RAS Accountants & Business Advisors

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

RAS Accountants & Business Advisors (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a firm of Chartered Certified Accountants. This notice explains what personal information we hold, why we hold it, how long we keep it and what rights you have. It covers both visitors to this website and clients of the practice.

RAS Accountants & Business Advisors is the trading name of Muhammad Raheel Hasan, who is the data controller for the purposes of the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration number ZA306593.

1. Information we collect

If you use this website and submit the enquiry or quote-request form, we collect the details you choose to provide — typically your name, email address, telephone number, business details and the content of your message. We do not ask for more than we need in order to reply.

If you become a client, we will also need information to deliver our services and to meet our legal duties. Depending on the engagement this may include:

  • identity documents, such as a passport or driving licence, and proof of address;
  • your date of birth, National Insurance number and Unique Taxpayer Reference;
  • financial records, bank statements, invoices, payroll data and accounting records;
  • details of company officers, shareholders and beneficial owners;
  • information about your employees, where we provide payroll services.

Where you give us information about other people — employees, business partners, family members — you are responsible for making sure they know it has been shared with us and why.

2. Why we use it, and our lawful basis

  • To answer your enquiry or prepare a quote. Our legitimate interests in responding to someone who has contacted us.
  • To provide accountancy, tax, payroll and advisory services. Performance of our contract with you.
  • To verify your identity and carry out customer due diligence. Compliance with a legal obligation — see section 3.
  • To meet filing and reporting duties to HMRC, Companies House and other authorities. Compliance with a legal obligation.
  • To meet the requirements of our professional body and our insurers, including practice inspection and complaints handling. Our legitimate interests in operating a regulated practice, and compliance with a legal obligation.
  • To keep records of the advice we have given, so that we can defend our position if a dispute or claim arises. Our legitimate interests in establishing or defending legal claims.

We do not use your information for automated decision-making or profiling, and we do not sell it.

3. Anti-money laundering obligations

As accountants we are supervised for anti-money laundering purposes and are required by the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 to identify and verify our clients, to understand the purpose of the business relationship, and to keep records of the checks we carry out.

These are legal duties, not matters of choice. Two consequences are worth stating plainly:

  • We must keep customer due diligence records for five years beginning on the date the business relationship ends or an occasional transaction completes. During that period we cannot delete them at your request, even if you ask us to.
  • If we know or suspect that someone is involved in money laundering or terrorist financing, we may be required to make a report to the National Crime Agency. Where we do, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 prohibits us from telling you that a report has been made or that an investigation may be under way. We may also be unable to explain why we have paused work on your affairs.

4. Who we share information with

We do not sell your data or share it for marketing. We may share it with:

  • HMRC, Companies House and other authorities, where we file or report on your behalf or where disclosure is required by law;
  • the National Crime Agency, where a suspicious activity report is required (see section 3);
  • our professional body, which has the right to inspect our files as part of practice monitoring, and whose reviewers are bound by confidentiality;
  • software and service providers who process data on our behalf under contract — this includes our accounting, tax, payroll and practice-management systems and our email and file storage;
  • our professional indemnity insurers and legal advisers, where a claim or potential claim arises;
  • other advisers you ask us to deal with, such as solicitors, banks or a previous or incoming accountant, with your authority.

5. How long we keep it

  • Website enquiries that do not become engagements: up to 24 months, then deleted.
  • Customer due diligence and identity records: five years from the end of the business relationship, as required by the 2017 Regulations.
  • Accounting, tax and payroll records and our working papers: at least six years from the end of the accounting period or tax year to which they relate, reflecting HMRC enquiry windows and our professional obligations. Some engagement records are kept longer where a claim could still be brought.
  • Correspondence and engagement letters: for the duration of the relationship and six years afterwards.

At the end of these periods information is deleted or securely destroyed.

6. Cookies and website analytics

This website does not set advertising, tracking or profiling cookies, and it does not use Google Analytics or similar behavioural tracking. You will not see a cookie consent banner because there is nothing non-essential to consent to.

WordPress, the software this site runs on, sets cookies only for people who log in to administer the site. Ordinary visitors are not given cookies.

The site loads typefaces from Google Fonts, which means your browser contacts Google’s servers and your IP address is visible to Google in the course of that request. No cookie is set.

If we introduce analytics or spam protection that sets cookies in future, we will update this notice and ask for your consent first where the law requires it.

7. Where your information is held

Your information is held within the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area wherever we can arrange it. Some of our software providers operate from, or store backups in, other countries. Where information is transferred outside the UK we rely on the UK Government’s adequacy regulations or on the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so that it continues to be protected.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

  • ask what personal information we hold about you and receive a copy;
  • have inaccurate information corrected;
  • ask us to delete information, or to restrict or object to how we use it;
  • receive information you gave us in a portable format;
  • withdraw consent, where we relied on consent.

We will always respond, normally within one month. But please be aware that some of these rights are limited where we have a legal duty to keep records. In particular, we cannot delete anti-money laundering records inside the five-year retention period, and we cannot delete records we are required to keep for tax or company law purposes. Where we cannot do what you have asked, we will tell you why.

9. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. You do not have to raise it with us before going to the ICO.

10. Contact

For any question about this notice, or to exercise any of the rights above, please use the enquiry form on this website or call us on the number shown in the footer. Please mark your message for the attention of the data protection contact.

11. Changes to this notice

We review this notice periodically. The date at the top shows when it was last changed. Where a change materially affects how we use your information, we will bring it to the attention of current clients directly.