[TechBro8615]

It sounds really useful, but it's a non-starter if I need to give sensitive financial data to some startup where any engineer can probably log into the DB and check how much money I have left.

I saw a tweet recently to the effect of "I'm not sure who I'd rather have my data, a giant megacorp or a startup with 5 employees who can query the DB from their laptop." I think this is a good example of that.

I would use this if it included encrypted data storage with client-side computation, and/or was self-hostable (you can still charge a license fee!)

[sudizhe]

Totally understand. The web platform is still the fastest to develop on (at least for me). I have an idea for moving everything to native apps and keeping data offline, but it's pretty far down on the roadmap T.T

[Androider]

I think what would help is, and what I've seen other companies do:

- First add a security page, I need to know you're doing basic things like encrypting the data on your end etc. Hopefully you're using at least something like KMS for your at-rest encryption (all DBs and disks) if using AWS.

- Then also publicly state on the security page something to the effect of "No Pry employee has the ability to access customer data without your explicit approval, and all access is audited". Meaning, if you need to work a support case for some customer, you have to ask them before you look at their data, and you have to track when this access occurs

- Ultimately you'll get something like a SOC2 cert to show that you actually have these controls in place that you say you do

I think with this, you'll be able to overcome some of the fears. Native apps is a shrinking market and a distraction for you IMO. Your customers are already fine with cloud solutions, since they're using Quickbooks Online, Xero etc. by definition, you just need to convince them you're trustworthy as well.

[sudizhe]

Good call. Thanks for the feedback!

[toomuchtodo]

You might find this helpful on this topic: https://latacora.singles/2020/03/12/the-soc-starting.html

[bberenberg]

Can you share what makes your financial data sensitive? This isn't intended as a ridiculous question. I want to understand what harm / thread model you are worried about with Pry staff seeing your company finances.

[wongarsu]

- Even the rumor that a company isn't doing well financially can easily sink them. Who knows what Pry employees say to someone they want to impress in the pub.

- Pry knowns my transactions, so they know who my customers are, and how much I'm charging them. Maybe one of my competitors could bribe a Pry employee to divulge this information. Same for suppliers, etc. Maybe not important for B2C SaaS, but for many companies this is a real threat.

[vcvc]

Pry staff may leave and work for a competing company of the end user

Is it possible for Pry staff to do any actions in the accounts such as withdraws?

Does third part access void TOS with banks that have protections in place?

If Pry is sold to another company, how is data transferred to the new company? Does the end user have the option of preventing the transfer?

[sudizhe]

Pry staff cannot do any withdrawals. We use Plaid for our third party access and they are widely used. If we sold, I have no idea. But we have 24 months of runway right now and no plans to sell.

[xiphias2]

,,no plans to sell'' is the worst thing a company can say, as it just reminds me of WhatsApp and friends.

[choxi]

Isn’t this true for any traditional accountant you might use as well? Any form of outsourcing financials seems like it would have the same risk.

[wongarsu]

Accounting is a highly regulated field. My local accountant is properly certified, and takes information security very seriously (in part because of well established precedent around liability and professional misconduct).

[nrmitchi]

> takes information security very seriously

I don't mean this as a giant joke, but where do you find these accountants?

I'm not saying that they don't try to, but things that would be major security no-no's to people on HN are often a regular part of business for others (emailing photocopies of 'secure' documents, copy/pasting passwords, etc).

[sokoloff]

It varies. My tax preparer will not even open PDFs that I want to send him due to the risks he perceives there.

[neximo64]

This is nonsense in a startup its very transparent.