Why we require explicit acceptance before activating AI features.
Last updated: March 2, 2026Enhance Finance's core product operates entirely within your Google Sheet — no data leaves your Google account. 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 is a meaningful distinction. Sending financial data — even transaction 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:
Financial data is sensitive. Even anonymized transaction 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 |
| Financial Insights | Aggregated financial summary 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:
The mandatory disclosure process is designed to protect you in several specific ways:
| Protection | How It Works |
|---|---|
| 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 at hello@enhancefinance.ca 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.
Email: hello@enhancefinance.ca
We're happy to explain any part of this process before you decide.