Last updated: June 2008

At Microsoft, we're working hard to protect your privacy, while delivering products that bring you the performance, power, and convenience that you desire in your personal computing. This privacy statement explains the data collection and use practices of Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (United Kingdom Version) ("Microsoft Office Accounting”).

Microsoft Office Accounting is a comprehensive financial management program designed to help small businesses located within the United Kingdom spend less time managing their finances and more time growing their businesses.

Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 consists of a set of core components and functionality and in some cases of customizations provided by partners. This statement focuses on features in Microsoft Office Accounting that communicate with the Internet and is not intended to be an exhaustive list. It does not apply to data collected through other online or offline Microsoft sites, products, or services, nor does it apply to customizations provided by partners.

Collection and use of your personal information

When we need information that personally identifies you or allows us to contact you, we will explicitly ask you for it. The privacy details for each feature listed in this privacy statement will disclose what types of information are collected. The personal information that we collect from you will be used by Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates to operate Microsoft Office Accounting and to provide the service(s) or carry out the transaction(s) that you requested or authorized. In support of these uses, Microsoft may use personal information to provide you with more effective customer service, to improve Microsoft Office Accounting and any related Microsoft products or services, and to make Microsoft Office Accounting easier to use by eliminating the need for you to repeatedly enter the same information or by customizing the service to your particular preference or interests.

In order to use certain Internet-enabled features and services within Microsoft Office Accounting, we will ask you to sign in with your Windows Live ID credentials (an e-mail address and password). You can register for those credentials at the Windows Live ID Web site. Please note that you should use the strength meter on the Windows Live ID form to create a strong password, since Microsoft Office Accounting requires it. After you create your Windows Live ID, you can use the same credentials to sign into many different Microsoft sites and services, as well as those of select Microsoft partners that display the Windows Live ID or Microsoft Passport Network logos. By signing in on one Microsoft site or service, you may be automatically signed in when you visit other Microsoft sites and services. To learn more about how your credential information is used when you sign into participating sites, please read the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement. If you have an existing bCentral account, but not a Windows Live ID, you may use the Migration Wizard on the sign-in Web page to convert your bCentral account to a Windows Live ID account.

Except as described in this statement, personal information that you provide will not be transferred to third parties without your consent. Microsoft occasionally hires other companies to provide limited services on its behalf, such as providing customer support, processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of reports. Microsoft will provide these companies only the information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of the information and are prohibited from using it for any other purpose.

Microsoft may disclose information about you if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Microsoft or Office Accounting; (b) protect or defend the rights or property of Microsoft and its family of Web sites; or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, users of Microsoft software or services, or members of the public.

Information that is collected by or sent to Microsoft may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Microsoft or its affiliates, subsidiaries, or agents maintain facilities. Microsoft abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.

Collection and use of information about your computer

Microsoft Office Accounting contains several Internet-enabled features that collect standard information from your computer (standard computer information), and might collect additional information needed for a specific feature and send it to Microsoft. Standard computer information generally includes certain information about your computer software and hardware, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system version, browser version, a code that identifies the manufacturer of your computer, and your regional and language settings. The privacy details for each Microsoft Office Accounting feature listed in this privacy statement will disclose whether any additional information is collected and how it is used, if the feature sends information to Microsoft.

Control of your personal information

Except as otherwise described in this statement, personal information you provide to Microsoft Office Accounting will not be shared outside of Microsoft and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your permission.

Please be aware that this privacy statement and any choices that you make regarding Microsoft Office Accounting will not necessarily apply to personal information that you provided to Microsoft in the context of other, separately operated, Microsoft products or services.

Access to your personal information

You can review and edit the personal information that you provided when you signed up for your Windows Live ID credentials by signing into your account at the Windows Live ID Web site. You can manage your account settings and billing information by going to the Microsoft Billing and Account Management Web site. You can view and update your Registration Information by selecting Update Registration from the product’s Help menu.

Security practices

Microsoft is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the information that you provide on computer servers with limited access that are located in controlled facilities. Additionally, when we transmit sensitive personal information (such as a credit card number) over the Internet, we protect it through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Changes to this privacy statement

We may occasionally update this privacy statement. When we do, we will also revise the "last updated" date at the top of the privacy statement. For material changes to this privacy statement, we will notify you either by placing a prominent notice on the home page of our Web site or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy statement to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. Your continued use of the service constitutes your agreement to this privacy statement and any updates.

For more information

If you have questions about this privacy statement, please contact us by e-mail at oaprivacy@microsoft.com.

Or by postal mail:

        Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (United Kingdom Version) Privacy Statement
        c/o MBS.Microsoft.com Privacy
        One Lone Tree Road
        Fargo, North Dakota 58104-3911
        USA

Specific Features

Activation

What this feature does

Activation is aimed at reducing software counterfeiting and ensuring that Microsoft customers receive the software quality that they expect. Once your software is activated, a specific product key becomes associated with the computer (the hardware) on which it is installed. The Microsoft Software License Terms for the software specifies the number of times a product key can be used for activation. Once you use a product key for the specified number of times on the same or different computers, that product key can no longer be used for activation on other computers.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

During activation, the product ID and a hardware hash (a non-unique number generated from the computer's hardware configuration) are sent to Microsoft. The product ID is generated from the product key used to install the software and a generic code representing the version of Microsoft Office Accounting being activated. The hardware hash does not represent any personal information or information about the software. The hardware hash cannot be used to determine the make or model of the computer, nor can it be backward-calculated to determine the raw computer information. Your activation information is sent to Microsoft when you submit your registration information.

Use of information

The information is used to confirm that you have a licensed copy of the software, and is aggregated for statistical analysis. The product ID may be associated with personal information that you provide during registration for the product in order to provide you with product support and product update information.

Choice and control

Activation is mandatory. If you choose not to activate the software, you cannot use it after the grace period expires.

Registration

What this feature does

At the end of the activation process, you will be asked to register the software. Registration allows Microsoft to provide you with improved product support and product update information, including product updates designed to address changes in accounting laws and regulations. It also allows Microsoft to notify you of customized information and offers regarding future products.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

The software will ask you to enter information about you and your company, including your company's name, address, telephone number, industry type, number of employees, communications preferences and other information. The information that you enter into these fields will be stored in the software. When you click Send during the final registration step, the information that you provided during registration, together with the software's activation information, will be sent to Microsoft. If you obtain your software from a distributor (such as your accountant), a referral code may also be sent to Microsoft.

Choice and control

Registration is mandatory. If you choose not to register the software, you cannot use it after the grace period expires.

You can review and edit the personal information that you provided in the product during registration by selecting Update Registration in the product's Help menu. This will cause your default Web browser to open the Microsoft Small Business Registration Service. You will be asked to sign in with your Windows Live ID in order to access your personal information. Additionally, the first time that you sign in to access your personal information, you will be asked to supply your Registration ID. The Registration ID can be found in the products Help About dialog box. When you sign in, you may review and update your personal information.

You have the option of receiving e-mail about product upgrades, special offers and new services for Microsoft Office Accounting. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time by following the instructions in the e-mail. We may also send certain mandatory service communications, such as information on technical service issues and security announcements. With your consent, we may share information with Microsoft partners so that they can send you information about their products and services.

Resource Center

Resource Center is designed to provide you with links to online content about Microsoft Office Accounting 2009, accounting and running a small business generally, and how to check for updates and submit feedback.

Payroll for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (United Kingdom Version)

What this feature does

Payroll for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (the "Payroll Service") allows you to manage your payroll, including managing employee and payroll information, calculating payroll using a tool that resides on Microsoft-hosted servers or networks, and processing the payroll according to HM Revenue and Customs requirements, posting payroll information to the Nominal Ledger, running payroll reports, printing checks, creating automated payment transmittals, and filing e-payroll taxes automatically.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

In order to use the Payroll Service, we will ask you to sign in with your Windows Live ID. A cookie may be stored on your computer by the third-party service. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. A cookie is uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to use Payroll Services.

Calculate Payroll

The Calculate Payroll feature helps update Microsoft Office Accounting with the latest payroll rules and taxes.

When you click the Calculate Payroll button, an XML file will be created that contains payroll information such as salary, pensionable earnings, taxable earnings, etc. The file does not contain any information that could identify individual employees on your payroll (e.g., employee numbers are not included). It does include a small part of each employee’s NI number, namely the NI letter.

When the Calculate Payroll file is sent to Microsoft, it is accompanied by standard computer information such as IP address, as well as the transaction type, the Windows Live ID of the user who clicked the Calculate Payroll button, a company Global Unique Identifier (GUID) and an installation GUID. These GUIDs are numbers randomly generated by the software. The information in the Calculate Payroll file is sent encrypted via SSL.

Send Calculations to Support

The Send Calculations to Support feature helps us diagnose difficulties you may be having if you contact Microsoft’s Customer Support Services. When you click the Send Calculations to Support menu item, the last Calculate Payroll file you created will be sent to a Microsoft server via SSL. The file contains the information described above in the “Calculate Payroll” section.

Use of information

Information collected by the Payroll Service is used to provide the service to you, including billing you and providing customer support, and to maintain, analyze and improve the Payroll Service and other Microsoft products and services. The GUIDs collected are used for licensing purposes, to help us let you know when you may need a different type of Payroll Service subscription.

Choice and control

The Payroll Service is an optional feature within Microsoft Office Accounting. It will not transmit information to Microsoft or any third parties unless you use it.

PayPal PayNow for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (United Kingdom Version)

What this feature does

PayPal PayNow for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 ("PayPal PayNow") allows you to include buttons in the electronic invoices that you generate with Microsoft Office Accounting. Customers may click these buttons to visit PayPal's Web site and to make payments to your company online. You may import information regarding customers' payments from PayPal's Web site and match this information to outstanding invoices in Microsoft Office Accounting.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

To use PayPal PayNow, you must provide the e-mail address of your PayPal account and select a PayPal PayNow button. If you do not have a PayPal account, you are given the option to visit PayPal's Web site to create one. Once you provide the e-mail address of your PayPal account, you may select a PayPal PayNow button image. Your e-mail address and your image selection are stored in Microsoft Office Accounting.

PayPal PayNow offers the ability to import payment information that you downloaded from PayPal. To download payment information, you must follow the instructions on PayPal's Web site, and you may need a merchant account or to meet certain other PayPal requirements. After you download payment information from PayPal, you may import the payment information into Microsoft Office Accounting. To do so, click the PayPal tab and select Import Transactions to open the Import PayPal Payments wizard.

Use of information

Information collected by PayPal PayNow is used to provide the service to you and for maintaining, analyzing and improving the service.

Choice and control

PayPal PayNow is an optional feature within Microsoft Office Accounting. It does not collect any information from you unless you choose to use it.

ePayment for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (United Kingdom Version)

What this feature does

ePayment for Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 (the "ePayment Service") is an optional service in Office Accounting that allows you to pay suppliers, employees and/or tax agencies through the Bank Automated Clearing Service (BACS) electronic payment system using services provided by Microsoft and an ePayment service provider (BACS Service Bureau).

Information collected, processed or transmitted

Sign-up Process

Before you can use the ePayment Service, you must sign up for the service. When you first run the Manage ePayments feature, the sign-up wizard will ask you to sign in with your Windows Live ID and to agree to the ePayment Service's Terms of Service. You will be asked to provide information about you and your company, such as your name, title, and business contact information. The wizard will then ask you to provide the name of your company's bank, as well as your company's BACS Service User Number (SUN), if known. You will also be asked to provide payment information for the service, including your credit card number and billing address.

The information that you entered into the sign-up wizard (excluding the name of your company's bank and your company's SUN, if you entered them), together with your software's product ID number, is sent to Microsoft via SSL. Additionally, the account information (but not the payment information) that you entered into the sign-up wizard, together with the name of your company's bank and your company's SUN (if you entered them) is sent to the BACS Service Bureau via SSL.

After the BACS Service Bureau has validated your account, it will send your Client ID and updated status information to the ePayment Service. The ePayment Service will send an email to the address you provided during sign-up for the service, advising you that the BACS Service Bureau has validated your BACS registration. You will be asked to log in with your Windows Live ID credentials and will be asked to agree to the ePayment Service's Terms of Service. Once you have accepted the terms of service and selected Activate in the Manage ePayment Service dialog, your Client ID and your subscription's status information are sent to the ePayment Service via SSL.

Submission

When you issue a BACS payments through the Office Accounting ePayment service, the following information is sent to the third party BACS Service Bureau: your company account number with the BACS Service Bureau, total number of requested payments, requested payment date and for each requested payment: your company bank account information (account name, account number and sort code), payee bank account information (account name, account number and sort code), and payment amount. If the transaction(s) is accepted by the ePayment service, the BACS Service Bureau will send the following information to Microsoft for billing purposes: your company account number with the BACS Service Bureau, date of the request submission to the BACS Service Bureau, number of accepted payments and total amount of the accepted payments.

Microsoft encourages you to review the privacy statement of the third-party BACS Service Bureau. Microsoft is not responsible for the privacy statements or privacy practices of third parties.

Customer Experience Improvement Program

When you set up Microsoft Office Accounting, you have the option of joining the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program to improve the quality, reliability, and performance of Microsoft software and services. If you decide to participate, we will collect anonymous information about your hardware configuration and how you use our software and services so that we can identify trends and usage patterns. We will not collect your name, address, or any other contact information. You will not be asked to complete any surveys, no salesperson will call, and you can continue working without interruption.

To participate in this program:

1. On the Help menu, click Customer Feedback Options.
2. Select Yes.

Advertising in Microsoft Office Accounting

What this feature does

Some versions of Microsoft Office Accounting display advertisements that are periodically updated.

Advertisements in Microsoft Office Accounting may be displayed by Microsoft or by other companies, called third-party ad servers or ad networks that Microsoft allows to display advertisements to you. Read more about third party ad networks.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

Microsoft and some of these ad networks may place a persistent cookie on your computer in order to recognize your computer each time they send you an advertisement. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by an online server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by an online server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. Microsoft does not have access to the cookies that may be placed by the third-party ad servers or ad networks.

Advertisements displayed in Microsoft Office Accounting may contain electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes called single-pixel gifs - in order to help compile aggregated statistics and determine the effectiveness of promotional campaigns. We prohibit Web beacons in advertisements displayed in Microsoft Office Accounting from being used by third parties to collect or access your personal information.

Finally, we may work with other companies that advertise in Microsoft Office Accounting to place Web beacons on their sites in order to allow us to develop statistics on how often clicking on an advertisement on a Microsoft site results in a purchase or other action on the advertiser's site.

Use of information

In these ways, Microsoft and ad networks may compile information about what advertisements are seen in Microsoft Office Accounting and determine which ads are clicked on. In addition, advertisements may be stored on your machine for display while you are offline. Microsoft may compile information about what advertisements are seen in Microsoft Office Accounting and determine which ads are clicked on and may share that information with ad networks. This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you.

Spotlight

Spotlight displays offers, announcements and information in a panel within Microsoft Office Accounting. The content displayed in Spotlight is selected based on your company's industry, as provided when you registered the software, along with your license type. Spotlight is turned on by default and the content displayed is periodically updated when you launch Microsoft Office Accounting. To learn more about the Spotlight feature, see Microsoft Office Accounting Help.

Error Message Feedback

What this feature does

When you take an action that results in an error within Microsoft Office Accounting, such as attempting to save a blank transaction, you may receive a short error message. For some error messages, you will have the option to click a link indicating that the error message is not useful. You can then indicate what is wrong with the message, by selecting from available options or from entering content. Your choices and content, if applicable, as well as some information about the error message, is sent to Microsoft when you click Submit.

Information collected, processed or transmitted

The feature is used to report your feedback, together with information about the portion of Microsoft Office Accounting's code in which you were working when you received the error message.

Use of information

The data that Microsoft collects with this feature is used to evaluate and improve our error messages in Microsoft Office Accounting, as well as to identify and correct problems relating to error messages. Microsoft employees, contractors and vendors who have a business need to use this data are provided access.

Error Reporting

What this feature does

The Error Reporting feature provides a service which allows you to report problems that you may be having with Microsoft Office Accounting and, when available, to receive information that may help you solve the problems.

Information collected, processed, or transmitted

The Error Reporting service is used to report a wide variety of errors, and collects information about recent actions taken by you or the software application, such as: data related to your network connections, data about your physical machine, names, versions and copies of actual files, data contained in specific segments of memory, and data about the configuration and settings of software on your machine. The type of data and amount of data we request is dependent on the severity of the error and relevance of the data to troubleshooting the problem. You have the opportunity to review the specific data being sent with each report before you choose to send. The Error Reporting feature does not intentionally collect anyone's name, address, e-mail address, computer name, or any information that will be used to identify you or contact you. It is possible that such information may be captured in memory or in the data collected from open files, but Microsoft does not use it to identify you.

Use of information

The data that Microsoft collects is used to track down and solve problems that users are experiencing. Microsoft employees, contractors and vendors who have a business need to use the error report data are provided access. If the error report indicates that a third-party product is involved, Microsoft may send the data to the vendor of that product, who may in turn send the data to sub-vendors and partners.

For more details on what information is collected and how it is used, see the Microsoft Error Reporting Privacy Statement.