This page explains, in plain English, how Merchant Rate Auditor retains and removes merchant statements and supporting documents (such as evidence you submit during review). It describes how our system actually behaves today, including its current limits.
Two Things We Track About Every Document
Every statement or supporting document you submit has two separate things tracked about it:
- Its status in our review workflow — for example, active, cancelled by you before review, or archived after an approved removal request.
- Whether the underlying file is still stored — the file itself can later be permanently removed from storage independently of its workflow status.
We retain documents to complete the review you requested, to preserve an accurate record of what was reviewed and found (for your own reference and for the integrity of the review process), and to support your account and billing history.
The Physical File vs. Your Review History
These are two different things, and removing one does not remove the other.
The physical uploaded document is the actual file you uploaded (a PDF, PNG, or JPEG). It can later be permanently removed from our storage under the rules below.
Your historical analysis and account record — the fact that a statement was submitted and reviewed, the findings and calculations produced from it, your account and billing history, and the audit trail of what happened and when — is separate database information. Removing the physical file does not erase this record. We keep it because it is your own review history, and because account history, billing records, trend/monitoring comparisons across statement periods, audit records, and system-integrity records legitimately depend on it continuing to exist even after a source file is gone.
Cancelling an Upload Before Review
While a statement or piece of evidence you submitted is still awaiting initial review, you can cancel that submission yourself from within the app. Once cancelled, the physical file associated with that submission becomes eligible for permanent removal from our storage 30 days after cancellation.
Requesting Removal After Review Has Progressed
Once a submission has moved further into the review process, self-service cancellation is no longer available. Instead, you can submit a removal request (with an optional reason) from within the app. An authorized Merchant Rate Auditor reviewer will approve or deny the request; a denial always includes a reason. Approving a removal request removes the document from your active view (we call this "archived").
For supporting evidence, if it was also rejected during review (rather than archived), its physical file becomes eligible for permanent removal 180 days after the review decision, as long as it was never used to support an accepted finding.
Longer-Term Physical-File Removal (24 Months)
In addition to the rules above, our system is designed so that the physical file behind a document also becomes eligible for permanent removal 24 months after the following, category-specific milestones:
- A merchant statement that has completed review — 24 months after review completion.
- Verified evidence that was never used to support an accepted finding — 24 months after the review decision.
- An archived statement or piece of evidence — 24 months after it was archived.
Evidence that supports an accepted finding is never removed, regardless of age. This is the one category with no time limit at all — your proof stays intact for as long as the finding it supports exists.
How Removal Is Actually Carried Out
Every day count on this page (30 days, 180 days, 24 months) describes when a document's physical file becomes eligible to be permanently removed from storage — not an instantaneous deletion at exactly that moment. Eligible documents are removed by an internal Merchant Rate Auditor process; as of this writing, that process runs on demand rather than automatically every day, so an eligible document may remain in storage somewhat longer than its eligibility date before it is actually removed. Regardless of exactly when physical removal happens, your review history and account records are never affected by it.
Requesting Full Account Removal
Our product does not currently include a fully automated, self-service "delete my account" feature. If you would like your account or associated data removed, contact us at hello@merchantrateauditor.com.
Some information may need to remain even after such a request — for example, billing records needed for financial recordkeeping, or information needed for security, fraud-prevention, or legal-compliance purposes — retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for those purposes.
Contact
Questions about how we retain or remove your documents can be sent to hello@merchantrateauditor.com. See also our Privacy Policy.