Data Deletion
When and how your data is permanently removed.
Principles
- Deleted means gone, not hidden. When you delete something, it is actually removed. We do not simply hide it from view while keeping a copy.
- Your instruction beats our timer. If you delete something, it goes straight away. Our standard holding period is only the *longest* we would keep data if nobody ever asked us to remove it.
- If it cannot finish, it counts as failed. When you ask us to erase an entire account, every part of it has to succeed. If any part cannot complete, we treat the whole thing as failed and say so, rather than telling you it worked when it did not.
How data is deleted
| What happens | What gets removed |
|---|---|
| You delete a single document | That document, plus everything that came from it — the line items read out of it and any emission records calculated from those lines. |
| Our automatic clean-up runs | Documents that have reached the end of their holding period (7 years by default, which matches normal financial record-keeping). |
| You ask us to erase your account | Your whole company and everything in it. |
In all three cases, deletion works all the way down: the original file, the line items taken from it, and the emission records built on those lines all go together, from both our file storage and our database.
Error monitoring
Everything covered by your deletion request is removed, with one exception: the error reports kept by our error-tracking tool, which we use to spot and fix bugs. We cannot delete one customer at a time from it. Instead, every report is deleted automatically within 30 days. So even if a stray detail ends up in an error report, it is gone within a month, whenever you delete the original document.
What we keep
We keep only what the law says we must, and only for as long as the law says — for example, basic account records needed for tax. Everything else covered by your deletion request is removed.
Your own records
Deleting data here removes our copy. It does not change what you are required to keep. UK tax and company law say your business must hold on to its own invoices, bills and accounting records for a set number of years, and that duty stays with you, not with us.
Before you delete anything, check that you still have the original documents somewhere you control — in your accounting software, or your own files. We act on your instruction and do not quietly keep a spare copy for you.
If your documents came in through connected accounting software such as Xero, QuickBooks or Sage, the originals stay in that software. Deleting them here does not delete them there.