Alpha Accountants Privacy Policy
Alpha Accountants (London) Limited is a data controller bound by the provisions of the Data Protection Act (2018) and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The following policy outlines the information which we will collect about you during the course of our engagement and how that information will be used.
What information do we collect?
Under the money laundering regulations (2017) we are required by law to collect from you and to retain for five years after the termination of our engagement a copy of the photograph page of your passport and a recent utility bill stating your current address. Failure to provide this information will mean that we are unable to act on your behalf.
We will also collect such personal and financial information as is necessary for us to discharge our contractual obligations to you under the terms of our engagement letter. This includes your contact information, government reference numbers, employment information, bank statements and information and supporting evidence on any financial transactions occurring during the period of engagement. In order to satisfy our regulatory requirements, we will routinely retain such information for a period of seven years after the termination of our engagement.
Where information is required to enable us to fulfil your legal obligation to report true and fair financial information to either HM Revenue and Customs or Companies House, failure to provide this information may result in the termination of our engagement.
Where the terms of our engagement include a statutory audit, failure to provide any of the information requested may result in a modification of the audit opinion.
Where do we obtain our information?
The majority of the information which we hold on you will be provided by yourself directly, however we will obtain some information from selected third parties.
Information regarding company registered address, past financial results, directors and shareholders (where applicable) will be obtained from the Companies House website, where this information is publicly available.
Historical financial information including prior years' tax returns, payroll information, accounts, nominal ledger and supporting schedules will be obtained from your previous provider of accounting services where applicable.
How we use your personal information
We will use your personal and financial information in order to fulfil our contractual obligations as set out in our engagement letter. This may include the provision of bookkeeping services, the preparation and/or audit of financial statements, the calculation of tax liabilities and preparation of tax returns and the provision of payroll services.
We may wish to use your contact information to send you marketing information regarding the services we provide; however, we will not send such information without your prior expressed consent. Your consent may be withdrawn at any time either verbally or in writing.
In carrying out our contractual obligations as set out in our engagement letter we may utilise software which is capable of automated decision making. Use of such software is limited to the entry of bank statements and invoices into bookkeeping software. The software is trained using past transactions and the results are checked before any report is generated based on automatically entered transactions.
We will not use your personal or financial information for automated profiling.
How we share your personal information
In order for us to perform the work necessary to meet our contractual obligations to you as set out in our engagement letter it may be necessary for us to share your information with third party service providers including Wolters-Kluwer, Intuit and Microsoft. Careful consideration is given to the data security policies adopted by such providers prior to use.
In order to satisfy your legal obligations to file statutory accounts, confirmation statements and tax returns on your behalf, we may share your financial information with government authorities including HM Revenue and Customs and Companies House.
On termination of our engagement, we may be required to provide professional clearance to your next provider of accounting services. We will provide prior years' tax returns, payroll information, accounts, nominal ledger and supporting schedules to enable as seamless a transfer of services as possible.
Should your company require the services of a qualified insolvency practitioner, we may be required to provide financial information sufficient to enable them to appropriately liquidate and distribute the company's assets.
In the event that you should pass away during our engagement, we may be required to provide such financial information to the executor of your estate as to enable them to distribute your assets along with your wishes.
We will never share your personal or financial information with any other third party including financial institutions without your expressed consent.
Your rights over your information
You are afforded under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) a number of rights over the information we hold on you.
You have the right to request a copy of any of the information we hold about you. So that we may prevent your data being shared with unauthorised third parties, we require all requests for access to be made in writing and bear the signature of the persons to whom they relate.
Where you believe that any of the information which we hold about you is erroneous, you have the right to request for such information to be corrected.
Except where the information held about you is required in order to fulfil a legal, contractual or regulatory obligation, you have the right to request that any of the information we hold on you be permanently erased. Where we have shared such data with third parties, we have an obligation to notify them of erasure.
You have the right to restrict our usage of any of the information which you provide, except where such a restriction would make it impossible for us to meet our legal, contractual, or regulatory obligations.
On termination of our engagement, you have the right to request that your digitally stored financial information be provided to you in such a format as it may be easily ported to an alternative service provider.
We are obliged to respond to all requests within one calendar month of receipt.
Your right to complain.
If you are concerned about the way in which we handle your data, you may report your concerns to
the information commissioner's office at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/.
