How we use and retain your answers

This notice covers the PelicanCFO finance research survey on this site. It explains what we collect, why, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do.

Who is responsible

This research is run by PelicanCFO, a trading name of Clifton House Consulting Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 12506901. Clifton House Consulting Limited is the data controller for the information described here.

For any privacy question about this research, or to exercise any of the rights below, email hello@pelicancfo.com.

What this research is for

We are researching three things:

• the financial problems and decision moments owner-managed businesses experience;
• the senior finance support businesses would use or pay for, and what stops them;
• where practical finance automation could remove repetitive work or surface useful information, and where human judgement should stay involved.

This is directional research. It is a convenience sample of businesses who chose to respond, so the findings describe the people who answered. They are not a representative picture of UK businesses, and we do not present them as one.

What we collect

• Your survey answers. You can complete the survey without giving us your name or contact details.
• Contact details, if you choose to give them. Name, business name and email address, and a phone number on the longer version of the survey. These are optional.
• The optional choices you tick: research follow-up, contact about our services, and the request to be sent the findings.
• Limited technical information recorded when you submit. Our hosting provider records your IP address and browser and request information with every submission. This happens whether or not you give us your name, so we do not describe survey responses as carrying no identifying information at all.

Why we use it, and our lawful bases

We keep the research itself separate from the optional things you may ask us to do.

• Running the survey, and analysing the answers. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: carrying out research into how owner-managed businesses use financial information. You can object to this.
• Research follow-up. Your consent.
• Contact about PelicanCFO's services. Your consent. This is marketing, and every message will include a way to stop it.
• Sending you the findings once. Your consent.

These lawful bases have been set for this research round and are kept under review.

The optional choices, and how they differ

There are three, they are separate, and ticking one does not opt you into another. You do not have to tick any of them, and your answers count either way.

• Research follow-up: we may contact you about your answers or invite you to a short research conversation. This is research, not marketing.
• Contact about our services: we may contact you about PelicanCFO's finance support. This one is marketing, and you can withdraw it at any time.
• Send me the findings: one email, once, when the research Snapshot is published. This is a single delivery request. It is not a newsletter, it is not a mailing list, and it does not sign you up to anything further. If we later want to email you about another round of research, we will ask you again.

Each of these needs an email address, which is why the form asks for one when you tick a box. Without a tick, no contact details are required.

Analysis and publication

Your answers are used to produce research about how owner-managed businesses use financial information. Findings are published in aggregate: counts, patterns and themes across all the responses we receive.

We will not name you or your business in anything we publish unless we ask you separately and you agree. We may quote short extracts from written answers, with names and identifying details removed, and only where the business could not reasonably be worked out from the quote or from what surrounds it.

The questions about what you would consider using from PelicanCFO help us decide what to offer. They are not published as research findings.

Where your answers are stored

This research site is hosted by Netlify, which receives and stores your submission on our behalf, along with your IP address and browser type. Netlify acts on our instructions as our processor. We do not sell your data, and we do not share it for anyone else's marketing.

Netlify is a US-headquartered service provider and may process personal information outside the UK, including in the United States. Netlify's Data Processing Agreement provides for UK personal data transfers to use the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where applicable, with the UK International Data Transfer Addendum applying where that mechanism is not available.

How long we keep it

• Survey submissions that identify you: up to 12 months from the close of this research round.
• Research follow-up details: until you withdraw, or 12 months from the close of the research round.
• Contact-about-our-services details: until you withdraw.
• Findings-delivery details: until the Snapshot has been sent, plus a short window, then deleted unless we have another reason to keep them.
• Aggregated and anonymised research outputs: kept indefinitely. These no longer identify anyone, so there is nothing to delete.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• correct it if it is wrong;
• delete it;
• restrict how we use it, in the circumstances where that right applies;
• stop using it for the research, which is the right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests;
• provide, for the optional choices you consented to, a copy of what you gave us in a portable form.

To exercise any of these, email hello@pelicancfo.com. We may need to ask you something that lets us find your response, because a submission with no contact details cannot be traced back to you.

Withdrawing consent

We rely on your consent for research follow-up, contact about our services, and sending you the findings. You can withdraw it at any time by emailing hello@pelicancfo.com. Withdrawing does not affect anything we lawfully did before you withdrew.

Complaining to the regulator

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We would rather you told us first, so we have a chance to put it right.

PelicanCFO's wider privacy policy

For PelicanCFO's wider website and service data handling outside this research survey, see the PelicanCFO Privacy Policy. That policy covers PelicanCFO's general processing; this notice is the one that describes this research survey.