Privacy Policy
What Counsel is
Counsel is a financial-analysis application for small business owners. It connects, read-only, to accounts you own (for example payment processors, commerce platforms, or bank data providers), and computes statistical insights — revenue trends, cash-flow projections, expense audits — for you.
Where your data lives
- On your device. Transactions, expenses, insights, decisions, settings, and anything you import are stored in your browser/app's local storage on your own device. Analysis runs on-device.
- Not on our servers. When you use live sync, our service fetches your data from the provider, normalizes it, and returns it to your device in the same request. We do not persist your transactions, customers, or business records server-side.
What our sync service stores
- Access tokens you provide or authorize (e.g., a read-only API key), encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. These exist solely so we can fetch your data when you press Sync.
- An anonymous account record — a random identifier and a hashed secret generated by your device. No email, password, name, or profile is required or collected.
- Optional test fixtures — if you enable demo features (like seeded test history), that synthetic data is stored under your account until you remove it.
Connections are read-only
Counsel requests read-only access wherever the provider supports it. Counsel cannot move money, create charges, or modify anything in your connected accounts.
What we never do
- We never sell or rent your data.
- We never use your data to train AI models.
- We never show ads or share data with advertisers.
- We never access accounts you haven't explicitly connected.
Bank data (Plaid)
If you connect a bank account, the connection is made through Plaid Inc. You authenticate directly with your bank via Plaid; Counsel never sees your bank credentials. Transaction data retrieved through Plaid is returned to your device and handled as described above. Plaid's own practices are described in the Plaid End User Privacy Policy.
Analytics & tracking
The app contains no third-party analytics, tracking pixels, or advertising SDKs.
Deleting your data
- On-device data: Settings → “Delete my data” removes everything Counsel stores on your device.
- Sync service: disconnecting a provider deletes its token immediately; deleting your account removes the account record, all tokens, and any test fixtures.
Changes
If this policy changes materially, the effective date above changes with it, and the in-app notice will say so plainly. No silent edits.
Contact
Questions or requests: bgrutkowski13@gmail.com