Website. It is then deleted automatically. Aggregated reports, which don't identify individual visitors, are not subject to these limits.

Deleting Your Information

You can ask us to delete collected information, subject to information we retain as required or permitted by law, to comply with our records retention obligations, to enforce legal agreements, or to resolve disputes. To do that, contact us using the contact information listed at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Your California Rights

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a law that provides certain privacy rights to California residents when their personal information is processed by businesses subject to the law. The rights described in this section apply to the extent required by applicable law.

The CCPA gives you:

• The right to know about the personal information a business collects about you and how it is used and shared;
• The right to delete personal information collected from you (with some exceptions);
• The right to correct inaccurate personal information that a business has about you;
• The right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information;
• The right to limit the use and disclosure of sensitive personal information collected about you; and
• The right to non-discrimination for exercising your CCPA rights.

To exercise your CCPA rights, contact us using the contact information below. Your identity will need to be verified before we release, alter, or delete your personal information. Since anonymized data about you can't be identified, we won't be able to delete that information.

You can learn more about your privacy rights as a California resident by visiting https://cppa.ca.gov/

Your European Union Rights

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a law governing the processing of personal information in certain circumstances involving individuals in the European Union. The rights described in this section apply where the GDPR governs our processing of your personal information.

We retain personal information only for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, subject to applicable legal requirements, contractual obligations, records retention requirements, and other lawful reasons for retaining information.

You have the right to request access to your data that Footnote stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data. You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data. You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data. To the extent that you provided consent to Footnote's processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent. You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.

We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Children's Privacy

Footnote's Website and services are intended for adults age 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

If you believe someone under 18 has provided personal information to Footnote, please contact us using the information below. We will review the request and delete the information as appropriate, subject to applicable legal requirements.

Links to Other Sites

Our Website may contain links to other websites that we don't control. Visiting those sites subjects you to their privacy policies. We are not responsible for how those websites handle your information.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically. If applicable law requires additional notice or consent for a change, we will provide it.

Contact Us

If you need to request copies of your personal information, or have questions about this policy and our privacy practices, contact:

Footnote Bookkeeping LLC: 404-910-4313, hello@footnotebookkeeping.com