Late payment and frozen panels

The timeline

• Invoice day: the invoice for a period is issued the moment that period ends. Your panel keeps running.
• The days to pay: you have 7 days to pay. These days are part of the next period, so your panel stays open and keeps taking orders.
• Frozen: if the invoice is still unpaid when the 7 days are over, the panel is frozen. Visitors see a notice and no orders are possible.
• Closed and archived: if it stays frozen for 30 days, the panel is closed and its data is archived.
• Restore window: for a limited time after that, you can ask for the panel to be restored.

You get e-mails along the way. See "Reminders" below.

The days to pay

The due date is printed on the invoice and shown on the Invoices page. It is 7 days after the invoice was issued.

If automatic payment is on and your wallet has enough balance, the invoice is paid when it is issued and you never see a due date pass. If the balance is short, Arty keeps trying whenever you add funds. See Billing and renewal.

You can add funds and press Pay from my wallet on an invoice at any time. On an invoice with a short wallet, Top up and pay pays the invoice for you as soon as your payment arrives.

What frozen means

A frozen panel is closed to visitors and takes no orders. Its data is kept. Your account shows the panel as frozen with the reason: an unpaid invoice.

The clock of the running period stops while the panel is frozen. Frozen time is not counted, so you are not billed for time the panel was closed, and no new invoice is issued while it is frozen.

Turning off automatic payment never freezes a panel. Only an overdue invoice does.

Paying unfreezes the panel

Pay the overdue invoice from the invoice page. In the same step that takes the money from your wallet, the panel is opened again. You see a message that the panel is open and its period continues.

The period continues from where it stopped. It does not start again and no new invoice is made. The end of the period moves later by the hours the panel was frozen, rounded up to whole hours. The next invoice is issued at the new end.

Example: a period would have ended on 5 December. The panel was frozen for 3 days and then paid. The period now ends on 8 December, and the next invoice is issued then.

Your panel shows the real window of every period on its Billing tab, including the frozen hours that were not counted. The payment e-mail also names the new end date.

If several invoices of a panel are overdue, the panel opens when none of them is overdue any more.

If the panel stays frozen

A panel that stays frozen for 30 days is closed. Its last period is billed in full as a final invoice, for the orders it had. The panel is archived, which means its data is saved in an encrypted archive, and the panel is then removed from its server.

An invoice that is still unpaid at that point becomes a debt on your account. You can pay it at any time. Until it is paid you cannot order a new panel. Paying a debt settles it. It does not bring the closed panel back.

The domain of a panel that uses Arty nameservers keeps its DNS zone for a while after closing, so you can move the nameservers back. You get e-mails about it.

The restore window

A closed panel can be restored for 14 days after it is closed for good and archived. The panel's billing tab shows Request a restore and the last date while the window is open.

Restoring needs every invoice of the panel paid, no debt, and a new advance from your wallet. Our team does the restore. See Cancel, reactivate and restore for what is restored and what to expect.

When the window is over, the archive is deleted and the panel cannot be restored.

Reminders

• 3 days and 1 day before an invoice is due, with a note when your wallet cannot cover it.
• When a panel is frozen, with the date on which it will be closed.
• 7 days and 1 day before a frozen panel is closed.
• When a panel is closed, and a debt notice for each unpaid invoice.
• 3 days before the restore window of a closed panel ends.

These e-mails go to the address of your Arty account. Keep it up to date, and keep your wallet funded to avoid all of them.