A customer should never be deleted, even if the customer no longer exists - unless there have never been any transactions with the customer. It is permissible to delete a customer when no new transactions have occurred within the years maintained by the system.
An alternative to deleting the customer is to change a customer to an inactive status. After a customer is made inactive, it will be removed from a number of reports. Inactive customers may remain in the same folder in which they existed when active, but may be hidden from search lists by unselecting Show Inactive at the bottom of the list. Take the following steps to make a customer inactive:
Open the customer window by selecting
.Merge a customer into another account or choose the customer to be made inactive. Review the Features > Merging Accounts vs. Deleting Accounts section of the main documentation for more details.
Enable the Inactive option on the General tab.
Save customer information by clicking the OK button.
To re-activate a customer account, disable the Inactive option.
NOTE: Everything inactive (accounts, vendors, etc.) will be grayed on the search lists when the Show Inactive option is enabled at the bottom of the list.