Read-Only Access for Lapsed and Ended Subscriptions
Why This Matters
Until now, an organisation whose subscription lapsed lost API and app access entirely. That was the wrong promise for an accounting product: your records are still your records when a card expires or a business winds down. This release replaces the all-or-nothing gate with a tiered one, and makes the retention promise mechanical rather than aspirational.
What Changed
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Payment failure means read-only, never lock-out If payment ultimately cannot be collected, the account becomes read-only: every report, invoice, and export remains available, and any attempt to write is refused with a clear explanation. Settling the outstanding invoice restores full access instantly. Your data is never held hostage to a card problem.
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A 12-month retention window after cancellation When a subscription ends, read-only access plus export continues for twelve months from the end date, long enough to span a full UK filing cycle. Resubscribing at any point restores full access. Beyond the window, access closes ahead of eventual data removal, which will always be preceded by a warning email.
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Limited company features stay readable too Dividends, director loans, and board minutes remain readable through the retention window and during payment retries. A fix landed here as well: company features were previously locked during the card retry window, contradicting our own promise that access is unaffected while retries are in progress.
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Ending a subscription no longer erases what you were Internally, cancellation now records what ended rather than resetting the account to a blank state. Your plan, dates, and billing identity survive, which is what makes the retention window, accurate resubscription, and our nightly billing verification all work.
Operational Impact
- Every access tier was verified live before release: reads and writes exercised against a test organisation in each state, including the far edge of the retention window
- Two distinct refusal messages, one for payment failure and one for ended subscriptions, each stating the remedy
Your books outlive your card. That is now enforced by the platform, not just promised by it.