If You're Locked Out of MonuDesk
Your data is safe: read the reason on the lockout screen, then fix it in minutes, whether your trial ran out, a card failed, or the plan was cancelled.
Written By Dennis Rodin
Last updated 16 days ago
If MonuDesk opens onto a full-screen panel you cannot close, your account is locked out. Before anything else: your data is not deleted. Your orders, quotes, contacts, payments, documents and drawings are all still there. The lockout screen says so itself, on every version of it. Subscribing puts you straight back into the same account with everything in place.
A lockout is always about the subscription. It is never a password problem — if you cannot get past the login page instead, see How to Reset Your Password.
Landing on the login page is not a lockout
If MonuDesk puts you on the login page rather than a full-screen panel you cannot close, your subscription is fine. Sign in again and carry on. Two things send you there:
Your sign-in session expired. When it does, the next thing you click signs you out and takes you to the login page. Sign in and pick up where you left off; nothing you had saved is affected.
Auto Sign-out is switched on for you. Settings → Profile holds an Auto Sign-out card with one dropdown, Sign me out. It sits on Never (stay signed in) until someone changes it. Set to After 1 day, a day with no clicking, typing or scrolling anywhere in MonuDesk signs you out to the login page. The setting is personal, which is why one person can keep being signed out while the rest of the shop is not.
A third case looks similar but is neither: if MonuDesk refuses something with Permission denied followed by the name of a permission, that is your role, not your plan or your session, and you stay signed in. Ask your company owner to adjust the role.
Learn more: Settings > Profile: Profile Information and Auto Sign-out
First, find out why
The lockout screen names the reason in its heading. Read that heading — it tells you which of the three sections below applies to you.
Subscribe to continue — you never subscribed and your free trial has run out. See Reason A.
We could not process your payment — a renewal charge failed and the retry window has closed. See Reason B.
Your subscription has ended — the plan was cancelled and the paid period has finished. See Reason C.
Below the heading, every version of the screen shows the same thing: a Billing cadence toggle (Monthly or Annual, with two months free on annual), a MonuDesk Basic card with a Choose Basic button, a MonuDesk Pro card with a Choose Pro button, and a support email link at the bottom. You do not need to hunt for Settings → Billing — you cannot reach it while the screen is up, and you do not need to. Pick a cadence, pick a plan, and pay. Access comes back as soon as the payment goes through.
Who can do this: starting a subscription needs permission to change settings, which in practice means the account owner. More than one person can hold the Owner role, so if you are not one of them, call whoever is. Everyone on the account sees the same lockout screen until it is paid.
Reason A: your free trial ended
If your account is on a free trial without a card on file, here is the whole runway, so nothing surprises you.
Last five days: a banner across the top of the app counts down — Your free trial ends in N days — with Pay monthly and Pay annually links.
The day before: the banner reads Your free trial ends tomorrow. Upgrade now to keep your data and orders.
When the trial ends: you still have full access. The banner now reads Your trial ended. Upgrade within 3 days to keep full access to your orders and data. These three grace days are real working days — nothing is restricted.
Three days later: lockout. The screen reads Subscribe to continue.
Subscribing restores access instantly, whether you do it on day 2 or a month after the lockout. There is no penalty for coming back late and nothing has to be re-entered.
Reason B: a payment failed
If a renewal charge fails on a subscription you already had, you are not locked out straight away. Your account goes past due and you keep working.
The retry window. Creem, our billing provider, retries the charge for up to 14 days, counted from the end of the period you last paid for. Your access continues for that whole window. A missed renewal never extends the window, so the clock does not restart.
The banner. A red banner reads Your payment failed — update your card within N days to keep access, counting down the days left. Click Update payment method on that banner (or Manage billing in Settings → Billing) to open the Creem portal and put a working card on file.
One thing is blocked meanwhile. You cannot add team seats or office locations while past due. If you try, you get Your subscription payment is past due. Update your payment method to add seats or locations. Clear the balance first, then add them.
If the 14 days run out with no successful charge, you are locked out and the screen reads We could not process your payment. Start the subscription again from that screen and you are back in.
The most common causes are an expired card, a new card number after a bank replacement, or a card that has hit a limit. Updating the card in the Creem portal is the whole fix.
Reason C: the subscription was cancelled
Cancelling does not cut you off on the spot. You keep full access until the end of the period you already paid for, and a banner tells you the exact date: Your subscription has been canceled. Access continues until [date]. The same banner carries Pay monthly and Pay annually links, so you can change your mind and pick the plan straight back up before the date passes.
Three things to know about cancelling:
No partial refunds. The remaining days of the period you paid for are yours to use, but they are not refunded.
There is no pause. If you want to stop for a slow season, cancel and resubscribe when you are ready.
Your data is kept for one month after the subscription ends. Come back inside that month and every order and its history is exactly where you left it. After a month, data may be permanently removed.
Once the paid period is over, the screen reads Your subscription has ended.
Get your paperwork out before you lose access
If you know you are not going to subscribe in time, spend twenty minutes before the lockout day pulling out what your shop will need on paper. During a trial that is before those grace days run out; after a cancellation it is before the access-until date on the banner.
Download the quote, contract, invoice, receipt and shop ticket PDFs for any order still in progress.
Download the purchase orders and foundation orders you have already sent to vendors.
Download the drawings and any files you uploaded to an order.
This is a precaution, not a rescue plan. Nothing is deleted at lockout — it is simply easier to have this week's jobs on your desk than to wait on a subscription while a family is calling.
Reaching us when you cannot open the app
The lockout screen covers the app, so the usual routes around it are not where you would normally look. These work:
The email on the lockout screen. At the bottom it reads Questions? with a link to support@monudesk.com. That is the fastest route for anything about a payment, a failed charge or a subscription that will not restart.
General account questions go to info@monudesk.com.
The chat bubble at the bottom right of the screen is layered above the lockout panel, so it is usually still clickable. If it does not open, use email rather than fighting with it.
The help center stays open. help.monudesk.com does not need you to be logged in, so you can keep reading articles while the account is locked.
Write from the email address on the account and put your company name in the message. We match you to the right account with those two things, and without them we have to write back and ask, which costs you a day.
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