Customers, stock and orders
Start with the promises the business has made. An order book can miss a reserved item, an agreed replacement or an unresolved complaint. These guides help connect each commitment to evidence, an authorised decision and a continuing contact.
Business Closure Guide is from UK Auction Group. The guides support practical planning; customer rights, agreements and financial decisions need appropriate advice for the actual circumstances.
Find and confirm the promises
- Find the customer promises missing from the order book
- Set a clear final order-acceptance rule
- Separate confirmed orders from enquiries during closure
- Prepare a customer-deposit review before closing
- Review part-completed orders before releasing capacity
- Handling substitution requests in the final order run
- Before asking another business to finish customer orders
Keep customer cases moving
- Handling customer goods still awaiting collection
- Keeping an existing customer complaint moving during closure
- Prepare for warranty enquiries after trading stops
- Review prepaid services before ending the business
- Questions about vouchers and credit notes when a business closes
Decide what stock is available
- Which remaining stock is actually surplus?
- Deciding what to do with customer-specific materials
- Can remaining stock go back to the supplier?
- Releasing reserved stock when no order followed
- Keep disputed returns out of closure sale stock
- Considering a stock donation during business closure
- Separating customer orders from internal stock requests
Communicate and close the remaining work
- Testing access to customer order evidence before closing systems
- Tell affected customers before publishing a closure notice
- Drafting a final supply notice for business customers
- Closing a supplier with stock still held by distributors
- Stopping repeat orders that could restart trading commitments
- Handling a late customer change during business closure
- Check that every customer commitment has an outcome
Once customer commitments and ownership questions are resolved, discuss the confirmed surplus with UK Auction Group. Explain which resources remain needed and who can approve their release.