Lisa is a WhatsApp-based bookkeeping assistant provided by Whitfield Hanson Accountancy Ltd. Anyone can sign up to use Lisa directly — you don't need to be an existing client of Whitfield Hanson Accountancy to use the service.
When you message Lisa via WhatsApp, we collect and store: your phone number, the details you give us during setup (name, business name, trade, a rough idea of your turnover, and answers to a few short questions about your business), the documents or images you send (receipts, invoices, letters), and the text messages you send to the service. If you use your personal Lisa email address to forward paperwork, we process what you forward the same way — and anything that isn't business paperwork is deleted on arrival rather than stored. If you connect HMRC, we store your National Insurance number and the connection tokens, which are held encrypted.
We process your information under two lawful bases. First, contract: the bookkeeping you ask Lisa to do — recording what you send, keeping your books, preparing your quarterly updates — is processing necessary to provide the service you've signed up to. Second, legal obligation: some records must be kept because tax law requires it — the digital records behind Making Tax Digital submissions are retained for the statutory period even if you stop using Lisa.
Documents are processed using AI (Anthropic's Claude) to read them and, where relevant, extract details such as supplier name, amount, and VAT. Your entries go into whichever books you use — Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent where you've connected them, or Lisa's own ledger where you haven't. Where you choose to connect HMRC, your quarterly update figures are sent to HMRC only when you press the send button on your own filing page — never automatically, and never from a chat message alone.
Only Whitfield Hanson Accountancy Ltd can access your documents and data. Data is not sold, and is not shared with third parties beyond the service providers necessary to operate Lisa: Anthropic (AI processing), Twilio (WhatsApp delivery), SendGrid (receiving email you forward), Supabase (secure storage), Render (hosting), and — only where you have connected them — Xero, Intuit (QuickBooks), FreeAgent, and HMRC.
Your records are kept while you use Lisa, and in line with UK tax record-keeping requirements — typically five to six years for self-employment records. That legal duty is yours, so if you stop using Lisa we don't delete the statutory records you would need for an HMRC enquiry; everything else we delete on request. You can download a complete copy of your records at any time from your books page — they are yours, and leaving Lisa never means losing them.
Under UK data protection law, you have the right to access, correct, or request deletion of your personal data, and to receive it in a portable form. Contact us using the details below to exercise any of these rights.
For any questions about this policy or your data, contact Whitfield Hanson Accountancy Ltd at whitfieldandhanson@gmail.com. If you believe you have found a security problem with Lisa, use the same address with "SECURITY" in the subject line — reports are read the same day.