Your data and privacy
This guide is the map of everything Sales Scribe offers around your data: taking a complete copy of it, erasing what identifies you, closing down when you leave, and exactly how long each kind of record is kept — and why. Each section links to the detailed guide for that facility.
The four facilities at a glance
| You want to… | What to use | Who can do it |
|---|---|---|
| Take a copy of your data | Download your data — a complete ZIP of an organisation's (or your whole account's) records, spreadsheets plus archived invoice PDFs and receipts | Organisation administrator (org-level); account Owner (account-level) |
| Erase what identifies a person | Erase your personal data — yourself; or a customer/supplier contact on their request | Any user (self); organisation administrator (counterparties) |
| Delete one organisation | Delete an organisation — 30-day reversible window, then permanent | Organisation administrator who also holds account authority |
| Leave entirely | Close your account — 30-day reversible window; subscription ends; personal data anonymised at the end | Account Owner |
How long we keep what — and why
Different kinds of record have different clocks. This is deliberate: some retention is a legal obligation (financial records), some protects you (audit trails, delivery disputes), and everything else is kept only as long as it is useful.
| What | Kept for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Financial records — issued invoices, credit notes, payments, journals, bank transactions, and their archived PDFs and receipts | 6 years from the end of the financial year they belong to | Tax law requires it (HMRC and equivalent authorities). This is also why erasure cannot rewrite an issued invoice — see below. |
| Activity and audit history | 6 years from the event | Your protection and ours: who did what, and when. Erasure removes the person from these entries (name, email, address details are replaced by an anonymous token); the entries themselves remain. |
| Sent email content — the rendered body and attachments of emails the system sent for you | 24 months, then the content is removed (the fact the email was sent, to whom, and its delivery status remain) | Long enough to resolve "you never sent me that invoice" disputes; no longer. |
| Data-export downloads | 7 days, then the file is deleted | An export is a snapshot to download promptly, not long-term storage. Request a fresh one any time. |
| Personal details — names, emails, phone numbers, addresses on your profile and on customer/supplier records | As long as the account or organisation is active | Erased or anonymised on request, at account closure, or at organisation deletion. |
| Lapsed accounts — subscription ended and nothing renewed | 12 months, with email warnings 30 days and 7 days before the end | After that the account enters the same closure process as a deliberate closure, with the same 30-day final window. |
What happens after the retention period
When a closed account's or deleted organisation's retention clock expires, its records are permanently and automatically deleted — every record, every archived PDF, every receipt file. This is not a soft delete: the data is unrecoverable afterwards. A summary of the deletion (counts only, no content) is kept as the permanent record that it happened.
Why an issued invoice can't be "erased"
An issued invoice is a legal document — yours and your customer's. Erasure therefore never rewrites issued documents or their archived PDFs; they keep their content unchanged until their 6-year retention ends, and are then deleted with everything else. What erasure does do, immediately, is remove the person from everything that is not a legal record: profiles, contact records, activity history, invitations and team records.
Data held outside Sales Scribe
- Card and subscription payments are processed by Stripe; we hold no card numbers. If you ask for erasure we also remove your customer record on Stripe.
- Emails you configure to send through your own mail provider (SMTP) pass through that provider under your own agreement with them.
Related guides
- Exporting your data
- Erase your personal data
- Close your account or delete an organisation
- Activity and audit history
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