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Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Welcome to bookkeeping-essentials.com website policies. This page explains how I conduct business on the internet.
I really want your experience on this site to be enjoyable. My goal is to provide high quality content ...... and only include links to websites which I believe also provide high quality content. (If you ever find a link where this is not the case, I would appreciate you letting me know.)
Quick Note About "I" and "We": Throughout this document, "I" refers to me personally, L. Kenway, while "we" refers to Bookkeeping-Essentials.com and its technical operations, which include services provided by my hosting platform and other service providers.
Legal Disclaimer
Information is NOT Advice
No Professional Advice
The information on this website is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute professional accounting, tax, or legal advice. I am a retired Canadian bookkeeper and this website is operated by a Canadian entity. I do not offer accounting or legal services in the United States. While I strive for accuracy, laws and regulations, particularly regarding tax, are complex, change frequently, and depend on individual circumstances. Always consult with a qualified professional in your jurisdiction before making decisions based on information found here.
Canadian and US Information
This website primarily covers Canadian bookkeeping practices. Information regarding US bookkeeping practices is provided for informational purposes only and should NOT be substituted for advice from a US-based professional. Users accessing US-related content are solely responsible for ensuring its applicability to their specific situation and should consult with a US-based professional for guidance.
IRS Circular 230 Disclosure (US Users)
Any US tax information on this website is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties under US federal, state, or local tax law.
No Liability
L. Kenway dba Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services assumes no liability for the accuracy of the information presented on this website or for any actions taken based on this information. Users are solely responsible for the consequences of their actions.
Terms of Use
Acceptance of Terms
Today, as you are probably aware, there are a lot of rules and regulations that business must operate under. This page exists because of those rules and regulations...
... So please read the terms carefully.
If you do not agree to Bookkeeping-Essentials.com's privacy policy as posted here on this website, please do not consent to the setting of cookies and the collection and storage of your personally identifiable information.
Your explicit consent indicates acceptance of this privacy policy in its entirety.
Last updated: February 2025
Content Usage and Reproduction Rights
Content Protection
I've put a lot of time and effort into creating the content on Bookkeeping-Essentials.com. While I love sharing information and helping others, I need to protect my work. All the content here (including text, images, and downloadable materials) belongs to me, L. Kenway, operating as Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services, unless I've noted otherwise.
Usage Permissions
- Feel free to link to any of my pages from your website - I appreciate that!
- If my content inspires your own writing (you use it as reference material for your own content):
- Please mention Bookkeeping-Essentials.com as your source;
- Include a link back to the specific article that helped you;
- Use my material as a reference point, but write in your own words. (Create substantially original content rather than just copying my material.) - You may not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, or redistribute any content from this website without written permission.
Copyright Claims
If you spot something on my site that you believe infringes on your copyright, please let me know right away. I respect others' intellectual property rights and will promptly address any valid concerns.
If you believe there's a copyright infringement or have concerns about content usage, you can report this through the Contact form. As I'm retired, I only check messages periodically, please be patient for a response.
Third-Party Content
I always try to give credit where it's due and properly acknowledge other people's materials when I reference them. Just because I mention or reference something doesn't mean I'm affiliated with or endorsed by them - I'm just sharing information I find helpful.
Working Together
Do you think the content on your site would benefit my site visitors? I love high quality, relevant content. Contact me and let's see if we can work something out.
Are You a Certified Professional Bookkeeper?
I'm particularly interested in hearing from certified bookkeepers (such as members of CPB Canada, AIPB, NACPB, or AIPB - memberships with organizations who require continuing education to maintain their certification) who'd like to share their practical knowledge with my visitors. If you have hands-on experience and insights that could help small business owners better understand their bookkeeping, let's chat!
Why Submit an Article?
- Showcase your expertise and professional certification.
- Help raise awareness about professional bookkeeping standards.
- Support our profession by educating small business owners about the value of working with certified bookkeepers.
- Share your practical knowledge with business owners who need it.
- Gain recognition for your professional achievements and ongoing education commitment.
What I'm Looking For:
- Practical, how-to articles that solve real bookkeeping challenges
- Clear explanations of bookkeeping concepts and best practices
- Real-world examples from your professional experience
- Content that helps small business owners work better with their bookkeepers
What You'll Get:
- A professional bio highlighting your certification and credentials.
- Recognition of your professional standing in the bookkeeping community.
- One link back to your professional site (not a sales page).
- Exposure to an engaged audience of small business owners.
- Opportunity to educate business owners about professional bookkeeping standards.
About Product Promotion:
If you have a product or service you'd like to promote:
- It must be relevant to my audience.
- I'll need to review and approve it first.
- We'll need to discuss commission arrangements.
- Any product-related links will be marked as "nofollow".
Interested? Let's work together to elevate the bookkeeping profession while helping small business owners succeed!
Privacy Policy
At Bookkeeping-Essentials.com, I am dedicated to protecting your data and privacy, and my host's technical systems are designed to safeguard your information.
We recognize that your privacy is important. This document outlines the types of personal information we receive and collect when you use Bookkeeping-Essentials.com as well as some of the steps we take to safeguard information. We hope this will help you make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us.
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com strives to maintain the highest standards of decency, fairness and integrity in all our operations. Likewise, we are dedicated to protecting our customers', consumers' and online visitors' privacy on our website.
If you have serious privacy concerns or need to report a data issue, you can reach me through the Contact form on this website. Please note that as I'm retired, response times may vary.
Personally Identifiable Information
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com may collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:
- To run and operate our site.
- To display content on the site correctly.
- To improve customer service.
- To help us respond to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently.
- To personalize your user experience.
- To understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on our site.
- To improve our site.
- To improve our products and services.
- To run a promotion, contest, survey or other site feature.
- To send information to you that you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.
- To send periodic emails, which may include electronic newsletters and/or autoresponder series of emails.
- To respond to your enquiries, questions, and/or other requests.
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com may collect personally identifiable information from you in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, when you visit our site, register on the site, or fill out a form, and in connection with other activities, services, features or resources we make available on our site.
Specifically, if you subscribe to our newsletter, we will ask for your first name and will require your email address.
If you complete a form, we will require your name and your email address, and will ask for information relevant to the purpose of the form.
If you submit content to us, we will ask for your name and email address. Photos you include with your submission, or details in your submission, may personally identify you.
If you request to be notified about comments on any content you submit to us, or request to be notified when others submit content, we will require your first name and your email address.
If you purchase a product or service from us, we will collect your name, email address, billing address and credit card number.
This site lets you share content with your friends and followers on various social media platforms. Here are links to the privacy policies of Facebook and Twitter.
It is possible that Bookkeeping-Essentials.com may use Facebook commenting in the future. I wanted you to know that Facebook stores all of your comments and may show them on your timeline, depending on your Facebook setting.
You can always refuse to supply personally identifiable information and visit our site anonymously. However, it may prevent you from engaging in certain site-related activities.
If we make material changes in the collection of personally identifiable information, we will inform you by placing a notice on our site. We will use personal information received from you for internal purposes only and will not sell it or provide it to third parties.
We also collect each visitor's IP address, which helps us combat spam and fraud. We do not use IP addresses for any other purpose.
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com contains links to other websites that may be of interest to you. However, once you have used them to leave our site, we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information you provide while visiting such sites. These sites are not governed by this privacy statement. Always exercise caution by reviewing the privacy statement of the website in question before continuing to use it.
Non-personally Identifiable Information
We may collect non-personally identifiable information about you whenever you interact with our site. Non-personally identifiable information may include the browser name, the type of computer and technical information about your method of connecting to our site, such as the operating system and the Internet service provider you used, and other similar information.
Children's Privacy Protection
This website is directed to adults. It is not directed to children under the age of 16. We operate our site in compliance with current regulations. Anyone under the age of 16 must provide parental consent to use this site. We do not knowingly collect or use personally identifiable information from anyone under 16 years of age.
Data Storage
Personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information collected by this site is stored on our host's servers. That host is SiteSell Inc., located at 1000 Saint-Jean Boulevard, Suite 702, Pointe-Claire, QC H9R 5P1 Canada.
Some information is collected by third-party services. These include PayPal.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Statement
If you are a California resident, you have specific privacy rights under the CCPA. Learn about them at oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa. If you choose to refuse Bookkeeping-Essentials.com's cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the site.
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com has not sold any personal information from visitors to the site in the past and has no plans to do so in the future.
Information Transfer if Website Ownership Changes
If I ever sell Bookkeeping-Essentials.com, any information collected through your voluntary participation in this site may transfer to the new owner. This would be done to ensure continuity of service for you.
In that event, you will receive notice through our website of that change in control and practices, and we will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the purchaser honors any opt-out requests you might make.
Cookie Policy
About Our Cookies
A cookie is a string of information that Bookkeeping-Essentials.com stores on your computer, which your browser provides to Bookkeeping-Essentials.com each time you return to the site. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their use of our website, and their website access preferences.
Google Analytics Cookies
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com uses Google Analytics to analyze the use of this website. Google Analytics collects demographic and interest data, and generates statistical and other information about website use, by means of cookies. These cookies are kept on your computer. We share this information with Google, which will store and use this information on its servers. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy.
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com uses information from Google Analytics to track the number of visits to the website, browsers and operating systems. No personally identifiable information is obtained from these cookies. We use the information that Google Analytics generates relating to our website to create reports about the use of the site. These reports allow us to update the site and improve your usage of it.
If you do not wish your data to be collected via Google Analytics, you can install its opt-out browser extension or add-on ... https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
Advertising Cookies
We use third-party advertising companies including Google Adsense and to a lesser degree Infolinks (which is in the process of being phased off of this website) to serve ads on our website. These companies use cookies and web beacons in their ads to ascertain how many times you've seen an advertisement. We share this information with these companies, but do not provide them with any personally identifiable information for cookie or web beacon use, so they cannot personally identify you with that information from our website.
You may opt out of personalized ads for over 125 different ad networks. Click here to do that.
Some third-party advertisements are served by Google. Google's cookie enables it to serve ads to our visitors based on their visits to other sites on the Web. You may opt out of personalized ads by visiting the Google ad opt-out page.
This link from Google provides more information about how Google manages data in its ad products.
We have set Google Adsense ads default to non-personalized for EU visitors.
Refusing Cookies
You can set your browser to accept or refuse all cookies automatically, or notify you when a cookie is being requested. Taking this action should not cause a problem with the continued use of our site. Consult the Help section of your browser for guidance on how to refuse all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is requested.
If you choose to refuse Bookkeeping-Essentials.com's cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the site.
Business Operations
How We Monetize This Site
(How Do I Offer All This Information To You For Free?)
I believe in being completely transparent about how I earn income from this website. Let me explain how Bookkeeping-Essentials.com generates revenue and continues to provide free educational content.
Advertising Partnerships
You'll notice ads displayed throughout the site, primarily through Google Adsense. These ads are chosen to be relevant to our visitors' interests. While I'm currently phasing out Infolinks advertising, you might still see some of their ads. If you prefer not to see personalized ads, you can always adjust your preferences through Google's ad settings.
Digital Products
To help make bookkeeping tasks more manageable, I've created practical PDFs like checklists and step-by-step procedures. These are the same tools I've used in my own bookkeeping practice to stay organized (before all this automation changed the way we process data) and ensure nothing gets missed. When you purchase these resources, they're delivered securely through eJunkie's platform (their privacy policy), with payments processed through PayPal (their privacy policy) for your security. I stand behind these practical tools with a money-back guarantee because I want you to be completely satisfied with your purchase.
Affiliate Products and Services
Another way I support this site is through carefully chosen affiliate partnerships, though I'm very selective about these relationships. Currently, I'm affiliated with Ken Evoy's - SiteSell - Solo Build It (SBI!), my trusted website platform provider. The online world changes rapidly - products come and go, websites / companies merge, and services evolve. This is what happened to all my previous affiliate relationships. (Oh how I miss Gabrielle Fontaine and Brooks Duncan!) So right now, my affiliate links are slim pickin's!
I'm always on the lookout for high-quality products and services that could benefit you, but I won't recommend anything just for the sake of having affiliate links. When I do find products worthy of recommendation, I'll always tell you whether I've personally used them and clearly identify any affiliate relationships.
My promise to you - quality matters more than quantity when it comes to recommendations. I never accept paid text links, and all my recommendations are based on merit, not money. I always give my honest opinion, even in affiliate-related reviews. Your trust means everything to me, and I won't compromise that for a commission. If I discover a product or service that I believe could genuinely help you with your bookkeeping journey, I'll let you know about it - affiliate program or not.
Supporting This Site
When you support my affiliates, everybody wins. You get valuable resources and information, and I earn the income needed to maintain and improve this site. This allows me to keep providing free content while continuing to develop new resources to help you with your bookkeeping journey.
The revenue generated from this site helps support the ongoing development and maintenance of this free educational resource. I'm grateful for your support, which allows me to continue doing what I love - helping small business owners understand their bookkeeping better.
One final note ... although not an affiliate, between February 2011 and November 2011, I was employed part-time with the Institute of Professional Bookkeeper's of Canada (now CPB Canada) in Member Services.
P.S. No compensation was given for any visitor feedback on this site.
Professional Affiliations and Trademarks
QuickBooks Canada ProAdvisor® Program Member
It is understood that references made on this website to QuickBooks, QuickBooks Canada, QuickBooks Online (QBO), QuickBooks ProAdvisor and Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc.
Use of, or references to QuickBooks® software does NOT mean Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services or bookkeeping-essentials.com are “Officially Endorsed by”, “Authorized by”, or formally “Partnered” with Intuit, or that I am an employee or representative of Intuit ... in other words, Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services or bookkeeping-essentials.com are not agents or representatives of Intuit.
Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services acknowledges that Intuit makes no claims on behalf of me or my company as to the quality of the products or services offered.
Screen shots used throughout this website are used purely for educational or illustrative purposes. It is understood that these screen shots are the intellectual property of Intuit ... any commentary or other text analysis added is attributable to Lakeshore Bookkeeping Services, and not to Intuit.
Trademark Acknowledgment
All product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned on this website are the property of their respective owners. This includes:
- Service providers we actively use (PayPal for payments, eJunkie for digital delivery, SiteSell for website hosting and tools);
- Advertising partners (such as Google Analytics, Infolinks);
- Other products and services mentioned for reference purposes.
While we have business relationships with some of these companies, their trademarks remain their property. Their mention on this website does not imply ownership of their trademarks or intellectual property.
General Terms
Updates and Effective Date
Bookkeeping-Essentials.com reserves the right to make changes in this policy. If there is a material change in our cookie and privacy practices, we will indicate on our site that those practices have changed and provide a link to the updated privacy policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy so that you will know what information we collect and how we use it.
How You Can Correct or Remove Information
I provide this privacy policy as a statement to you of my commitment to protect your personally identifiable information. If you have submitted personally identifiable information through my website and would like to download and review that information, click on this link.
You can also request to edit or delete any of your information from the servers by clicking on this link.
