Open Accounting FAQs
Open Accounting is a relatively new technology, a software-based tool that facilitate a gateway to business accounting systems that manage your accounting information. As a gateway, it can securely share your businesses financial accounting information to enable a financial services provider (such as Recognise) to access your accounting information directly rather than you needing to send this information manually on a case by case basis.
This software-based tool makes it easier for these financial services providers to access up to date accounting information for your business and therefore service any product you have with any financial services provider as well as suggest products or services that are personalised and suitable for your needs.
Open Accounting aims to benefit its customers, as it is quicker and simpler for financial providers to access your financial accounting information. This avoids you needing to send this information to us manually which can be time consuming.
Financial providers use the financial accounting information available to consider your business profile in line with lending policy parameters and assist with underwriting your requested loan. This means that financial services providers may be able to make smarter and quicker financial decisions for your business.
Once you do secure a loan with us, we can use Open Accounting to make testing any covenants that form part of your loan agreement with us, without the need to contact you for repeated information requests.
Where we access your accounting information via Open Accounting as part of any loan application that we process, your consent is required, as the software tool is provided by a third party agent (Recognise is partnered with Codat Open Accounting Software). You can learn more about Codat here who in turn need your permission to access your data from your business accounting system i.e. Xero, Quickbooks and Sage software.
To grant us permission, you will need to follow the following steps:
- When applying for a Recognise business loan start by ticking the box on the Application Form/Portal;
- You will receive an email from Recognise with a link to grant consent;
- Click the link in the email and provide consent to Recognises Opening Accounting partner Codat;
- Codat will then grant Recognise access to the data via an Application Programming Interface (API) from your bank for an unlimited period;
- If you are an existing customer, please contact your Business Development Manager or Loan Manager who will send you an email containing a link for you to grant your consent.
Recognise will use Open Accounting data to assist us with the underwriting of your business loan and for its ongoing monitoring and management, which also enables Recognise to protect any customers who may be experiencing financial difficulties.
Yes, you can withdraw your consent at any time by accessing the settings of your accounting tool, or by contacting Recognise Bank through the emails mentioned under the ‘Contact us’ section of our website
Consent is granted for the period of the loan, from the date on your Application Form until your loan with Recognise is repaid.
We will typically need your annual accounts as well as your management accounts. This will include your balance sheet, profit and loss, and cash flow details as well as potentially other Management Information depending on the covenants in your loan agreement.
The data is stored in a secure and encrypted cloud storage facility, in the same way we store all of your other personal and financial information. We have security measures in place that 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 only those users 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. Although we take appropriate steps to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee that your personal data will not become accessible to unauthorised persons, and we cannot be responsible for any actions resulting from a breach of security when information is supplied over the internet or any public computer network. The information might also be stored in our Open Accounting tool, which adheres to strong encryption and secure data transfer practices.
Your data is important to us, and we take all reasonable steps to maintain it safely and securely and fully in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator as soon as possible of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
We will keep your personal data for seven years from the end of our business relationship with you. This includes credit agreements, applications forms (paper and electronic), ID provided, credit scores, payments default records and complaints. After this time, the data is securely disposed of. Fraud prevention agencies can hold your personal data for different periods of time, and if you are considered to pose a fraud or money laundering risk, your data can be held for up to six years.
We also keep data relating to prospective and indicative customer enquiries for six months following the expiry of the enquiry.
There will be some limited circumstances in which we will need to transfer your personal data outside of the UK and/or the European Economic Area (which means all the European Union (EU) countries plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, together “EEA“). However, when we need to transfer your personal data abroad, we take steps to ensure that your personal data is adequately protected and in compliance with data protection laws such as entering into the UK’s International Data Transfer Agreement (for transfers of personal data from the UK) – this is a set of contractual wording which has been issued by the ICO. You can find more details in our Privacy Notice.
Your data is well-protected throughout its journey with a comprehensive set of security measures we’ve put in place. During transit, it undergoes robust encryption practices, and when stored, it’s kept secure using advanced encryption methods. We evaluate all suppliers according to our third-party process to verify that their security measures are relevant and effectively safeguard customer data.
Our Privacy Notice includes more detail around how your data is used and processed as well as any rights you have.
