Making customers inactive

Similar to accounts, you don't want to delete a customer unless you created the record by mistake. You want to keep transactions for that customer in your records, even if you don't think the customer will ever do business with you again. If you make the customer inactive, you won't see the customer name in lists and dropdown menus, but you can reactivate the customer record if they call you out of the blue with a new order. In the Customer Center window, to inactivate a customer, right-click the name and then choose Make CustomerJob Inactive.

The customer promptly disappears from the list. To reactivate a customer, you have to be able to see it. In the View dropdown list, choose All Customers. Inactive customers have a gray X to the left of their names. Click the gray X to reactivate the customer. If you want to delete a customer record and it hasn't been used in any way, you can right-click the customer and choose Delete CustomerJob on the shortcut menu.

You have to confirm that you want to delete the customer by clicking OK. You can't delete a customer record if a transaction uses it or the customer has a balance. In this case, I'm going to click Cancel. In the future, before you create a new customer, display all the customers in the Customer Center, including the inactive ones, to see if you already have a customer record for that customer. That way, you won't create duplicate customers by mistake.