Your plan sets how many users, sites, products, trainees and remote devices you can have. This article explains exactly what happens when you reach one of those limits, and what happens when you reduce your plan below what you are using: what is refused, what is deactivated and in what order, what is never touched, what “inactive” actually means for a user, a site or a device, and how to choose for yourself who and what stays.
Where to find it: your usage against each limit is on Account Billing in your user profile. Warnings about a reduction appear on the Change plan screen, reached from Account Billing.
Concepts
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Limit | Your plan’s allowance plus any add-on blocks. Limits apply to the whole account, not per site. |
| At the limit | Using exactly as many as you are allowed. You keep everything; you cannot add more. |
| Over the limit | Using more than you are allowed — usually after moving to a smaller plan. |
| Deactivated | Switched to inactive. Nothing is deleted; the record and its history remain. |
| Renewal | The end of the billing period you have paid for, when a reduction takes effect. |
In short
| Record | At the limit | Over the limit after a reduction |
|---|---|---|
| Users | Cannot add or invite another active user. | Newest users deactivated at the renewal. |
| Sites | Cannot add another site. | Newest sites deactivated at the renewal. |
| Remote devices | Cannot add another device. | Newest devices deactivated at the renewal. |
| Products | Cannot add or import more. | Never deactivated. You cannot add or reactivate one until you are back under. |
| Trainees | Cannot add another trainee by hand. | Never deactivated for being over. (A trainee does go inactive with its user — see below.) |
Reaching a limit never takes anything away. Only a reduction does, only at the renewal, and only for users, sites and remote devices.
When you reach a limit
On Account Billing, a limit you have reached turns red and says “You have reached your … limit. Change plan to add more.” The same sentence is the message you see when an add is refused. What you can no longer do:
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Add a user | New User on the Users screen is greyed out. Inviting an active user is refused with “You have reached your users limit. Change plan to add more.” Inviting a user as inactive is allowed, because it takes no seat. |
| Add a site | New Site on the Sites screen is greyed out, and creating one anyway is refused with “You have reached your sites limit. Change plan to add more.” |
| Add a remote device | Refused with “You have reached your IoT devices limit. Change plan to add more.” |
| Add a trainee | Adding one by hand on the Training screens is refused with “You have reached your trainees limit. Change plan to add more.” The trainee created automatically when a user joins a site is never refused — adding a user must not fail because of the trainee count — so the trainee count can go above the limit that way. |
| Add a product | Refused with “You have reached your products limit. Change plan to add more.” |
| Import products | An import that would take you over is refused whole, before anything loads, with the numbers: “This import adds 600 active products, but your plan allows 5,000 and you have 4,700. Import at most 300, or change plan to add more.” Rows for products you already have do not count; a row that switches an inactive product back on does. |
| Switch a record back on | Refused with the same “You have reached your … limit” message. See Switching records back on. |
Billing owners also see a banner on the Users screen with the seat count — “You are currently licensed for 45 user(s). Change your subscription” — whose Here button opens Account Billing.
To make room, either change plan or add-on blocks (see Managing your plan), or deactivate something you no longer need.
Who and what counts
- Users: every active user, including portal (External) users. Auditors are free and never count. Inactive users do not count.
- Sites: active sites.
- Products: active products on active sites, across the whole account. A product on a deactivated site does not count.
- Remote devices: active devices on active sites, across the whole account. A device on a deactivated site does not count.
- Trainees: every trainee record on the account.
When you reduce your plan
A reduction — a smaller plan or fewer add-on blocks — starts at your next renewal, not when you confirm it. If the smaller limits are below what you are using, QTRACA deactivates the excess at that renewal.
You are warned before you confirm
When you choose a smaller selection on the Change plan screen, the price summary names what will go, before the Update subscription button:
“When this reduction takes effect at your next renewal, these will be deactivated, newest first:” followed by a line for each type — for example “10 users: …”, “2 sites: …”, “3 remote devices: …” — and “You can choose who to keep by deactivating others before then.”
If you are already over a limit, a change that is not a reduction — adding a module, moving to a higher plan, buying more add-on blocks — applies as soon as you confirm it, and so does its deactivation. The warning then says so, and has no “before then” line, because there is no time left to choose:
“When you confirm this change, these will be deactivated straight away, newest first:” followed by the same line for each type.
The same wording appears when you first buy a plan that is smaller than what you are using. To choose who stays in either case, deactivate others yourself before you confirm.
For products, which are never deactivated, it gives the numbers instead: “You will have 5,200 active products against a limit of 5,000. Nothing is removed, but you won’t be able to add or reactivate products until you deactivate 200.”
The list is worked out the same way QTRACA will do it when the change takes effect, so it names the records that will actually be deactivated. For a change that applies straight away, that is what goes the moment you confirm. For a reduction, it is what goes at the renewal if nothing changes before then — deactivate others yourself in the meantime and the list shrinks accordingly. The warning has no date, because a reduction’s date only exists once you confirm; after you do, the screen tells you when the change starts.
At the renewal
- Your new plan and limits take effect.
- For users, sites and remote devices separately, QTRACA counts what is active against the new limit.
- If there are too many, it deactivates the excess, newest first — the most recently created records go, and the ones you have had longest stay.
- Deactivated users are signed out on their next action. Deactivated devices stop recording from their next reading.
What is never deactivated
| Kept | Why |
|---|---|
| The oldest billing owner | Otherwise the account could lose the only person who can fix its billing. Only the single longest-standing billing owner is protected; any other billing owner is ranked like everyone else. |
| Auditors | They are free and never use a seat. |
| The account’s default site | It is every user’s fallback site. |
| The last active site | An account with no active site cannot work. |
| Products | Stock, recipes, orders and batches point at products; switching one off could stop production mid-run. Over the limit, you simply cannot add or reactivate a product until you deactivate enough yourself. |
| Trainees | The trainee limit only stops new trainees being added by hand. |
A protected record is skipped and the next newest is taken instead. If you have unlimited of something on your new plan, nothing of that type is deactivated.
What “inactive” means
Nothing deactivated is deleted. Records, history and everything linked to them stay; what changes is what the record can do.
| Record | While inactive |
|---|---|
| User | Cannot sign in anywhere — on the web, with a tablet PIN, or in the trainee portal. Signing in on the web shows “Your account has been deactivated. Contact your administrator.” A tablet or trainee-portal PIN is simply refused. Anyone already signed in is stopped on their next action. The user’s trainee record goes inactive with them. Everything they recorded remains. |
| Site | No longer offered when choosing a site to work in. Its remote devices stop recording, exactly as if each device had been deactivated. Its products and devices stop counting against your limits, which frees that room. Its data is kept, and admins still see it on the Sites screen. |
| Remote device | Stops recording. Readings it sends are discarded — nothing is stored, no alerts are raised, no offline alerts are raised, and nothing new appears on the monitoring dashboard. Its past readings stay viewable. The Remote Devices list shows it in the Status column as Inactive. |
| Product | Only ever deactivated by you. It stops counting against the product limit. |
Readings from an inactive device are gone, not held. If a device monitors something that matters — a chiller, a CCP — make sure it is one you keep, or it will record nothing and alert no one from the renewal onward.
Choosing who stays
Newest first is a fair default, but it may not be your choice. You decide by deactivating others yourself before the renewal. At the renewal QTRACA counts only what is still active, so if you have already brought each type within its new limit, nothing more is deactivated.
- Open the Change plan screen, choose your new selection, and read the warning.
- Before your renewal date, deactivate the users, sites or devices you are happy to lose instead:
- a user — untick Active on the user (Admin → User Management → Users);
- a site — set its Status to Inactive (Admin → User Management → Sites);
- a remote device — set its Status to Inactive (Remote Monitoring → Remote Devices).
- Open the Change plan screen again and choose the same selection. The warning should now be empty, or name only what you are content to lose.
Deactivating a site also frees the room its products and devices were using, so it can bring several limits down at once.
Switching records back on
Nothing is switched back on automatically — not even after you upgrade. When your limits rise, an admin switches records back on by hand, up to the new limit. That is deliberate: after a few months some of those users will have left and some of those devices will have been moved, and only you know which.
- Switching a user, site, remote device or product back on is refused while you are at or over that limit: “You have reached your … limit. Change plan to add more.”
- Switching a site back on is also refused if its products or remote devices would take you over those limits.
- Switching a user back on does not switch their trainee record back on. Do that separately on the Training screens if they need the trainee portal.
Availability and permissions
- Everything in this article applies to accounts on QTRACA’s current pricing. Accounts on the previous plan structure are unaffected: nothing is ever deactivated on them, and their remote devices have no Status setting.
- The list of what a reduction will deactivate is shown only to administrators (users with the Admin or Setup Admin role) and billing owners, because it names people. Anyone else choosing the same selection sees no warning.
- Adding and switching on users and sites needs the Admin or Setup Admin role, as it always has.
Things to know
- The warning is shown only to administrators and billing owners. Anyone else pricing a change on the Change plan screen sees no list of what it would deactivate.
- If you are already over a limit, the warning appears on any change, not only a reduction — and the excess is deactivated when that change takes effect. For an increase such as a module or a higher plan, that is immediately, not at the renewal, and the warning says “straight away”. Bring yourself within your limits first, or read the warning carefully before pressing Update subscription.
- Auditors never use a seat and are never deactivated.
- Products imported for a deactivated site still count toward the import check. An import is checked as though every product it adds were active, so it may be refused even though those products would not count once loaded.
- Deactivated is not deleted. Every record, reading and history entry stays, and comes back into use when you switch it back on.
- For how and when a reduction is billed, see Managing your plan. For the limits on each plan, see Plans, modules and limits.