Privacy Policy
Effective date: March 1, 2026 · Last updated: October 27, 2026
HassleFreeBooks is owned and operated by StepStone Realty, LLC (“we,” “us”). This policy explains what we collect when you use HassleFreeBooks and what we do with it.
1. Information We Collect
We collect information you provide directly when creating an account, such as your name, email address, and business details. We also collect usage data (pages visited, features used) to improve the service.
2. How We Use Your Information
Your information is used to operate and improve HassleFreebooks, including:
- Providing and maintaining your account
- Processing financial data you enter or sync via bank connections
- Importing sales, fees, refunds, disputes and payouts from the payment processors and marketplaces you connect
- Sending transactional emails (invoices, password resets, account alerts)
- Improving the product through aggregated, anonymized analytics
3. Data Retention
We retain your financial data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide services. If you close your account, we will delete or anonymize your data within 90 days, except where retention is required by law.
4. Data Sharing
We do not sell your personal information. We may share data with:
- Service providers, only as needed to operate the product: Plaid (bank connections), Mailgun (email delivery, and receiving the receipts you forward to your receipts address), Twilio (text-message sign-in codes) and OpenAI (reading documents you upload, such as statements and receipts, and the AI features you choose to use).
- Legal obligations — when required by law, regulation, or legal process.
5. Bank Connections (Plaid)
When you connect a bank account, HassleFreeBooks uses Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”) to retrieve your account names, balances and transactions from your financial institution. We use that data only to import transactions into your books and to show your account balances; we do not use it for any other purpose or share it with anyone else.
You sign in to your bank through Plaid’s secure window. HassleFreeBooks never sees or stores your bank username or password. By connecting an account you acknowledge that Plaid collects and processes your information in accordance with the Plaid End User Privacy Policy.
You can disconnect a bank at any time from Bank Connections. Disconnecting revokes HassleFreeBooks’ access at Plaid and stops further imports; transactions already imported stay in your books.
6. Payment Processor and Marketplace Connections
When you connect a payment processor or marketplace (Stripe, PayPal, Square, Shopify Payments or Amazon), HassleFreeBooks imports your sales, processor fees, refunds, disputes and payouts, with the order or invoice number they carry, so each deposit can be matched to your bank and posted to your books. Access is read-only: we cannot move money, change your store or contact your customers.
For Shopify, HassleFreeBooks reads only your Shopify Payments balance transactions and payouts. It does not read your customers’ names, email addresses, phone numbers or shipping addresses. If you uninstall HassleFreeBooks from Shopify, your access token is deleted and imports stop at once; when Shopify asks us to erase a store’s data after an uninstall, we do so. Activity already imported stays in your books, which you can delete at any time.
For Amazon, HassleFreeBooks uses only Amazon’s Finance and Accounting access to read your settlement reports. It does not read buyer names, addresses or any other buyer information, and it cannot change your listings, orders or prices. Only the authorization Amazon issues to us is stored, encrypted. Amazon offers no way for us to revoke access ourselves, so after disconnecting also remove HassleFreeBooks in Seller Central under Apps and Services › Manage Your Apps.
When you connect an inventory system (Cin7 Core or Katana) with an API key you create there, HassleFreeBooks reads the cost of the goods you ship, the stock you receive from suppliers, stock adjustments and the value of the stock you hold, so cost of goods sold and your inventory balance can be posted to your books. It does not read your customers’ or suppliers’ contact details, and it does not change your products, orders or stock. The one thing it adds to your account is a webhook of its own, so that changes reach your books sooner; it removes that webhook when you disconnect. The key is stored encrypted, and deleting it in Cin7 Core or Katana ends our access from your side.
You can disconnect any processor or inventory system from Merchant Accounts. Disconnecting deletes the stored credential and stops further imports.
7. Google Sheets Report Exports
If you connect a Google account on the Report Exports page, HassleFreeBooks asks Google for your account’s email address and for permission to create and update only the spreadsheets HassleFreeBooks itself creates (Google’s drive.file permission). It cannot see, open or change any other file in your Google Drive. It writes the reports you choose (such as your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet) into that spreadsheet on the schedule you set, and does nothing else with your Google account.
The access Google issues is stored encrypted and used only to write those exports. HassleFreeBooks’ use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements: we do not sell it, use it for advertising, use it to train AI models, or let anyone read it except to provide this feature, for security, or where the law requires. Disconnecting on the Report Exports page revokes our access at Google; you can also remove HassleFreeBooks at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Spreadsheets already written stay in your Drive.
8. Security
All traffic to HassleFreeBooks is encrypted in transit (TLS). Bank and processor access tokens and two-factor secrets are encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM, passwords are stored only as salted hashes, and role-based access controls limit who in your business can see or change your books.
9. Your Rights
You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting us.
10. Contact Us
If you have questions about this policy, reach us at support@hasslefreebooks.com or visit our contact page.