I’ve had a power user account for the last few years, but am currently in the process of winding up my business. My power user subscription expires in a few days’ time, but I will need to access my account ideally to input a few final transactions over the next month or so, and certainly to do my 2018-19 tax return sometime next year. If I do not renew my account will I be completely locked out, or will I for example be able to view but not modify it? Very happy with the quickfile product over the years, but would if possible like to avoid paying something that I will barely use.
Many thanks
Jon
The account size calculation is based on a rolling 12 month window, so once you stop using your account, regardless of how much historical data is in there, it will drop down below the “subscription-required” threshold at some point during the next 12 months. To access it occasionally between now and then the most cost-effective approach is probably to create an affinity account and then only attach your primary account to the affinity account during the times you actively need to use it. Accounts connected to Affinity don’t need a subscription regardless of size, and Affinity charges a few pence per day the account is connected, rather than a flat rate per year.
Question for @Glenn or @QFMathew - is the top-up payment for extra storage tied to the PU subscription or is that separate? In my case I’m currently paying an extra £10 on top of the PU rate for extra storage, if I were to close my business and let my subscription expire as described above, would I still have to pay the storage fees going forward in order to preserve my records for the requisite 6 years?
Right now it is tied to the PU subscription. Data retention hasn’t been a significant concern for us up to this point and we’ve largely absorbed those costs. That will likely change in the future, especially given that these costs are cumulative and we’re moving more services into the public cloud.
This year we started purging accounts that remained dormant for 2 years. We are planning to introduce an additional tier (probably late 2019) to set a reduced rate for read-only access. Of course there will be plenty of warning issued ahead of these changes.
So I have now created an Affinity account and connected my business account to it. My PU subscription expires in 2 days. Is that all I need to do for Affinity billing to take over when the PU expires? Can I detach the account now and simply reattach it as and when I need to access it? Just want to ensure that I don’t lose any records!
Thanks
Jon
You can do. Although if the Affinity account owns the standalone account, it may be scheduled for deletion (it will warn you about this before you unlink it).
