Deleting versus inactivating a customer record

You can temporarily inactivate a customer. Inactive customers cannot be entered on order entry transactions and are not updated by Customer Transaction Entry, Customer Cash Receipt Entry, and reports.

Inactive customers can be reactivated, but deleted customers cannot. We recommend that you initially inactivate customers before deleting them permanently.

You cannot inactivate or delete a customer or customer ship to record if there are active balances in Customer Setup or Customer Ship To Setup. This message is displayed:

Active Balances or Transactions Exist, Cannot Delete or Inactivate
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A customer that has active quote orders but no active balances can be inactivated, but cannot be deleted. The active quotes can no longer be converted to sales orders but can be maintained or canceled. Inactivated customers that have active quote orders cannot be deleted in SA Administrator Inactive Customer Removal.

You cannot delete a customer record if it has associated Product Restriction Setup or Product Certification/License Setup records that are active. If these records are inactive, the customer-level restriction and certification/license records are also deleted when you delete the customer record.

When you delete a customer record, all history records for that customer are also deleted. To delete a customer, all balance information must be zero, and no active transactions can exist, including quote orders. The customer cannot have any outstanding transactions or activity before being deleted.