Privacy Policy of Visionary Accountants

‘Visionary Accountants’ is a trading style of ‘Accounting For You Limited’ a private limited company registered in England and Wales (Co. Number: 06722735) whose registered office is at 2 Adelaide Street, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 5BH.

At Visionary we are committed to maintaining the trust and confidence of visitors to our website and we would never sell, rent, trade or share email lists with other companies and businesses for marketing or other purposes. This Privacy Policy provides detailed information on when and why we collect your personal information, how we use it, the limited conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We prioritise keeping your personal data safe, which is why we are notifying you about changes to our privacy policy following new data protection regulations introduced on 25th May 2018 called GDPR.

This privacy notice explains how Visionary Accountants use any personal information we collect about you including:

• How we use your data
• What personal data we collect and why
• How we protect your data and privacy
• Your legal rights relating to your personal data

How we use your data

We may collect information about you in order to provide you with the services for which you engage us.

If you explicitly agree, or are an engaged client of Visionary’s, or sign up to our newsletter or mailing list via the website, we may email you newsletters and information about relevant legislative changes/updates in tax or other business or compliance related areas which we think you need to be aware of or may be interested in.

We may email you about events or presentations that we, or our partners or other recommended service providers, are running that we think may be of interest or use to you. We may email you about services we, or our partners or other recommended service providers, offer that we think may be of interest or use to you.

We will not share your information for marketing purposes with other companies or third-parties.

In order to deliver our services to you effectively we may share your details with partners or service providers, such as those that we engage on your behalf for professional or legal services.

Where third parties are involved in processing your data we will have a contract in place with them to ensure that the nature and purpose of the processing is clear, that they are subject to a duty of confidence in processing your data and that they will only act in accordance with our written instructions.

Where it’s necessary for your personal data to be forwarded to a third party we will use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data in transit. For example; all personal data we transfer by email will be password protected where possible. We will use secure data exchange solutions for document sharing where possible.

To fulfil our obligations in respect of prevention of money-laundering and other financial crime we may send your details to third party agencies for identity verification purposes.

We may share your details with our regulatory bodies to fulfil our statutory and legal responsibilities. For example: HMRC, CIMA or Companies House.

What information do we collect about you and why?

The primary legal basis that we intend to use for the processing of your data is for the performance of our contract with you. The information that we collect about you is essential for us to be able to carry out the services that you require from us effectively. Without collecting your personal data we would also be unable to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations.

We collect information about you when you engage us for accountancy, tax or payroll services. This information will relate to your personal, financial and business circumstances.

We may also collect information when you voluntarily complete client surveys or provide feedback to us.

Information relating to usage of our website is collected using cookies. These are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. We use cookies to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity. You can set your browser not to accept cookies or to delete cookies. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

We may use a third-party service, such as Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow third-parties to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

We may need to gather personal information about your close family members and dependants in order to provide our services to you effectively. In such cases it will be your responsibility to ensure that you have the consent of the people concerned to pass their information on to us. We’ll provide a copy of this privacy notice for them or, where appropriate, ask you to pass the privacy information to them.

How do we protect your data and privacy?

We take the protection of your data and privacy extremely seriously. Data is held in a single location, within a firewalled environment, with live remote monitoring for cyber threat, unauthorised access or IT failure. We use an expert IT monitoring and consultancy firm to ensure our systems, software and security are always up-to-date.

As a firm we have achieved Cyber Essentials certification every year since 2017 having undergone rigorous cyber-security auditing and testing by a third-party expert. This is a government standard accredited by the National Cyber Security Centre.

We use password protection for email data exchange, secure document exchange portals and electronic secure document signature and approval solutions.

We only use GDPR compliant partners and service providers with a minimum of Cyber Essentials certification where possible.

What are your rights relating to your personal data?

During the course of our relationship with you we’ll retain personal data which is necessary to provide services to you. We’ll take all reasonable steps to keep your personal data up-to-date throughout our relationship.

We are also subject to regulatory requirements to retain your data for specified minimum periods. For example; HMRC enquiries, VAT enquiries, payroll/pension/employee enquiries, money-laundering investigation, Companies House records, CIMA compliance audits or compliance with our professional indemnity insurance requirements.

These may be minimum periods, during which we have a legal obligation to retain your records but we reserve the right to retain data for longer where we believe it's in our legitimate interests to do so. In any case, we’ll not keep your personal data for longer than 20 years after our relationship with you has ended.

You have the right to request deletion of your personal data. We’ll comply with this request, subject to the restrictions of our regulatory obligations and legitimate interests as noted above.

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some, or all, of your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact details noted below.

When your personal data is processed by automated means you have the right to ask us to move your personal data to another organisation for their use.

We have an obligation to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Please ask us to correct or remove any information that you think is incorrect.

Marketing

We would like to send you information about Visionary Accountants’ products and services which may be of interest to you. If you have agreed to receive marketing information, you may opt out at a later date. However, please note that the Visionary Accountants’ newsletter is included as part of our ongoing client service contract with you and is not considered marketing information.

You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing. If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please either unsubscribe, speak to your account manager, contact us by post or email us.

Other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to our website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on the Visionary Accountants’ website at www.visionaryaccountants.co.uk. You will be informed of any changes in our client newsletter. This privacy policy was last updated on 31/07/2023

How to contact us

Please contact our Data Protection Officer, Chris Wallace (details below), if you have any questions about our privacy policy, or information we hold about you.

Email: ku.oc.stnatnuoccayranoisiv@seiriuqne

Or write to:

Chris Wallace
Visionary Accountants
2 Adelaide Street
St Albans
Hertfordshire
AL3 5BH

What can you do if you do not agree with how your personal data is processed?

You also have a right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority for data protection. In the UK this is:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF