A record you have finished with, such as an item you no longer stock, a supplier you stopped buying from or a warehouse that closed, is made inactive rather than deleted. On an item, open it and use Make inactive, or set Status to Inactive on its Edit form; most other records take a Status field on their Edit form. An inactive record leaves the pickers where new work starts: item search and the till, the supplier list on an RFQ, the warehouse and bin fields on a check-in, the account list on a journal. Anything new that names it is refused with its name, on the web, through the API, in the mobile app and when the app’s offline queue replays later, so a stale screen or a phone that was out of signal cannot slip one through. Records that already carry it keep it and can still be edited and saved, and every past movement, document and report still shows it. Delete is only for a record created by mistake that never moved.
AWRA will not retire a record that still holds something, because that something would be stranded where nobody can reach it, and the refusal lists what is left. An item is refused while it has stock on hand or an open hold; a supplier while a purchase order is open or a contract is in force; a customer while invoices are unpaid, a sales order is open, a recurring schedule runs or stock is held for them; a warehouse or bin while it holds stock or assets, has open transfers, counts or orders, or has POS counters or users assigned to it; a ledger account while it has a balance or a draft will post to it; a department while it has open requisitions or current staff; a till while its cash drawer is open; a leave type while a request of that type is pending. Defaults cannot be retired at all: the default warehouse, a warehouse’s default bin, system ledger accounts, the General category, the default departments and the two default adjustment reasons. A user named on an approval rule step cannot be deactivated until someone else, or a role, is named on that step instead.
A few records use their own words for the same idea. A customer is Active, Prospect, Suspended or Inactive: Active and Prospect can be sold to, Suspended is a temporary hold such as while an account is overdue, and Inactive means you no longer trade with them, while payments and credit notes still go through for both. A count plan is Active, Paused or Archived, a bank account is closed and reopened from the bank page, and a till is Closed. The lists for items, suppliers, customers, warehouses, bins, ledger accounts and count plans each have a Status filter, so set it to Inactive to find a retired record again; a retired record can be made active at any time. In practice: a hardware shop in Nakuru stops carrying one paint brand. The buyer tries to make the item inactive and is told 14 tins are still on hand, so the branch sells them down first and then retires the item; last year’s sales report still lists it. Once the final purchase order from that brand’s supplier is received, the supplier is made inactive too, and its last bill is still paid in full, because bills and payments are never refused for an inactive supplier.
