Privacy policy

Firmdesk is practice software for accounting, bookkeeping and tax firms. Firms keep their clients' information in it, so this page says plainly what is collected, where it is kept, who can see it and how to get it back or have it deleted.

In short

What a firm puts in Firmdesk belongs to the firm. We use it only to run the service for that firm.
The app, its database and the documents are on servers in Canada (Québec).
We don't sell information. There is no advertising in the app, and no analytics company sees how it's used.
A firm can export everything, and delete everything, from its own settings.

1. Who we are

Firmdesk is a product of Neperian Inc., a corporation in Ontario, Canada. In this policy "we" means Neperian Inc..

The person responsible for privacy at Neperian Inc. can be reached at admin@firmdesk.ca.

2. Two kinds of information, two roles

What a firm keeps in Firmdesk about its clients: names, contact details, business numbers, deadlines, documents such as tax returns and slips, requests and answers, time, invoices and payments. The firm decides what goes in and what it's used for. We keep and process it on the firm's behalf, as its service provider. If you are a firm's client, the firm is who to ask about your information; we help the firm answer.

What we collect to run the service: the accounts of the people who sign in, and the records of how the service is used. For this we are the organization responsible.

3. What we collect

What	Why
Your name, email address and password. The password is kept as a one-way hash: nobody, including us, can read it.	To sign you in and to write to you about your account.
Two-factor sign-in: the key shared with your authenticator app, and your recovery codes.	To check the codes you enter.
What the firm and its clients put in: records, documents, messages.	To provide the service to the firm.
Activity: signing in and out, failed sign-ins, documents opened and shared, settings changed, with the date, the internet address and the kind of browser.	So a firm can see who did what, and to protect accounts.
A record of the emails the app sent: to whom, the subject, and whether it went.	So a firm knows what its clients were sent.
The first steps each firm takes, and when: signing up, confirming the email address, setting up the firm, importing its clients, inviting a client, sending a request or an invoice, with how many at once. Never a client's name or anything the firm wrote.	To see where new firms get stuck, and make those steps easier. It stays in our own database: no analytics company sees it.
What you send through our forms: an application to the pilot program (your firm, your name, email and role, and what you tell us about your firm), or feedback about the app (what happened, on which page, and a screenshot if you add one).	To choose and run the pilot program, and to fix and improve the app.
A call you book with us (a demo, an onboarding call): your name, email and your answers to its questions.	To prepare the call and hold it.
Files a firm sends us for its move to Firmdesk (its client list, other exports), and its note with them.	To bring the firm's clients into Firmdesk for it.
Cookies: one that keeps you signed in, one that protects forms, and one that remembers a browser you chose to trust.	To make the app work. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.
Using the free deadline calculator: the internet address each calendar is asked from, counted.	To stop one address from asking for thousands of calendars at once.
A calendar you have the deadline calculator email you: your email address, in the record of emails the app sent, and a count of the calendars sent to it that doesn't keep the address itself. If you tick the box for our monthly email: your address, the words you agreed to, when, and the calendar you asked for.	To send the calendar, and no more than a few a day to one address. With the box ticked, to send you our monthly email of CRA deadlines and news about Firmdesk until you unsubscribe, and to show that you agreed to it, as Canada's anti-spam law asks.

We don't buy information about you from anyone, and we don't build profiles.

4. What we use it for

To provide the service, keep it secure, help when someone asks for support, send the emails the service is meant to send, and meet our legal obligations. In a firm's first two weeks we also send its owners a few emails to help them get started; each has a link that stops them. We don't use a firm's information, or its clients', for anything else. We don't sell it, rent it, or use it for advertising or to train AI models.

When you have the free deadline calculator email you a calendar, we send it, and that's all unless you tick the box for our monthly email: then we send you that too, until you unsubscribe with the link at the bottom of any of them.

5. Where it is kept

The app, its database and the documents are on servers in Beauharnois, Québec, Canada. The files a firm sends us for its move are kept there and never copied to backups; our staff may download one to a computer of ours in Canada to read it, and delete that copy once the file is imported.

Four things can leave Canada, and you should know about them:

Backups. Copies of the database and the documents are kept with Cloudflare, encrypted at rest. Cloudflare doesn't promise to keep them in one country.
A client portal on the firm's own address. When a firm gives its client portal an address of its own (a name on firmdesk.ca, or the firm's own domain), the connection to it goes through Cloudflare's network, which may carry it through another country. Cloudflare decrypts it there and sends it on to our servers encrypted again. It keeps no copy of the pages or the documents (the app tells it not to); like any network, it records technical details of each connection, such as the address it came from.
Emails. The emails the app sends (invites, reminders, sign-in codes) are delivered by Resend, in the United States. An email holds the recipient's name and address and its own text. Documents are never attached to emails: they stay in the portal.
Our forms and calls. An application to the pilot program, or feedback sent with "Send feedback" in the app, is kept by Tally, in the European Union (Belgium). Tally's emails telling us about a new response go through the United States. A call booked with us (a demo, an onboarding call) is kept by Cal.com, in the United States: the name, email and answers given when booking. Please don't put a client's information in any of them.

Information kept outside Canada is subject to the laws of the country it is in. The companies that help run the service, and what each one handles, are listed under Who helps run it.

6. Who can see it

The firm's team, according to the access the firm gave each person.
A client's contacts, who see only what the firm shared with that client.
Neperian Inc. staff, only when it is needed to keep the service running or when a firm asks for help, and as little as the task needs. Sending us files for your move is asking for that help: our staff open those files to import them, and each time shows in the firm's activity log.
The companies that help run the service, each bound by contract to protect what it handles and to use it only for us.
Authorities, only when the law requires it. Unless the law forbids it, we tell the firm first.

7. How long it is kept

What	How long
A firm's records and documents	As long as the firm keeps its workspace, or until the firm deletes them
A deleted client or document	Gone from the service at once; gone from backups within 30 days
A workspace an owner asked to delete	Deleted 30 days after the request, unless an owner cancels; gone from backups within 30 days after that
A workspace whose plan or trial ended	Deleted 90 days after it ended, unless the firm chooses a plan; gone from backups within 30 days after that
The activity log	12 months
The record of a firm's first steps	As long as the firm keeps its workspace. When a person's login is deleted, the date they signed up stays, without anything that says who they were
Exports a firm asked for	24 hours
Files a firm sends us for its move	30 days after they're sent, or sooner when the firm or we delete them. The files themselves are never in backups
Failed sign-ins	One day
The count of calendars asked for from one internet address, or emailed to one email address	One day
The record of a calendar the deadline calculator emailed (the address it went to)	90 days
Your agreement to our monthly email	Until you unsubscribe. After that we keep your address, the words you agreed to and the dates, so that nothing more is sent to it by mistake, until you ask us to delete them
Pilot applications, feedback sent through our forms, and calls booked with us	Up to two years, then deleted

Firms have their own duties to keep records, for example tax records for six years. Firmdesk keeps what a firm keeps in it; when to delete is the firm's decision.

8. How it is protected

Connections are encrypted. Owners and admins sign in with two steps, and a firm can require it of everyone. Clients confirm a code sent to their email. Sessions end on their own after hours without activity. Each firm's information is kept apart from every other firm's. The details are on the Security page.

If information is lost or seen by someone who shouldn't have, and there is a real risk of significant harm, we tell the firms concerned without delay, and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec where the law requires it.

9. Your rights

You can ask to see the personal information held about you, to have it corrected, and to have it deleted where the law allows. In Québec you can also ask for a copy in a common format, and withdraw consent you gave.

If you are a firm's client, ask the firm. It holds your file and decides what to keep. We give the firm the tools to answer you: it can export your information or delete it.
If you are on a firm's team, change your own details in your user settings, or ask an owner of your firm's workspace.
If you get our monthly email, unsubscribe with the link at the bottom of any of them.
For anything else, write to admin@firmdesk.ca. We answer within 30 days.

If you aren't satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or, in Québec, to the Commission d'accès à l'information.

10. Children

Firmdesk is for firms and the adults who deal with them. A firm may keep information about a client's dependants, as tax returns require. Children don't have accounts.

11. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes in a way that matters, firms are told by email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. The date at the bottom of this page says when it last changed.