When an officer resigns
Recording a resignation is one field — the Ended date on the appointment, as described in Directors and officers. What matters is what happens next, because a resignation does not end the money.
A former director may still owe the company, or still be owed by it. That balance is real, it has to appear in your accounts, and it may go on moving for years. So Sales Scribe keeps everything and changes only how it is described.
What does not change
- The account stays open. Nothing is closed, archived or re-created on the day of a resignation.
- The balance stays. It appears on your balance sheet exactly as before.
- The history stays readable. Every movement stays on the statement, with the appointment dates shown beneath it.
- The account can still be used. Repayments, further advances and adjustments all post normally.
- The person stays on the register. They cannot be removed while they hold a ledger account.
What does change: the wording
Wherever the account is named — pickers, the chart of accounts, the general ledger, the balance sheet, the statement — the label gains the holder's standing:
Director's Loan – George Smith (former director)
The noun stays put and the suffix carries the change, so a settled account does not rename itself on the day of a resignation. You will also see:
- (appointment begins 1 Oct 2026) — the transaction was recorded before the appointment was. Usually a data-entry ordering artefact, so the date is given rather than treating them as a stranger.
- (no director appointment recorded) — nobody has recorded a directorship for them at all. The label then drops "Director's Loan" for the neutral Person Running Account, because asserting a directorship and denying it in the same line helps nobody.
- no suffix at all — they hold the office. Nothing needs saying.
On the loan account statement the standing is shown as a badge next to their name, stated as at the end of the period you are looking at — so a statement for last year reads as it did then, not as things stand today. The balance sheet does the same, as at its As at date.
What you will be told
Two things can happen when you post something that touches a running account. Neither blocks anything, and neither says anything about tax.
After posting: "This has taken their account into debit"
Shown on the document you just posted, when the account moved from the person owing nothing to the person owing the company. It names the account, says what the position went from and to, and notes that a balance owed by a person may become relevant to the s455 or beneficial-loan rules depending on the circumstances — nothing is determined.
It fires for a serving director just as much as a former one: crossing into debit is the event, not the office. If the crossing was the consequence of a reversal, the wording says so — "Following this reversal, …" — because that is not a decision you just took.
The movement that did it is badged into debit on the statement, so you can find it again.
After posting: "They held no appointment on that date"
Shown when the company's debt to the person grew, and they did not hold the office their account is named for on the document's date. It is informational: someone who has resigned is still allowed to be owed money.
Where the money was actually received — a Receive Money receipt rather than a journal — it adds: "Consider whether this is a new arrangement rather than a movement on their running account." A former director putting money into the company may be making a commercial loan, which is a different thing from a director's loan account, and worth a moment's thought before it is buried in a running account. It is not added on a journal entry, where a credit may equally be interest, a correction, a dividend or a salary credit.
Before posting: "Please confirm before this is posted"
This one appears before the posting, on Spend Money, Receive Money and manual journals. You will see it when all of these are true:
- the posting increases what the person owes the company, and
- they did not hold the office their account is named for on the document's date.
Sales Scribe refuses once and shows you what it would do: who, their standing, the account, and the figure their debt moves from and to. Tick I have checked this and want to post it and post again — everything you entered is still there, and it posts exactly as entered: same amounts, same date, same journal.
You are not asked when:
- the person holds the office on that date — lending to a serving director is ordinary business;
- your organisation has no such office (a sole trader);
- the posting reduces what they owe, or leaves it unchanged. A credit can never increase someone's debt, so there is nothing to ask about.
You are asked if the account's history does not reach back to the document's date. The prompt then says the earlier figure cannot be read, rather than showing it against a nil balance that would be a guess.
The confirmation is written to your audit log, recording what you were shown at the time.
What it is not. It is not a block, not a warning that something is wrong, and not a tax opinion. Whether a charge arises turns on close-company, participator and employment facts Sales Scribe does not hold. It is a second look before a number that your accountant will ask about goes into the books.