Cookies
No cookie banner. No consent popups. No tracking — and here's why.
Last updated: 5 February 2026
The short version
We use essential cookies to keep you logged in. That's it. No tracking cookies, no advertising cookies, no third-party cookies following you around the internet. Our analytics tool doesn't use cookies at all.
Because we don't use non-essential cookies or collect personal data for analytics, we don't need to ask for cookie consent under UK law. That's why you don't see a cookie banner on SpeyBooks.
Our Philosophy
Privacy isn't a feature we bolt on — it's a constraint that shapes how we build. We believe you should be able to use accounting software without being tracked, profiled, or having your behaviour sold to advertisers.
Many SaaS products rely on tools like Google Analytics, Facebook pixels, session recording, and behavioural tracking. We think that's inappropriate, especially for software handling your financial data.
SpeyBooks takes a different approach: collect the minimum, respect the maximum.
Essential Cookies
We use two cookies. Both are essential for the application to work. Neither tracks you or shares data with third parties.
| Cookie | Purpose | Duration | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| sb_session | Keeps you logged in so you don't have to re-authenticate on every page | Session | Essential |
| sb_csrf | Protects against cross-site request forgery attacks | Session | Essential |
"Session" means the cookie is deleted when you close your browser. We don't set long-lived cookies that persist for months.
These cookies are strictly limited to providing the service you explicitly request and are not used for analytics or tracking.
What We Don't Use
To avoid ambiguity, here's a non-exhaustive list of tools we explicitly do not run on SpeyBooks:
No session recordings. No heatmaps. No behavioural tracking. No cross-site tracking. No advertising identifiers. No fingerprinting.
Analytics: Umami
We do want to know basic things: how many people visit, which pages are useful, which countries our users are from. This helps us improve SpeyBooks.
For this, we use Umami — an open-source, privacy-focused analytics tool that's fundamentally different from Google Analytics.
How Umami respects your privacy
No cookies
Umami doesn't set any cookies. None. It identifies page views without persistent or cross-site identifiers.
No personal data
We don't store IP addresses. Any IP processing is ephemeral and used only to derive non-identifying aggregate data (such as country).
No cross-site tracking
Umami only knows about SpeyBooks. It doesn't follow you to other websites or build a profile of your browsing.
Self-hosted
We run our own Umami instance. Your analytics data isn't sent to Google, Facebook, or any third party.
GDPR compliant by design
Because Umami doesn't collect personal data, it generally doesn't require consent under UK GDPR or PECR.
What we actually collect
The only data Umami gives us:
- • Page views (which pages, when)
- • Referrer (where you came from, e.g., Google search)
- • Country (derived, not stored as IP)
- • Device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)
- • Browser and OS (in aggregate)
This tells us "50 people from the UK visited the pricing page today" — not "John Smith from Edinburgh visited pricing at 3:47pm, then went to competitor.com".
Why No Cookie Banner?
Under UK PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) and GDPR, you only need consent for non-essential cookies — tracking, advertising, analytics that collect personal data.
We don't use any of those. Our essential cookies fall under the "strictly necessary" exemption in PECR Regulation 6, and Umami doesn't use cookies or collect personal data.
No tracking cookies = no consent required = no annoying banner.
We think cookie banners have become a dark pattern anyway — most are designed to trick you into accepting tracking, not to genuinely give you control. We'd rather just not track you in the first place.
Opting Out
Even though Umami is privacy-respecting, you can still opt out if you prefer. Opting out of analytics does not affect your ability to use SpeyBooks.
- • Enable "Do Not Track" — Umami respects the DNT browser setting
- • Use an ad blocker — Most will block analytics scripts including Umami
- • Disable JavaScript — Umami requires JS to run (the app does too, though)
We won't be offended. We respect your choice.
Third-Party Cookies
SpeyBooks doesn't set third-party cookies. However, if you interact with embedded content (e.g., a YouTube video in our docs), that third party might set cookies under their own domain.
We minimise this by avoiding embedded content where possible. When we do embed external content, we use privacy-enhanced modes where available.
We believe privacy isn't something users should have to manage with popups and settings. The safest data is the data we never collect.
Questions?
If you have questions about our cookie or analytics practices, contact us at support@speybooks.com.
For our full data practices, see our Privacy Policy.
Scope: This policy applies to speybooks.com and app.speybooks.com.
Future changes: If we ever introduce non-essential cookies, we will update this page and introduce consent controls as required by law.
Last updated: 5 February 2026