How we look after your personal information

Who we are and which laws apply

Finvo Partners Ltd. ("Finvo", "we", "us") is an accounting firm working with individuals and businesses in British Columbia and Alberta. This policy explains how we handle personal information when you visit this website, contact us or become a client.

In BC and Alberta, each province's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) generally covers how private businesses like ours handle personal information. The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) can apply in some situations, such as when information crosses provincial or national borders. We follow the law that applies to each situation.

What we collect and why

We collect what we need to reply to you and to do the work you ask us for. Depending on the service, that can include:

• your name, email address, phone number and mailing address;
• tax and financial information, such as your social insurance number, income slips, notices of assessment, bank and credit card statements, receipts and business records;
• information about your family or business that affects your taxes or accounts;
• notes of our calls and messages with you.

When you contact us by form, email or phone, we use the details you give us to reply and, if you become a client, to provide the service. We use client information to prepare your books, returns and reports, to deal with CRA and provincial bodies for you, to bill you and to keep the records the law requires.

We ask for your consent when we collect personal information, unless the law allows otherwise. You can withdraw your consent by telling us, subject to legal or contract limits. If you do, we'll explain how it affects the work we can do for you.

We don't sell personal information.

This website

No ads

This website shows no ads and uses no advertising or retargeting tools. We count visits with Google Analytics; the next section explains exactly what that collects and how to turn it off.

Hosting and server logs

The site is hosted on Google Firebase Hosting. Like most web hosts, it keeps standard server logs, which can include your IP address, browser details and the pages requested. Our fonts load from Google Fonts, so your browser also connects to Google's servers to show the page.

Calculators and checkers

Our free tools run in your browser, and their summaries need nothing from you. What you type into a calculator or checker isn't stored or sent to us unless you ask for a calculator's full breakdown with the report form (see contact form, calculator report and chat enquiries). When you do, you can download the report as a PDF straight away, and we email you one message with a private link to it. The link works for 3 days: the copy behind it holds the report, the numbers you entered and your first name (never your email or phone), anyone who has the link can open it until then, and it is deleted after it expires. Visitor counting only records that a calculator was used, which province and tab were chosen, and whether a full breakdown was asked for, opened or printed; never the amounts.

Notice of Assessment upload

On the income tax calculator you can choose to send us a copy of your Notice of Assessment so our team can look at it with you. We ask for your name, email, an optional phone number and your consent. The file goes straight from your browser to a private storage area in Canada (Montréal) that only our website can write to; it is not public and has no public address. We delete the file automatically 7 days after it arrives, and the upload record after the same 7 days. We never ask for or read your Social Insurance Number; you can cover it before uploading. Our team is told by email that a file has arrived. To limit misuse, each person can upload up to 3 files an hour.

Booking a call

If you book a call through our online booking page, which runs on Google Calendar, the details you enter go to Google and to us so we can hold the time and contact you.

Documents and the client portal

Clients share documents with us through the secure client portal at portal.finvo.ca (opens in a new tab).

Please don't email your SIN or tax slips; use the portal.

Website chat (Finvo AI)

Finvo AI (our website chat) answers general questions about Finvo from the content of this website. After you type your first question, and before it answers, it asks for your name, email, phone number, whether you are an existing client and your business type, with a consent box. Those details go to our team and our enquiry database (below); your email and phone number never go to an AI model. The questions you type, and our website content, are sent to Anthropic PBC, whose Claude (Sonnet) model generates the reply on servers in the United States. We remove anything that looks like an email address, phone number, SIN or account number before sending, and we ask you not to type personal details into the chat. Anthropic does not use this data to train its models and keeps it for a limited time for safety monitoring (see Anthropic's privacy policy). You can write in English or another language, and the chat replies in the language you use; its fixed notices are in English. When the conversation ends, the conversation, your name, whether you are a client and your business type go to Anthropic's Claude (Haiku) model, which writes a short summary for our team. We keep the conversation and that summary, together with your enquiry details, for as long as we keep the enquiry, so our team can follow up and check quality. If a conversation is warned or ended for misuse, we record that too. You can ask us to delete your chats and details at any time by contacting our privacy officer. The chat uses Google reCAPTCHA to block automated abuse, which means your browser connects to Google when the chat opens; the reCAPTCHA badge is hidden and the notice Google requires is shown inside the chat window instead. Your browser keeps the conversation for the current tab only, together with the details you entered so they can be filled in again if the conversation times out, so it follows you from page to page and is gone when the tab closes. It also keeps a random identifier and your first name for 30 days so that, if you come back, the chat can greet you and offer to continue as you without asking for your details again; choosing "Not you? Start fresh" in the chat removes it.

Contact form, calculator report and chat enquiries

When you send us your details through the contact form or the chat, we store your name, email, phone, the industry and topic you choose, your message, the page you were on, how you found the site (for example a search engine or campaign tag) and the time, in our Google Firebase database located in Canada (Montréal). The calculator report form ("Get your full breakdown" on our calculators) stores your name, email, optional phone, your consent and the calculator inputs and results you entered. We use them to reply to you and, for a calculator report, to email you the 3-day link to it. With each enquiry we also store a one-way, salted code made from your IP address (not the address itself; it limits repeated sending) and the reCAPTCHA score Google returns. The contact form, the referral form and the calculator report form use Google reCAPTCHA too: it loads when you first start filling in the form, not when the page opens. When an enquiry arrives, and when a chat ends, our team receives an email with your details and, for a chat, the conversation and its summary. Four Finvo team accounts, each signed in with Google, can read enquiries in our team console. Each enquiry record carries a deletion date 24 months after our last contact, renewed when you contact us again, and is deleted after that date unless it becomes part of your client file. To have it deleted sooner, contact our privacy officer. If you arrive through a referral link (finvo.ca/r/ followed by a code, or a page address ending in ?ref=), your browser keeps that code in its local storage for 90 days so the person who introduced you can be credited when you sign up; it travels with your enquiry and nowhere else. It never reaches Google Analytics: the referral link page doesn't load visitor counting, and the page addresses we count leave out everything after the "?". Clearing your browser data removes it.

Referral form

When you create a referral link on our referral page, we store your name, email, the code in your link, whether you are an existing client, your consent, the page and the time, in the same database, so we can credit you when someone you introduce becomes a client. It is kept and deleted like an enquiry.

Visitor counting and your choices

We use Google Analytics 4 to count visits and see which pages and tools people find useful. It runs only on the live site, and only if your browser isn't sending a privacy signal and you haven't opted out.

What it collects

• the pages you visit, roughly how long you stay, and the site or search that brought you here;
• your browser, device type and approximate region (city level), worked out by Google from your connection and then discarded. Google doesn't keep IP addresses for this;
• a few actions: which calculator was used (with the province and tab chosen, never any amounts), clicks on "Book a free 15-minute call", phone, email, client-portal and Google-reviews links, which questions were opened, use of the print button, whether a calculator's full breakdown was asked for, opened (and whether our copy was saved) or printed, and pages not found;
• twelve counts from the website chat: that it was opened (and from where), that a question was asked (the turn number, the kind of reply and whether it was typed, a suggested question or typed in the small invitation card), that a question was answered from our own help notes rather than by the model (the topic, such as prices or offices), that one of the built-in suggested questions was clicked (which part of the site it belongs to, such as pricing or locations), that the details card was shown (and whether before or after your first question), that it was sent (with the business type chosen and whether you said you are an existing client), that a returning visitor continued (and whether the saved identifier was still recognised), that the chat was unavailable (and why), and that the small invitation card was shown (new or returning visitor), used (which of its buttons) or closed. Never the text of a question, your name, email or phone.

It never collects your name, email, phone number, anything you type into a form or calculator, or anything from the client portal. We have switched off Google's advertising features, so nothing is used to build an ad profile.

Who processes it and how long it's kept

Google LLC processes the data for us on its servers, which can be outside Canada. Google keeps the detailed event data for two months and the monthly summary reports stay in our Analytics account. A small cookie on your device tells Google Analytics whether you've visited before; it holds a random number, not your name.

Your choices

• If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, we don't count your visit at all.
• Opt out here at any time. Your choice is saved in this browser only, so repeat it on another device or after clearing your browser data.

Visitor counting on this browser is off (not the live site). Turn it off or back on in Your privacy choices.

To ask what we hold about your visit, or to have it deleted, contact our privacy officer (details below). Because the data isn't tied to your name, we may ask for the identifier from the Google Analytics cookie to find it.

What this website keeps in your browser

A few small items are saved in your own browser, not on our servers, so the site remembers your choices. None of them holds tax or financial information. You can clear the ones that matter most in Your privacy choices, or clear them all in your browser's settings.

Your privacy choices

These controls work on this browser only. Each one tells you when it's done. To see, correct or delete what we hold on our side, contact our privacy officer.

Who we share it with

We share personal information only as far as needed for the purpose, and only with:

• CRA and provincial bodies, when we file or deal with them for you. Clients authorize us with CRA; see how to add us on CRA.
• Service providers that host or process data for us, such as our website host, our client portal, our booking page, Google Analytics (visit counts only, see above), Anthropic PBC (website chat replies, see above), Google reCAPTCHA (abuse prevention), and Google Firebase (our website host and enquiry database, Canada region). Some of them may store or process information outside Canada, where it can be subject to the laws of that country.
• A licensed insurance agent, only with your permission. See insurance.
• Others where the law requires it, for example a valid legal demand.

How we use AI on client work, and where it stops, is explained on how we use AI. We don't put your personal details into public AI tools.

Protecting and keeping records

We protect personal information with safeguards suited to how sensitive it is. Access to your file is limited to the people working on it.

CRA generally requires tax records to be kept for six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, and sometimes longer. We keep records for as long as the law requires and as long as we need them for your work.

Website chats, their summaries, referral sign-ups, calculator report requests and contact form and chat enquiries carry a deletion date 24 months after our last contact (renewed when you contact us again) and are deleted after it, unless they become part of your client file; you can ask for them to be deleted sooner. The copy behind an emailed report link stops working after 3 days and is then deleted.

Access, correction and complaints

Ask to see or correct your information

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it's wrong. Contact our privacy officer (details below) and tell us what you'd like to see or change. We may ask you to confirm who you are first. If we can't share part of a record, for a reason the law allows, we'll tell you why.

Make a complaint

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell our privacy officer first, so we can try to put it right. If you're not satisfied with our answer, you can contact the privacy regulator that applies to you:

• the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC (OIPC BC) (opens in a new tab);
• the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC Alberta) (opens in a new tab);
• the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (opens in a new tab), the federal Privacy Commissioner.

Contact our privacy officer

For any privacy question or request, contact the Privacy Officer, Finvo Partners Ltd., at contact@finvo.ca, or call (236) 300-3322, Mon–Fri, 9 am – 5 pm PT/MT. You can also write to us at any of our offices.

See also our terms of use and accessibility pages.