The short version
HiloFinance is accounting software from Hilo Tech Inc. When your organization connects it to QuickBooks Online, it reads a copy of your books so you can view them, compare them and continue your accounting in HiloFinance. It writes nothing to QuickBooks, sells no data and never uses it for advertising.
What HiloFinance does with QuickBooks Online
Connecting QuickBooks Online is optional and always initiated by your organization:
- A connection you authorize: an administrator of your organization connects the company by signing in with Intuit (OAuth 2.0). HiloFinance requests only the QuickBooks Online accounting permission (com.intuit.quickbooks.accounting).
- Read only: HiloFinance reads the company settings, chart of accounts, customers, vendors, employees, products and services, classes and locations, payment terms, taxes (agencies, codes and rates), transactions (invoices, bills, payments, deposits, journal entries and others), the list of attachments without the files themselves, and the accounting reports used to check that the figures match. It never creates, changes or deletes anything in QuickBooks.
- A copy kept up to date: while the connection is active, HiloFinance asks QuickBooks about once a minute what has changed and rereads everything at least every six hours.
- Disconnect at any time: in HiloFinance (Settings, QuickBooks, Disconnect) or in QuickBooks' app management. Disconnecting in HiloFinance revokes its access with Intuit and erases the stored tokens. The copy already imported stays in your HiloFinance until you ask for its deletion.
What the service keeps
HiloFinance keeps:
- The copy of your QuickBooks data described above, and the entries, documents and settings you create in HiloFinance.
- The accounts of the people your organization authorizes (name, work email, role). Sign-in uses your Microsoft account or a one-time code sent by email: no password is stored.
- The QuickBooks connection tokens issued by Intuit, encrypted at rest.
- An audit log (who did what, and when) and the history of changes made to transactions.
Each HiloFinance installation serves a single organization and has its own database.
Where your data resides
Production data is hosted on a server dedicated to HiloFinance, operated for HiloTech by OVHcloud in its Beauharnois data centre, in Quebec (Canada). Development and test environments use fictitious data only.
Security
- All communications are encrypted (TLS); QuickBooks tokens and connection secrets are encrypted at rest.
- Only your organization's administrators can connect or disconnect QuickBooks and manage access.
- Access to the production server is limited to the HiloTech staff who operate the service.
- Your administrator can turn on automatic sign-out after a period of inactivity.
- Every change to the books is recorded in the history and in the audit log.
AI assistants
HiloFinance includes no AI model. It offers a standard connection (MCP) that lets an authorized person link the AI assistant of their choice to HiloFinance, with their own permissions and after their explicit consent. Data that assistant reads is then processed by its provider, under that provider's terms. Your administrator can restrict or turn off this connection. HiloTech does not use your data to train AI models.
Retention and deletion
Data is kept for the duration of the service. At the end of the contract or upon written request, it is deleted within 30 days, subject to applicable legal retention obligations. Before deletion, you can export your reports and lists.
Third parties
HiloFinance relies on the QuickBooks Online API (Intuit) to read your data, Microsoft Entra ID for sign-in, OVHcloud for hosting, and the email server your administrator configures to send invoices and statements. No data is sold or shared for advertising.
Your rights
The rights of access, rectification, and deletion under Quebec's Law 25 and Canada's PIPEDA, along with the contact details of our Privacy Officer, are described in the HiloTech privacy policy, which applies alongside this policy.
Contact
Questions about this policy or how HiloFinance handles data: privacy@hilotech.ca.
Questions about your organization's access and settings: your HiloFinance administrator.
Changes
We will update this page and the "Last updated" date when this policy changes; material changes will be noted in HiloFinance's release notes.