Privacy Policy

Last updated: August 22, 2026

Bare Bones Books ("we", "us") provides bookkeeping services to sole proprietors and small businesses in Alberta, Canada. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your rights over it.

Information We Collect

When you engage our services, we collect: (a) contact and business information you provide directly; (b) financial and accounting data from your QuickBooks Online account, accessed only after you explicitly authorize the connection; and (c) records of your interactions with our support and bookkeeping chat tools.

How We Use Your Information

We use your information solely to provide bookkeeping services: categorizing transactions, reconciling accounts, preparing financial reports, and responding to your requests. We do not sell your information, and we do not use your QuickBooks data for any purpose outside delivering our bookkeeping service to you.

AI-Assisted Processing

Our service uses Anthropic's Claude AI models to help automate bookkeeping tasks such as transaction categorization. As part of this, relevant portions of your financial data are sent to Anthropic's API for processing. Anthropic acts as a data processor on our behalf and does not use your data to train its models. Data sent for processing is used only to generate the specific bookkeeping output requested and is not retained by Anthropic beyond what is necessary to provide that response.

Data Storage & Security

Your QuickBooks connection credentials are encrypted at rest using industry-standard encryption (AES-256) and are never stored or transmitted in plain text. Our infrastructure runs on Google Cloud with data hosted in Canada. Access to client data is restricted to authorized Bare Bones Books staff performing bookkeeping work on your account.

Third Parties

We share information with: Intuit / QuickBooks Online (the platform your data originates from, under its own terms and privacy policy); Anthropic (as described above); and Google Cloud (our infrastructure provider, which stores data but does not access it for its own purposes). We do not share your information with any other third party except as required by law.

Your Rights

Under Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and Canada's PIPEDA, you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, request corrections, and request deletion (subject to our obligations to retain financial records under applicable law). To exercise these rights, contact us at support@barebonesbooks.ca.

Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as you are an active client, and afterward only as required to meet legal and tax record-keeping obligations. You may disconnect your QuickBooks Online account from our service at any time.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated to active clients directly.

Contact

Questions about this policy: support@barebonesbooks.ca.