A closure request, and a checklist in Notion
A customer asks to close their account. Or your team decides to close one after a review, under the terms of your agreement. Either way, ops opens the closure checklist: check the balance, cancel the card, stop scheduled payments, cancel direct debits and standing orders, pay out the balance to a nominated account, send the notice, close the account at the provider, mark it closed in your system, update the helpdesk.
Each step is done in a different place. Some need an engineer. Two weeks later a scheduled payment tries to run from a closed account, or a card refund arrives after the balance was paid out, and someone has to work out what to do with it.
Why closures go wrong
Opening an account is automated because it is part of growth. Closing one rarely is, because it happens less often and nobody wants to invest in the exit.
- Open items are spread across the card processor, the payments provider, and your own scheduled payments.
- The order matters, for example stopping new card spend before paying out the balance.
- Money can arrive after closure, such as merchant refunds or incoming transfers.
- Closures started by you and closures requested by customers need different notices.
- The checklist lives in a document, so each person runs it slightly differently.
The mess an unfinished closure leaves
A missed step means a customer is charged, notified or paid after they believed they had left, which makes for an unhappy last contact. Money that arrives after closure becomes an unallocated item nobody expected. Ops spend time on each closure, and more on tidying up the ones that went wrong. When someone later asks exactly how and when an account was closed, the answer is spread across tools.
The terms under which you close accounts and the notices you give are set by your agreements, your policy and your advisers. The workflow follows them.
The closure workflow we build
What we build turns the checklist into a workflow that runs the steps and waits where a person or time is needed.
- A closure is started from your admin tool, with the type (customer request or your decision) and a reason from your list.
- The workflow checks every open item: card status, scheduled and recurring payments, pending transactions, direct debits and balance, through each provider's API.
- Steps run in the order you define, for example freeze card, cancel scheduled payments, wait for pending items to settle, then pay out the balance.
- The payout goes to the nominated account after the checks you require, with any second approval you want.
- The right notice for the closure type is sent from your templates, and a copy is kept on the account.
- After closure, a watch stays on the account for a period you set, and any money that arrives creates an ops task rather than sitting unnoticed.
- Every step, result and person is recorded as the closure history.
| Step | System | Waits for |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze card and stop new spend | Card processor | Nothing |
| Cancel scheduled payments | Your product and payments provider | Nothing |
| Let pending items settle | Payments and card providers | Your chosen settle period |
| Pay out remaining balance | Payments provider | Approval where you require one |
| Send closure notice | Email and in-app | Nothing |
| Close at provider and in your system | All | Balance at zero |
| Post-closure watch | Incoming payments and refunds | End of watch period |
Closing an account after the change
Ops start a closure with a couple of clicks and see a progress view. Most steps run on their own. The payout waits for approval if you want it. A refund that arrives after closure lands as a task with the customer's details and payout account already attached.
Anyone who asks later can see exactly what happened, in order.
Do closures look like this for you?
- Closures follow a checklist in a document.
- Some steps need an engineer.
- Payments or card charges have happened after closure.
- Money arriving after closure goes unnoticed for a while.
- You cannot easily show when and how an account was closed.