About us and the purpose of this notice

A4G LLP is an accountancy, tax and business advisory firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited liability partnership under number: OC320365 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

A4G Audit Limited, is an accountancy, tax and audit advisory firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number: 03824057 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN. A4G Small Business Services LTD, is an accountancy, tax advisory firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number: 04194363 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

MJ Read A4G Accountants Limited is an accountancy, tax advisory firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number: 07980310 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

Accountants for Traders Limited is an accountancy, tax advisory firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number: 09059275 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

A4G Bookkeeping Limited, is a bookkeeping firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited company under number: 09917180 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

A4G Payroll LLP, is a Payroll Bureau Firm. We are registered in England and Wales as a limited liability partnership under number: OC375658 and our registered office is at Kingslodge, London Road, West Kingsdown Kent, DA3 8LN.

The following companies will be referred to as “A4G”, “we”, “us”, “our” and “ours”.

This notice will tell you how we look after your personal data, will tell you about your privacy rights, and about our compliance with and your protections under Data Protection Legislation.

In this notice “Data Protection Legislation” means the Data Protection Act 2018 (as amended by the Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 which merge the previous requirements of the Data Protection Act with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679)) and any other laws and regulations in the UK applicable to the processing of personal data.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice, we are the ‘data controller’. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer. Our Data Protection Officer is our Data Protection Point of Contact and is responsible for assisting with enquiries in relation to this privacy notice or our treatment of your personal data. Should you wish to contact our Data Protection Point of Contact you can do so using the contact details noted at paragraph ‎11(Contact Us), below.

The kind of information we hold about you

The information we hold about you may include the following:

  • your personal details (such as your name and/or address and contact information)
  • details of contact we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision of our services
  • details of any services you have received from us
  • our correspondence and communications with you
  • information about any complaints and enquiries you make to us;
  • information from research, surveys, and marketing activities
  • information used to carry out services including tax reference codes, national insurance numbers, payroll numbers, tax codes, salary details, dividend details, banking details, pension information, trust information, Gift aid donations, Student Loan information, Government benefits information.

Personal data

How we may collect your personal data

We obtain your personal data directly from you when:

  • you sign a proposal from us in respect of the services we provide,
  • you engage us to provide our services and also during the provision of those services,
  • you contact us by email, telephone, post, instant message or social media (for example when you have a query about our services).

We may also obtain your personal data indirectly:

  • from your employer, our client when it engages us to provide services and also during the provision of those services
  • from third parties and/or publicly available resources (for example, from your employer or from Companies House). Collecting data from employers can include name & address, contact information, National Insurance Numbers, payroll number, salary details, bank details.

How we use personal data we hold about you

We may process your personal data for purposes necessary for the performance of our contract with you, your employer, our clients and to comply with our legal obligations. This may include processing your personal data where you are an employee, subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.

We may also process your personal data for the purposes of our own legitimate interests provided that those interests do not override any of your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of personal data. This includes processing for marketing, business development, statistical and management purposes.

Please note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

Situations in which we will use your personal data

We may use your personal data in order to:

  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you, your employer, our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services)
  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between our clients and us (which will most usually be for the provision of our services) where you may be a subcontractor, supplier or customer of our client.
  • provide you with information related to our services and our events or seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide; and
  • notify you about any changes to our services.
  • contact you by telephone, email and post to discuss your situation and objectives to be able to recommend the relevant solutions and services for your requirements.
  • Communicate with you in future regarding further pertinent services we offer that may be of benefit to you or your organisation.
  • Communicate with you in future regarding any pertinent industry news which may be of relevance and interest to you.
  • Visitors to our websites, when someone visits www.a4g-llp.co.uk we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.
  • Cookies, A4G uses cookies to collect information about how the site is used by its visitors. We currently only use this for the purposes of displaying pop up messages. These are used to record data to indicate if the user has previously viewed a particular message and therefore will not be shown to them again until a particular time period has expired. Cookies provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, which may include the duration of individual page views, paths taken by visitors through the site, and other general information. None of this information is associated with you as an individual. However, should you wish to delete or disable the cookies, you can do so by referring to the ‘Help’ option on the menu bar of your browser. This will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies; notify you when you receive new cookies; and disable cookies altogether.
  • E-newsletter, we use a third-party provider, Mailchimp, to deliver our e-newsletter and bulletins. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. For more information, please see their privacy notice.
  • Job applicants, current and former A4G employees, when individuals apply to work at A4G, we will only use the information they supply to us to process their application and to monitor recruitment statistics. Where we want to disclose information to a third party, for example where we want to take up a reference or obtain a ‘disclosure’ from the Criminal Records Bureau we will not do so without informing them beforehand unless the disclosure is required by law. Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held for 12 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed, it will then be destroyed or deleted. Once a person has taken up employment with the A4G, we will compile a file relating to their employment. The information contained in this will be kept secure and will only be used for purposes directly relevant to that person’s employment. Once their employment with A4G has ended, we will retain the file in accordance with the requirements of our retention schedule and then delete it.

In some circumstances we may anonymise or pseudonymise the personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use it without further notice to you.

We may also process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected.

When assessing what retention period is appropriate for your personal data, we take into consideration the requirements of our business and the services provided, any statutory or legal obligations and the purposes for which we originally collected the personal data.

Change of purpose

Where we need to use your personal data for a reason, other than the purpose for which we originally collected it, we will only use your personal data where that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your data for a new purpose we will notify you and communicate our legal basis for this new processing.

Data sharing

We will share your personal data with third parties where we are required by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us, or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. This may include sharing your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

“Third parties” includes third-party service providers and other entities within our group and the members of our firm’s network. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: Cloud services, professional advisory services, administration services, marketing services and banking services. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may share your personal data with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business. We may also need to share your personal data with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Transferring personal data outside the United Kingdom (UK)

We will transfer the personal data we collect about you to the following countries: United States, New Zealand, Holland, India & Philippines in order to perform our contract with you.

There are adequacy regulations under the Data Protection Act 2018 in relation to New Zealand & Holland therefore they will be deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information for the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation.

As there are no adequacy regulations in relation to United States, India & Philippines, they will not be deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information for the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation.

 We have put in place the following measure[s] to ensure that your personal data is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the Data Protection Legislation, as follows:

  • model contract clauses.

The following companies will store data or process data outside of the United Kingdom

  • Xero
  • Quickbooks
  • Dext
  • Chasr
  • Global Infosys
  • Frontline Accounting
  • Affinity Solutions

Should you require further information about these protective measure[s], please contact us using the contact details outlined below.

Data security

We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Rights of access, correction, erasure and restriction 

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us, using the contact details below.

Your rights in connection with personal data

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data. This enables you to receive details of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are processing it lawfully.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this basis. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or another data controller if the processing is based on consent, carried out by automated means and this is technically feasible.

If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please email our data protection point of contact:  DPO@a4g-llp.co.uk.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee for the administrative costs of complying with the request if your request for access is manifestly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal data for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email our data protection point of contact:  DPO@a4g-llp.co.uk

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your personal information (personal data) for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Changes to this notice

Any changes we may make to our privacy notice in the future will be updated on our website: https://www.a4g-llp.co.uk/privacy-policy/

This privacy notice was last updated on 22/03/2021.

How to contact us

If you have any questions regarding this notice or if you would like to speak to us about the manner in which we process your personal data, please email our Data Protection Point of Contact: Data protection Officer DPO@a4g-llp.co.uk.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, at any time. The ICO’s contact details are as follows:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone – 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or 01625 545 745

Website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns