Bay Legal Trust Reconciliation — Privacy Policy (QuickBooks Online)

Effective date: October 14, 2026

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

Bay Legal, PC (“Bay Legal,” “we” or “us”) is a California law firm. This policy explains how our internal software tool, Bay Legal Trust Reconciliation (the “App”), accesses, uses, stores and protects data from QuickBooks Online through Intuit’s application programming interface (API).

This policy covers only the App and the QuickBooks data it accesses. Our general website privacy policy covers visitors to baylegal.com.

2. Who uses the App

The App is private. Only Bay Legal and its authorized staff use it, and it connects only to Bay Legal’s own QuickBooks Online company. We do not offer it to clients, other businesses or the public.

3. Data the App accesses

With the firm’s authorization, the App reads the following from Bay Legal’s QuickBooks Online company, using Intuit’s Accounting API (scope com.intuit.quickbooks.accounting):

• Company information, such as the company name and QuickBooks company ID;
• The chart of accounts and account balances;
• Transactions needed for trust reconciliation, such as deposits, checks, transfers and journal entries, including dates, amounts, payee or payer names and memos. These may identify the firm’s clients;
• Company settings needed to check the data is interpreted correctly, such as whether multiple currencies are enabled.

The App does not access QuickBooks Payments, Payroll or Intuit login credentials. It has read-only access and never creates, changes or deletes QuickBooks data.

4. How we use the data

We use QuickBooks data only to:

• perform the firm’s three-way reconciliation of its client trust (IOLTA) accounts, comparing QuickBooks records with the firm’s practice-management trust ledgers and bank statements;
• identify discrepancies for the firm’s bookkeeping staff and responsible attorney to review and correct; and
• keep the trust account records California attorneys must maintain under Rule 1.15 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct.

We do not use QuickBooks data for advertising, marketing or profiling. We do not sell it. We do not use it to train artificial-intelligence models, and our service providers may not either.

5. Where data is processed and stored

The App runs on computers controlled by Bay Legal. QuickBooks data is compared there with records from the firm’s practice-management system (Clio) and its bank statements.

Reconciliation results are shown on a private, internal dashboard hosted by Anthropic (claude.ai). Only authorized Bay Legal staff can see it. The firm also uses Anthropic’s Claude, a generative-AI service, to operate the App and review its results, so Claude may process QuickBooks-derived data. Anthropic acts as the firm’s service provider under its commercial terms, under which customer data is not used to train its models.

6. How we share data

We do not sell QuickBooks data or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose it only:

• to the service providers described in section 5, which process it on the firm’s behalf;
• to the firm’s accountants or auditors, when needed for the firm’s own accounting; and
• to the State Bar of California, a court or a government authority when required by law, regulation, subpoena or court order.

7. How we protect data

• Read-only access is enforced in the App’s code: it cannot send any request that would change QuickBooks data.
• All connections to QuickBooks use encrypted HTTPS (TLS).
• QuickBooks connection credentials (OAuth 2.0 tokens and app keys) are stored in files only the App’s operating account can read. They are never written into source code, displayed on screen or recorded in logs.
• Computers holding QuickBooks data or credentials use full-disk encryption.
• Access is limited to authorized staff. Multi-factor authentication is required on the Intuit administrator account used to connect the App and on the account hosting the dashboard.
• Error logs record technical details only (such as error codes and Intuit’s transaction ID), never credentials. They are kept for 90 days.

8. How long we keep data

• Connection credentials are kept only while the App is connected. They stop working when the App is disconnected and are replaced whenever the connection is renewed.
• QuickBooks-derived reconciliation records form part of the firm’s client trust account records. They are kept for at least five years, as Rule 1.15(d)(3) of the California Rules of Professional Conduct requires, and then securely deleted.
• Error logs are kept for 90 days.

9. Disconnecting the App

An administrator of Bay Legal’s QuickBooks Online company can disconnect the App at any time in QuickBooks Online (Apps / Manage integrations). Disconnecting stops all further access immediately. Data the firm has already retained under section 8 is kept as described there.

10. Individuals’ privacy rights

Some QuickBooks records the App reads identify the firm’s clients or other individuals. Anyone with a question or request about their personal information may contact us using the details below. We will respond as applicable law requires, subject to the firm’s legal and professional obligations to keep client trust account records and to protect client confidentiality.

11. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy if the App’s use of QuickBooks data changes. The updated version takes effect when posted on this page, with a new effective date.

12. Contact us

Bay Legal, PC · 667 Lytton Ave Ste 3, Palo Alto, CA 94301

Email: info@baylegal.com · Phone: (650) 668-8000

QuickBooks is a trademark of Intuit Inc. Bay Legal Trust Reconciliation is not made, endorsed or supported by Intuit.