Privacy Policy

1. Overview and Commitment to Confidentiality

Step1Advisors ("we," "our," or "us") provides fractional CFO, technical GAAP advisory, remote accounting, and audit readiness services to corporate entities and founders globally. We recognize that our engagements involve access to non-public financial records, cap tables, tax returns, and strategic operational data. Protecting this information is foundational to our professional duty.

2. Information We Collect

In the course of providing advisory and accounting services, we may collect and process:

• Business Contact Details: Names, corporate email addresses, phone numbers, and job titles of your executive team and accounting personnel.
• Engagement Financial Records: General ledgers, trial balances, bank feeds, customer contracts, equity capitalization tables, debt agreements, and tax filings provided for advisory analysis.
• Diagnostic Information: Information submitted via our website discovery form to scope diagnostic calls and advisory proposals.

3. Purpose of Processing

We strictly use client information to:

• Perform scoped accounting, controller, and CFO engagements agreed upon under executed engagement letters.
• Draft technical accounting memos under US GAAP, IFRS, or Ind AS (such as ASC 606 revenue recognition and ASC 842 lease evaluations).
• Coordinate external audit schedules and auditor Provided-by-Client (PBC) request lists.
• Maintain engagement records required by professional regulatory bodies.

We never monetize, license, or sell client data to third parties or advertising brokers.

4. Data Protection and Information Security

All electronic financial data is processed in enterprise-grade cloud accounting environments (e.g., QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite) or encrypted cloud file vaults. We enforce strict role-based access controls, multi-factor authentication (MFA) across all staff accounts, and TLS/SSL encryption for data in transit and AES-256 for data at rest.

5. Third-Party Disclosures

We do not disclose confidential financial information to external parties except:

• To external audit firms and tax authorities explicitly designated by you in writing as part of audit liaison services.
• To secure cloud infrastructure providers who assist in hosting our encrypted workpaper systems under binding non-disclosure agreements.
• Where required by enforceable legal process, statutory audit mandate, or court order.

6. Data Retention

Working papers, reconciliations, and advisory deliverables are retained for the statutory period required by governing accounting and tax regulations (generally 7 years following engagement close), after which electronic archives are permanently deleted or returned upon client request.

7. Inquiries and Contact Information

If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy or our information security protocols, please reach out to our engagement leadership directly: