Closedown periods

If you shut down — a Christmas break, an annual shutdown, a site standing empty between contracts — the checks that fall due while you are closed cannot be done. Left alone they are recorded as missed and count against your compliance score, which makes a fortnight's holiday look like a fortnight of neglect.

Recording a closedown fixes that without hiding anything.

What a closedown does

Checks due inside the dates you give are marked Stood down:

• They stop counting towards your compliance score
• No new checks are scheduled for those dates
• No reminder emails go out for them
• Nothing is deleted — every check stays on record, along with the reason you gave

That last point is the important one. A declared, dated closedown with a reason attached is a better answer for an inspector or an estates client than a gap in the record, and a far better one than a deleted row. You are explaining the gap, not covering it up.

Emails while you are closed

While a closedown covering your whole organisation is running, AssetBuddy sends no alert emails at all: no check reminders, overdue summaries, defect escalations or certificate expiry warnings. They still appear in the notification bell, so nothing is lost, and the emails start again the day after the closedown ends. Anything that came up while you were closed isn't emailed afterwards, so you won't come back to a pile of old alerts.

A closedown for a single site doesn't stop emails, because the rest of your organisation is still working. Checks at that site are stood down, so they don't send reminders anyway.

Emails caused by something a person does, such as a defect being reported or assigned, still go out as normal.

Recording a closedown

1. Go to Closedowns in the menu
2. Click Declare a closedown
3. Enter the first and last day you were closed
4. Say why — "Annual shutdown", "Christmas closure", "Site handover". This is what the record shows later, so write it for someone reading it in a year's time
5. If you have more than one site, choose whether the closedown covers everything or just one site
6. Click Record closedown

You will be told how many checks were stood down.

It works after the event

You do not need to declare a closedown in advance. Record one for dates that have already passed and any checks already marked as missed in that window are stood down retrospectively, and your compliance score is recalculated.

This is the usual way to use it: you come back from a shutdown, notice a run of missed checks, and record what actually happened.

Removing a closedown

If you record one by mistake, open Closedowns and click Remove. Every check it stood down goes back to how it was — anything past its grace period returns to missed, and anything else returns to scheduled. See Overdue Checks.

Removing a closedown will lower your compliance score again, because those checks start counting once more.

To correct the dates on a closedown, remove it and record a new one.

Where closedowns appear

• Dashboard — a banner while a closedown is running, so nobody wonders why new checks have stopped appearing
• Closedowns — the full list, with how many checks each one stood down and who recorded it
• Compliance report PDF — any closedown overlapping the report period is listed, so the report explains its own gaps

Who can record one

Declaring the business closed changes your compliance record, so it needs the same permission as your other organisation settings. Owners have it. Anyone who can view checks can see the list.