Your data is yours, and you can prove it by leaving
A club owns its data when it can get it out, in a format another system can read, on a day of its choosing, without asking. At Links Meridian that is an ordinary administrator function from the first day: members export to CSV or Excel, the ledger's eleven reports export to CSV, Excel, PDF, or QuickBooks IIF, and a live connection keeps QuickBooks or Xero current. There is no fee for any of it, and nothing about your access changes when you give notice.
Lock-in is how golf software keeps clubs that would otherwise leave. The system frustrates the team for years, but the prospect of pulling a decade of member history and financial records out of a closed product is enough that the board renews anyway. That hold only exists while the data is hard to reach. Take the difficulty away and a club picks its software on the merits, which is the position we prefer to compete from.
So the exports are ordinary administrator functions, available on a Tuesday in year one, not a concession negotiated at the end. Members export to CSV or Excel with the filters you choose. Eleven financial reports, including the trial balance, income statement and balance sheet, export to CSV, Excel, PDF, or QuickBooks IIF. If you keep QuickBooks or Xero, an authorised connection pushes journals, invoices, bills and payments across on a schedule you set. Tee times and events publish as a subscribable calendar feed, and any single booking downloads as a calendar file.
Members have their own rights over their own records, separately from the club's. A member can request an export of their data from the portal, and can request deletion there too. The export path is deliberately more protected than an administrator's report download: it asks for a fresh authentication step, it is rate limited, and it allows one request every 24 hours, because a data-export endpoint is exactly what somebody with a stolen session would reach for first.
Ownership also means restraint on our side. Links Meridian does not sell club data, does not pass it to third parties for their own purposes, and does not train AI models on it. The AI features work on your data to serve your club and nothing else. That is the whole arrangement, and the exports above are how you hold us to it.
What the club can take, and what a member can ask for
A club's right to its records and a member's right to their own are different things, and they are handled separately.
For the club
Administrator exports
Available to staff holding the relevant permission, at any time, at no cost.
- Members and CRM records to CSV or Excel, filtered by membership type and status
- Trial balance, income statement, and balance sheet to CSV, Excel, PDF, or QuickBooks IIF
- Sales, revenue by category, payment methods, AR ageing, AP ageing, deferred revenue, and the VAT return
- A live QuickBooks or Xero connection carrying journals, invoices, bills, and payments
- Event and competition registrations
- Payroll hours as a provider-neutral CSV
- A subscribable calendar feed of tee times and events, plus a file per booking
- Gated on the same permission that already grants the underlying read, so exporting adds no new exposure
For a member
Subject rights in the portal
A member's own data, requested by the member, without going through the office.
- Request an export of their own record from the portal, emailed when it is ready
- A fresh authentication step before the request is accepted
- Rate limited, with one request allowed every 24 hours
- A separate export covering their food and drink history
- Request deletion from the portal, with a 30-day grace period before it is enforced
- Erasure keeps a tombstone: personal details are cleared, the financial history stays intact
- Consent records held against the member
- The same rights whether they are a member or a registered guest
The outcome for your club
Export is a normal function, not an exit event
The same buttons work in year one and in the month you leave. Giving notice changes none of your access, because none of it was withheld.
The formats travel
CSV and Excel for records, PDF for anything a board wants to read, and QuickBooks IIF for the ledger. Standard files that another system can open without a translation project.
Your accountant is already connected
A live authorised link to QuickBooks or Xero pushes journals, invoices, bills, and payments on a schedule you choose, against an account map you approve.
Members can exercise their own rights
A member requests their data from the portal behind a step-up authentication check, and deletion requests run as a process with a grace period instead of a favour.
No fee, no notice period, no permission
There is no charge for exporting and nothing to ask us for. An administrator with the right permission does it themselves.
We do not sell it or train on it
No sale, no third-party sharing for their purposes, and no model training on your club's data. It runs your club and it leaves with your club.
What leaves, in what format, and who presses the button
Every row here works today, without a request to us.
Anything without a self-service export, such as bulk booking history or POS transaction history beyond the accounting reports, Links Meridian produces as a structured handover during offboarding.
What it looks like if you decide to go
You decide, and tell us
Notice runs per the contract. Nothing about your access changes when you give it, and no export capability is switched on or off by the decision.
You take the records
Members to CSV or Excel, the ledger to CSV, Excel, PDF, or IIF, registrations and payroll hours as their own exports. Same buttons you have always had.
Your accountant keeps their copy
If the QuickBooks or Xero connection has been running, the books are already in the system your accountant works in, and the club's history there does not depend on us.
You check what you have
Do this well before the end of the notice period, never on the last afternoon. A trial balance that reconciles against the exported ledger is the check worth doing.
We help with the awkward parts
Anything without a self-service export today, we produce as a structured handover during offboarding. Ask for it early in the process.
The account closes
Data is retained per the contract and the retention schedule, then removed. Members keep their subject rights throughout.
How lock-in usually works, and what we do instead
What's included
Common questions
Who owns the data in our account?
Your club does. With Links Meridian, member records, bookings, financial data, and anything else created in the platform belong to the club. Links Meridian processes it only to run the service for you, and does not sell it, share it with third parties for their own purposes, or train AI models on it. An administrator can export it at any time without asking us.
What exactly can we export, and in what format?
From Links Meridian: members and CRM records to CSV or Excel, filtered by membership type and status. Eleven financial reports to CSV, Excel, PDF, or QuickBooks IIF, covering the trial balance, income statement, balance sheet, sales, revenue by category, payment methods, membership, AR ageing, deferred revenue, the VAT return, and an integrity check. Event and competition registrations. Payroll hours as a provider-neutral CSV. Tee times and events as a subscribable calendar feed, and any single booking as a calendar file.
Is there a fee or a penalty for exporting?
No. Exporting from Links Meridian is free and there is nothing to ask us for. It is a standard administrator function that works on any ordinary day, and giving notice does not switch anything on or off.
How does a member get their own data?
From the Links Meridian member portal, without going through the office. The request asks for a fresh authentication step first, is rate limited, and allows one request every 24 hours, and the member is emailed when the export is ready. That is deliberate: a data-export endpoint is the first thing somebody with a stolen session would reach for, so it is protected more heavily than an ordinary screen. There is a separate export covering their food and drink history.
What happens to the accounts when a member is erased?
In Links Meridian the personal details are cleared and the financial history stays. An erasure that deletes the row outright takes the club's ledger with it, which helps nobody and breaks the accounts. The record is kept as a tombstone so the money it was involved in still balances, while the person is no longer identifiable from it. The erasure also reaches search indexes and deletes any export files made for that member.
Do you sell our data or train AI on it?
No to both, and no third-party sharing for their own purposes either. The AI features in Links Meridian work on your data to serve your club. If that ever changed it would be a contract change you were asked to agree to, not a quiet update to a policy page.
Can we keep QuickBooks or Xero as our system of record?
Yes. You authorise the Links Meridian connection, map our accounts onto yours once, and decide whether the club sends one summary journal a day or pushes invoices, bills, and payments as individual documents. It runs at an hour you set and writes a log for every attempt. The practical effect is that your accountant's copy of the books stays current without depending on us, which is a stronger ownership position than any export.
What does the exit process actually look like?
Give notice per the contract, take the exports, and confirm the handover. Nothing about your access to Links Meridian changes when you give notice. The advice worth taking is to run the exports and reconcile them early in the notice period rather than on the final afternoon, because that is when you find the thing you wanted and did not have.
Is there anything we cannot self-serve today?
Three things come as a structured handover rather than a button: bulk booking history, POS and food and drink transaction history beyond the accounting reports, and community content. Links Meridian produces them during offboarding. Ask for them early in the notice period.
How do we know the export is complete?
Reconcile it. The trial balance is the useful check: exported and totalled, it should agree with the balance sheet for the same date. For members, the export row count should match the member count for the filters you set. If either disagrees, that is a question worth asking us well before the notice period runs out.
Who is allowed to run an export?
Staff holding the Links Meridian permission that already grants the underlying read. Exporting members needs the member-view permission, which is the same privilege that lets somebody open member records one at a time, so the export adds reach rather than new exposure. Accounting exports sit behind the accounting permissions. Member portal sessions cannot reach staff export routes at all.
What happens to our data after we leave?
It is retained for the period in the contract and the retention schedule, then removed. Members keep their subject rights during that window. If you need a copy after the account closes, ask before it does, because the point of the exports is that you never have to.
Does data ownership differ by plan?
No. On every Links Meridian plan the club can export everything it holds, at no charge, and giving notice changes nothing. Plans differ in which modules they include, not in whether you can take your data out: the general ledger and its eleven reports arrive with Professional, so a club on Starter or Standard has no ledger to export, while member records and the calendar feed export on every plan.
Related pages
Our contract promise
The plain-English commitments behind ownership and exit.
Security
Encryption, tenant isolation, and how the data is protected day to day.
RFP template
Vendor-neutral requirement sections you can score us against.
Integrations
What connects today, labelled Live or Roadmap.
Transparent, published pricing
Every price on the website, including what export costs, which is nothing.
Member app & Digital Clubhouse
Where a member exercises their own subject rights.
The commitments behind the platform
This promise sits inside a wider set we publish rather than reserve for a sales call.
Find us on G2, Capterra, and GetApp.
Ask us the awkward question before you sign
Bring your own exit checklist to the demo and work through it with us. After your demo we set your club up for you and give you the login. No fee until you go live.