Effective date: 8/30/2026
Palo Alto Bookkeeping — Privacy Policy

Effective date: August 30, 2026
Last updated: August 30, 2026

Palo Alto Bookkeeping (“I,” “me,” “the practice”) is operated by John Adams as a solo bookkeeping practice. This policy covers two audiences:

  • Visitors to paloaltobookkeeping.com — anyone reading the website, submitting contact forms, or leaving comments.
  • Bookkeeping clients — anyone whose financial records I process as part of an engagement.

If you are a client, both sections apply to you.

1. Information collected from website visitors

  • Contact form submissions: Details entered into the contact form are delivered to the practice’s CRM and to [email protected] to respond to inquiries.
  • Scheduling: Booking a call through the Calendly embed shares your name, email, and meeting notes with Calendly under Calendly’s own privacy policy.
  • Comments & Gravatar: If comments are submitted on blog posts, the comment text, name/email, and IP address are stored. A hash of your email address may be checked against the Gravatar service to display a profile photo.
  • Cookies & Analytics: Only standard functional session cookies (e.g., login, screen preferences) are utilized. I do not run third-party advertising trackers or sell visitor data.
  • Embedded content: Embedded media (such as YouTube videos) behaves as if you visited the third-party provider directly and may collect data under that provider’s privacy policy.
  • Do Not Track signals: This website does not track visitors across third-party websites for targeted advertising and therefore does not alter its data collection practices upon receiving browser “Do Not Track” (DNT) or Global Privacy Control signals.

2. Information collected from bookkeeping clients

To deliver services under your engagement agreement, I collect:

  • Bank and credit-card statements, receipts, and invoices.
  • Basic business information (entity name, EIN, chart of accounts, vendor and customer names).
  • Transaction clarification notes.
  • Direct contact details for onboarding and ongoing communication.

I never ask for banking passwords or login credentials. Documents are uploaded through the 2FA-secured client portal, which scans all uploads for malware. QuickBooks Online access is granted solely via accountant invitations controlled and revocable by you; shared admin credentials are never held.

3. How client financial data is processed — including AI & enclaves

Financial data extraction, categorization, and reconciliations are powered by specialized automated pipelines. During onboarding, you can select your preferred data processing environment:

  • Option A — Anthropic (Direct Cloud AI): Documents and transaction details are parsed and categorized directly via Anthropic’s Claude API. This route provides high extraction accuracy for complex statement layouts. In accordance with Anthropic’s commercial API terms, customer data is never used to train foundational AI models.
  • Option B — Encrypted Enclave (Privacy-Preserving TEE): Statement extraction and processing run inside a hardware-isolated, privacy-preserving trusted execution environment (a confidential computing enclave). Under this setting, raw files and transaction payloads remain cryptographically isolated from third-party AI providers.

(Note: Depending on document length and structure, multi-page statements may utilize Google’s Document AI service with automated account-number redaction prior to ingestion).

Where your data is stored:

  • Databases & Records: Stored on private, self-hosted infrastructure under my direct administrative control.
  • Document Portal: Source documents and generated reports are stored within your 2FA-secured client portal.
  • System Monitoring: Technical logs and pipeline health metrics are maintained internally without storing raw document copies.
  • Backups: All system backups are encrypted before off-site transfer, with decryption keys stored separately from backup instances.
  • General Ledger: Reconciled entries sync directly into your QuickBooks Online account.

4. Gmail (document ingestion)

If you email statements or invoices to Palo Alto Bookkeeping, messages are ingested from a dedicated mailbox using read-only Gmail access (gmail.readonly). This permission is strictly limited to identifying and downloading statement attachments matching specific processing labels.

Palo Alto Bookkeeping’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

(Note: If the email processing channel is temporarily offline, statements must be uploaded via the client portal).

5. Data retention

Client financial records and processing histories are retained for the duration of the active engagement and for a reasonable period thereafter to comply with statutory accounting and tax recordkeeping obligations. You may request deletion of non-statutory records at any time (§7).

6. Security

  • The client portal mandates two-factor authentication (2FA) and scans all uploads for malicious software.
  • Server backups are encrypted at rest with segregated key management.
  • Client records are handled solely by John Adams; no unauthorized third-party contractors or staff have direct access to your financial books.

7. Your rights

Under applicable data protection laws, you may contact me at any time to:

  • Review the personal and financial information held about you.
  • Correct inaccurate information.
  • Request an export of your transaction history and source records.
  • Request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal and professional record-retention requirements.

Requests can be submitted directly to [email protected].

8. Children’s privacy

This website and the bookkeeping services are intended solely for business owners and adults. Information from anyone under 18 is not knowingly collected.

9. Changes to this policy

If data handling practices change materially, this policy will be updated with a revised effective date, and active clients will receive direct notice via email or the client portal.

10. Contact

Palo Alto Bookkeeping — John Adams
Email: [email protected]
Location: Palo Alto, California