---
title: "Restore a suspended organization"
description: "What the IoTFlows suspension lockout looks like, and how an Organization Owner clears it. An unpaid account suspends the organization, which puts every member behind an Organization Suspended dialog that has no close button and covers every route except /{organization}/settings/billing. The dialog offers Go to Billing and Contact Support. Only the Owner can open the billing page, so no other role can clear the lockout. Machine data does not collect while an organization is suspended: the sensors keep running, nothing is recorded, and paying the bill does not backfill the gap, which reports show as unknown time. Clear a suspension the day it starts."
category: "Billing"
source_url: "https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/suspended-account/"
---
# Restore a suspended organization

See what the lockout looks like, and reach the one page it leaves open.

*Suspension* is the state IoTFlows puts an organization into when its account goes unpaid. It locks the dashboard for every member of that organization at once, and only the Organization Owner can lift it, because the recovery runs through [Billing](/docs/admin/billing/) and no other role can open that page.

**Before you start.** Clearing a suspension takes an Organization Owner, see [Owner-only actions](/docs/admin/roles-reference/#owner-only).

> **Danger:**
> **Does data keep collecting while we are suspended?**
>
> No. A suspended organization **stops recording machine data**. The sensors keep running and the machines keep making parts, but nothing reaches the record.
>
> Paying the bill lifts the lockout and does not backfill the gap, so those hours are missing from every report forever. Clear a suspension the day it starts. Every hour it stands is an hour of machine history you do not get back.

## What suspension looks like
A dialog headed **Organization Suspended** opens over the dashboard, under a red warning icon. It reads "Your organization has been suspended and access has been restricted," then offers a payment method or support as the two ways out.

The dialog cannot be dismissed. There is no close button, and neither Escape nor a click on the backdrop does anything. It reopens on every route in the organization except the billing page, so navigating elsewhere puts it straight back.

Two buttons sit along the bottom. **Go to Billing** opens `/{organization}/settings/billing`. **Contact Support** writes to `support@iotflows.com`, the same address linked in the body text.

![The Organization Suspended dialog centered over a blurred dashboard, with a red warning icon above the title and Go to Billing and Contact Support buttons along the bottom edge. Go to Billing is highlighted](/images/admin/adm-susp-01.webp)

*The suspension lockout. Billing is the only page you can still reach.*

## What still works
The billing page is exempt. It is the one route in a suspended organization that renders normally, which is how an Owner clears the lockout from inside the product.

The organization switcher in the header is reachable once you are on billing, so you can move to another organization from there. Suspension applies to one organization, not to your account, so the others you belong to are untouched, see [Switch organizations](/docs/get-started/switch-organizations/).

> **Warning:**
> **Not the Owner?** Do not try to work around the dialog. **Go to Billing** takes you to a page that answers "Only organization owners can access this page."
>
> Find your Owner, or write to [support](/docs/get-started/get-support/#contact). The organization stays locked until one of them acts.

## Clear the suspension
1. Select **Go to Billing** in the dialog.
2. Add a working card, see [Add a card](/docs/admin/billing/#add-card).
3. Make it the default, see [Set the default card](/docs/admin/billing/#default-card).
4. Write to [support](/docs/get-started/get-support/#contact) to have the organization reinstated, quoting the organization name.
5. Reload the dashboard once support confirms. The lockout clears when the app refetches your organizations, which it does on load, so a stale tab keeps showing the dialog after the account is current.

Reporting picks up again from the moment the suspension lifts, not from the moment the invoice was paid.

## Preventing it
Suspension follows an invoice that goes unpaid long enough, so it is an inbox problem before it is a billing problem.

Send invoices to an address more than one person reads, see [Set the billing email](/docs/admin/billing/#email). Check the **Invoices** tab for anything sitting on **Open** past its due date, see [Invoice statuses](/docs/admin/billing/#statuses). Replace an expiring card before its last month rather than after the payment fails.

## What the gap looks like in reports
Hours inside a suspended period carry no data, so reports count them as *unknown time*: neither uptime nor downtime, gray on the shift status bar. A report spanning the suspension shows a lower total for every metric because its window is shorter than it looks, see [Unknown time](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/#unknown).

## See also
- [Manage payment methods and invoices](/docs/admin/billing/), the page the lockout leaves open
- [Roles and permissions](/docs/admin/roles-reference/#owner-only), for what else only the Owner can do
- [Get support](/docs/get-started/get-support/#contact), to have an organization reinstated
- [Billing questions](/docs/get-started/faq/#billing), for plans, refunds and invoices