Why we require explicit acceptance before activating AI features.
Last updated: March 5, 2026When you activate AI features in your Google Sheet, you are presented with a disclaimer containing six terms. Here is each term, what it means in plain language, and why it's there:
| Term | What It Means in Plain Language | Why It's There |
|---|---|---|
| 1. You're in Control | Your data stays in your Google Sheet at all times. When you choose to use an AI feature, only the specific data needed for that feature is sent — and only because you clicked the button. Nothing happens in the background, ever. | So you know that no data leaves your account without your direct action. You are in the driver's seat 100% of the time. |
| 2. For Educational Purposes Only | The AI gives you spending observations, patterns, and categorization — not professional advice. It's a tool to help you understand your money, not to tell you what to do with it. | AI is not a licensed professional. We want to be upfront that this is a categorization and analysis tool, not a replacement for professional guidance. |
| 3. AI Can and Will Make Mistakes | Like all AI systems, Claude can sometimes get things wrong — a miscategorized transaction, an off-base observation. You should always review what it gives you. | AI hallucinations are a real limitation. We'd rather be honest about this than pretend it's perfect. |
| 4. No Endorsement | Enhance Finance doesn't verify or guarantee anything the AI says. We provide the tool — the AI generates the output. | We built the product, but we don't control every AI response. This makes that distinction clear. |
| 5. Use at Your Own Risk | If you act on something the AI suggested and it doesn't work out, that's your responsibility. The AI is a helper, not a decision-maker. | Standard liability protection. You're making your own decisions — the AI is just another data point to consider. |
| 6. Indemnification | AI can hallucinate. If it says something absurd — like suggesting you stop paying taxes as a cost-cutting measure — and you actually do it, that's entirely on you. This clause protects Enhance Finance, its owner, and Anthropic (the company behind Claude) from anyone who treats a hallucination as fact and then tries to hold us responsible for their own decisions. We cannot stress this enough: the AI is a tool, not an authority. Any action you take based on its output is 100% your responsibility. | AI output is inherently unpredictable. No matter how good the model is, it can and will occasionally produce nonsensical or misleading content with complete confidence — it thinks it's right when it's wrong. This clause exists because we need a clear legal line: if you choose to act on AI-generated content without verifying it, the consequences are yours — not ours, not Anthropic's. |
Enhance Finance's core product operates entirely within your Google Sheet — no data leaves your Google account, and you are in full control at all times. However, when you activate AI-powered features, a fundamentally different process occurs: specific data from your spreadsheet is sent to an external AI service (Anthropic's Claude API) for processing. This only happens when you explicitly trigger it — never in the background.
This is a meaningful distinction. Sending transaction data — even descriptions and amounts rather than account numbers — to a third-party API is a step that you should explicitly understand and agree to before it happens. The mandatory disclosure exists for several important reasons:
Transaction data is sensitive. Even anonymized descriptions (e.g., "AMAZON.CA $47.99") can reveal spending habits, lifestyle patterns, and personal preferences. Before any of this data is transmitted externally, you deserve to know exactly what is sent, where it goes, and how it is handled. The disclosure ensures you make this decision with full knowledge — not assumptions.
Consumer protection laws in Canada and the United States — including PIPEDA (Canada), various US state privacy laws, and emerging AI disclosure regulations — require that users provide informed consent before their personal data is processed by AI systems or transmitted to third parties. The mandatory acceptance creates a verifiable legal record that consent was given freely, with full knowledge of the data processing involved.
Enhance Finance operates within Google Sheets and uses Google OAuth to authorize its scripts. Google requires that any application accessing user data through their APIs clearly disclose how that data is used, particularly when data is sent to third-party services. The mandatory disclosure satisfies Google's API Services User Data Policy and Limited Use requirements by ensuring users explicitly understand and consent to external data transmission before it occurs.
We believe you should never be surprised by what happens with your data. The disclosure is a commitment to transparency — it draws a clear, visible line between features that keep your data entirely within your Google account and features that involve external processing. This distinction matters, and it should be explicit.
When you activate AI features through the ✦ Enhance Finance menu in Google Sheets, the following process occurs:
The acceptance form collects the following information to create a verifiable consent record:
By accepting the AI disclaimer, you are consenting to the following data being sent to the Anthropic Claude API when you use specific AI features. Each feature sends only the minimum data it needs:
| AI Feature | Data Sent |
|---|---|
| AI Transaction Sorting | Transaction descriptions (raw bank text such as "POS PURCHASE - WALMART #3847"), transaction amounts, and your existing category/merchant lists for matching context |
| Dashboard Insights | Aggregated summary data only: total income, total expenses, total discretionary spending, remaining/overspent amount, and their percentages |
| Merchant Insights | A single merchant name, date ranges, and aggregated statistics: total spent, number of visits, average transaction size, monthly breakdown |
| Annual Budget Review | Budget category names, annual/monthly amounts, income sources and amounts, expense percentages, and savings amounts — all as aggregated totals |
Regardless of which AI feature you use, the following is never transmitted to any external service:
Enhance Finance uses Google OAuth 2.0 to run within your Google Sheet. Google imposes strict requirements on any application that accesses user data through their APIs, particularly regarding transparency and user consent.
Under Google's API Services User Data Policy, applications must:
The mandatory AI disclosure ensures Enhance Finance complies with these requirements by obtaining explicit, documented consent before any Google Sheets data is transmitted to the Anthropic API. Without this consent mechanism, sending your spreadsheet data to a third-party service would violate Google's policies.
The script.external_request OAuth scope — which allows the script to make HTTPS requests to external servers — is required exclusively for AI features and license key validation. The mandatory disclosure provides the consent framework that justifies this scope's use, ensuring that external requests only occur after you have explicitly agreed to them.
AI features are powered by Anthropic's Claude API. Understanding how Anthropic handles data sent through their API is an important part of your informed consent.
Anthropic's full data handling practices are governed by their Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. We encourage you to review these documents as part of your decision.
Your data does not go directly from your Google Sheet to Anthropic. Instead, it passes through our secure proxy server hosted on Cloudflare Workers. This proxy:
Here's exactly what happens each time you use an AI feature — from start to finish:
The mandatory disclosure process is designed to protect you in several specific ways:
| Protection | How It Works |
|---|---|
| You're always in control | Your data lives in your Google Sheet, in your Google account. We cannot access it. Nothing is ever sent anywhere without you explicitly clicking the button to trigger it. You are in control 100% of the time — no one else. |
| No surprises | You know exactly what data leaves your Google account before it happens. Nothing is sent without your knowledge. |
| Documented consent | Your acceptance is recorded with a timestamp, version number, and digital signature. You receive a confirmation email as your personal record. |
| Feature-level control | You choose when to trigger each AI feature. Data is only sent in the moment you click — there is no background processing, no scheduled requests, and no automatic data transmission. |
| Revocable at any time | You can remove your license key and deactivate AI features instantly via the ✦ Enhance Finance menu. Your spreadsheet continues to work fully without AI. |
| Version tracking | The disclaimer includes a version number. If we make material changes, you will be required to re-accept the updated terms before AI features continue working. |
| Legal record | The acceptance record protects you by proving what you consented to and when. If our policies ever change, your original consent is preserved with the specific version you agreed to. |
If you decide the AI disclosure is not something you want to accept, Enhance Finance is fully functional without AI features. The following work with zero external connections:
The only difference without AI is that you categorize transactions manually using dropdown menus instead of one-click AI sorting. All dashboards, budgets, and tracking features are identical.
You can revoke your AI consent at any time through the following methods:
Navigate to ✦ Enhance Finance → AI License → 🗑️ Remove License Key in your Google Sheet. This immediately removes your license key and local acceptance record from your Google account. AI features will stop working instantly.
Visit your Google Account permissions and remove Enhance Finance. This revokes all script permissions. Your spreadsheet and data remain intact — only the automated features require re-authorization.
Contact us to request deletion of your acceptance record and license key data from our server. We will process deletion requests within 30 days. Note that acceptance records may be retained as required for legal compliance.
We're happy to explain any part of this process before you decide.