Effective Date: May 2025

Introduction The Accounting Office, Inc. ("The Accounting Office," "we," "us," or "our") places the highest value on protecting your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal and financial information. We understand the sensitive nature of the Nonpublic Personal Information (NPI) and other personal data you entrust to us. This Privacy Policy explains our practices regarding the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of your information, including when you use our services, visit our website, or communicate with us, including via SMS (text message).

This policy is intended to inform you of how we handle your information and to comply with applicable privacy laws, including the requirements for text messaging services and the principles of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) applicable to financial institutions like ours.

The Information We Collect (Your Nonpublic Personal Information): We collect various types of Nonpublic Personal Information (NPI) and other personal data about you to provide our accounting, tax preparation, and related financial services. This information may include, but is not limited to:

• Information we receive from you on applications, tax organizers, forms, and in other communications: This includes details such as your name, address, Social Security Number, Employer Identification Number, phone number(s) (including mobile phone numbers for SMS communication, if you opt-in), email address, date of birth, dependents' information, and employment details.
• Information about your transactions with us: This includes details about the services we provide to you, our fee arrangements, and your payment history.
• Information we receive to prepare your financial statements or tax returns: This includes financial information such as income, assets, liabilities, bank account details, investment information, and other financial data necessary for our work.
• Information from tax documents: This includes W-2s, 1099s, K-1s, brokerage statements, and other documents provided by you or on your behalf.
• Other information relevant to our services: This may include business ownership details, partnership agreements, or other data you provide.

We collect this information through various channels, including client intake forms, client portals, secure file exchange, emails, telephone conversations, in-person meetings, mail, and when you explicitly provide your mobile number for SMS communications.

How We Use Your Information: We use your NPI and personal data for legitimate business purposes, primarily to:

• Provide accounting, bookkeeping, and tax preparation services as engaged by you.
• File tax returns and other required documents with federal, state, and local government agencies.
• Communicate with you regarding your account, our services, requests for information, and important updates. This includes SMS messaging if you have provided consent.
• Respond to your inquiries and service requests.
• Manage our client relationships and administer your account.
• Comply with applicable laws, regulations, professional standards, and legal processes.
• Protect against and prevent fraud, unauthorized transactions, claims, and other liabilities.

SMS (Text Message) Communications and Consent: We may offer SMS (text message) communication for direct, one-on-one conversations related to your accounting and tax work. Specifically, if you consent to receive SMS from The Accounting Office, Inc., you agree to receive text messages regarding updates on your work, requests for information, appointment confirmations, or responses to your inquiries. Messaging frequency will vary based on our active engagement. Message and data rates may apply. You can opt out at any time by contacting us directly.

You are not required to opt-in to SMS messages to receive our services, though it may facilitate quicker communication for certain matters. We obtain your consent for SMS communications as described above, or when you otherwise provide us with your mobile number and request or engage in SMS communication with us. We do not use SMS for unsolicited marketing messages.

Sharing Your Information (Your NPI and Personal Data): We are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your NPI and personal data. We do not sell your NPI or personal data to any third parties, and we do not share it with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

We only disclose your NPI and personal data as follows:

• With Service Providers: We may share your information with trusted third-party service providers who perform essential services on our behalf to help us operate our business and provide services to you. These may include providers of IT support, secure cloud hosting, document management portals, tax preparation software, or specialized accounting subcontractors who assist with tasks under our direction. These service providers are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of your information and are restricted from using it for any purpose other than providing the services for which we engage them.
• As Required or Permitted by Law: We may disclose your information when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to:
  • Comply with a legal obligation, subpoena, court order, or other lawful request by public authorities.
  • Cooperate with legal investigations or regulatory inquiries.
  • Comply with professional standards and ethical requirements.
  • Protect our rights, property, or safety, or the rights, property, or safety of our clients or others.
• SMS Opt-In Data and Consent Sharing (Specific to SMS): Notwithstanding any other provision in this Privacy Policy, we will not share, sell, rent, or lease your mobile phone number collected for SMS communications, or your SMS opt-in consent, with any third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes. Your mobile phone number and SMS consent will only be shared with our trusted communication platform providers solely for the purpose of enabling us to send and receive SMS messages with you on our behalf, and they are contractually obligated to protect this information.
• No Other Sharing Without Your Consent: Beyond the circumstances described above, we will not share your NPI or personal data with any other third parties without your explicit prior consent. As we do not share information with non-affiliated third parties for purposes that would trigger opt-out rights under GLBA (other than as permitted by law or with your consent), a specific GLBA opt-out for such sharing is not offered because the sharing itself does not occur.

Protecting Your Information (Our Data Security Practices): We maintain a comprehensive information security program with administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your NPI and personal data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These safeguards include:

• Restricting access to your NPI to only those employees and authorized service providers who need to know that information to provide products or services to you or manage our operations.
• Implementing technical security measures such as data encryption (where appropriate), firewalls, secure networks, and up-to-date anti-virus software.
• Utilizing physical security measures for our premises and data storage.
• Providing regular training to our employees on privacy and data security.
• Securely destroying or anonymizing NPI when it is no longer needed for business or legal purposes, in accordance with our data retention policies.

While we are committed to protecting your information, no security system is absolutely impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the complete security of any information you transmit to us or store on our systems.

Data Retention We retain your NPI and personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, to provide our services to you, to comply with our legal and professional obligations (including IRS regulations and accounting standards), to resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements.

Your Rights Regarding Your Information Subject to applicable law, you have certain rights regarding your NPI and personal data:

• Access: You may request access to the NPI we hold about you.
• Correction: You may request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete NPI.
• Deletion: You may request the deletion of your NPI, subject to our legal and professional retention obligations.
• Opt-out of SMS Communications: You can opt-out of receiving future SMS messages from us by contacting us. We will process your request promptly, though you may receive a final confirmation message if system-generated. Opting out of SMS will not affect other communications related to your services.
• SMS Support: For assistance with SMS communications, please contact us.

Our Policy Regarding Former Clients If your client relationship with The Accounting Office, Inc. ends, we will continue to treat and protect your NPI in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as required by applicable law.

Children's Data Our services are not directed to individuals under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected such information, we will take steps to delete it.

Updates to this Privacy Policy We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, services, or legal requirements. If we make material changes, we will notify you by posting the updated policy on our website and updating the "Effective Date" at the top of this policy. We encourage you to review this policy periodically to stay informed about how we are protecting your information.

Contact Us If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at info@theaccountingoffice.com