Retire, Don’t Delete
A supplier you stopped buying from, a warehouse you closed, a till that went back to the bank: none of them should be deleted, and none of them should be offered on tomorrow’s form. AWRA retires them instead, across seventeen kinds of record, on the web, the API and the mobile app.
Every organization accumulates records it has finished with. The supplier who closed down, the second warehouse you gave up last year, the job title nobody holds any more. Deleting them breaks your history. Leaving them live lets someone pick them by mistake. Retiring is the third option, and it is the right one.
Why delete is the wrong button
A supplier with three years of purchase orders, bills and payments behind it is not a row you can remove. Those documents point at it, your reports group by it, and an auditor will ask about it. So the usual workaround is to leave it alone and hope. Then a new buyer types the first three letters of a supplier name, the old one comes up first, and a purchase order goes to a company that no longer answers its phone.
Retiring separates the two jobs a record does. It stays fully present for what already happened, and it stops being offered for what happens next. For records that are removed and recovered rather than retired, see The Delete That Keeps the Row.
What retiring a record does
-
It leaves the pickers
A retired record drops out of every form where new work starts: create forms, search boxes, the till, the mobile app’s pickers and the API’s option lists. An edit form keeps the value a record already carries, so opening an old document never wipes it.
-
It is refused at save
Hiding it is a courtesy. The guard is at save: a new receipt, sale, order or posting that names a retired record is refused with a message that says which record and why, whether it came from the web, the API, the mobile app or a request queued offline and sent later.
-
It stays in history
Past documents, movements, ledgers and reports keep it exactly as it was. Report filters still list it, so last year’s figures for a closed warehouse are one filter away.
-
It can come back
Every retired record can be made active again. Retiring is a status, not a removal, so nothing has to be re-entered.
Lists carry a Status filter, and alerts follow the same rule: low-stock alerts and reorder lists skip a retired item, and scheduled reports stop emailing a deactivated user.
Seventeen kinds of record
| Record | How it is retired | Refused while it still has |
|---|---|---|
| Items | Make inactive, one at a time, in bulk or by import | Stock or an open hold |
| Suppliers | Make inactive | An open purchase order or a contract in force |
| Customers | Suspended or Inactive | Unpaid invoices, an open sales order, a recurring schedule or a stock hold (Inactive only) |
| Warehouses | Status Inactive | Stock, assets, open orders, transfers, counts, POS counters or pinned users |
| Storage locations and bins | Untick Active | Stock, assets, open transfers, counts or pending adjustments |
| Item categories | Untick Active | Nothing beyond being a default |
| Ledger accounts | Untick Active | A balance, an open bank account, items or open journals, bills and runs using it |
| Bank accounts | Close account | Unmatched statement lines or an open payment run |
| Departments | Untick Active | Open requisitions, current staff, active users or open vacancies |
| POS tills | Close the till | An open cash drawer |
| Adjustment reasons | Untick Active | Nothing beyond being a default |
| Leave types | Untick Active | A pending request of that type |
| Job positions | Untick Active | A current employee in it or a vacancy hiring into it |
| Ticket categories | Untick Active | Nothing; tickets already in it keep it |
| Inventory count plans | Paused or Archived | Nothing; counts already started keep it |
| Employees | Former or suspended status | Nothing; they are kept off new shifts, leave, advances, tickets and tasks |
| Users | Deactivate | A step on an active approval rule naming them |
Help for each: items, warehouses, suppliers, customers, ledger accounts, leave types and positions and former employees. The whole pattern is in one place at Retiring records.
Refused while it still holds something
The right-hand column above is the half of this feature that matters most. A warehouse with stock in it cannot be retired, because the stock would sit somewhere nobody can issue from, count or transfer out of. A customer with unpaid invoices cannot be made Inactive, because the debt would belong to a record nobody can bill. The refusal names what is in the way, so the fix is clear: move the stock, settle the invoices, close the order, then retire.
Defaults stay on
The default warehouse and its default bin, the General category, system ledger accounts, and the default adjustment reasons and departments cannot be retired. Other records fall back to them, so they stay on.
What a retired record still allows
Retiring stops new business. It does not stop you settling old business, and that line is drawn deliberately, record by record:
- A retired supplier still takes bills and payments, so you can pay what you owe.
- A suspended or inactive customer still takes payments and credit notes.
- An old journal on an inactive ledger account can still be reversed.
- A former employee can still be paid a final settlement, including a remaining balance on a retired paid leave type.
- A POS sale queued offline is still accepted after its till is closed, because that sale already happened.
Retiring stops new business. It never stops you settling the old.
Suspended is not Inactive
Customers carry four states rather than two. Active and Prospect can be sold to. Suspended is a temporary hold, for example while an account is overdue: no new invoices, quotes, sales orders or POS sales, and a recurring invoice skips its run and catches up when the customer is reactivated. Inactive means you no longer trade with them. Suspending is never refused; making a customer Inactive waits until nothing is left to settle.
Users have one rule of their own. A person named on a step of an active approval rule cannot be deactivated from the users screen, because approvals reaching that step would wait for them indefinitely. Name someone else on the step first. Ending an employee’s employment still closes their login straight away.
Four questions to ask about any system’s “archive” button
Can an archived supplier still be put on a new order through the API?
A good answer sounds like
No, it is refused at save, not only hidden.
What it actually means
A filter on the form is a courtesy. Integrations and offline phones skip the form.
What happens to stock in a warehouse I archive?
A good answer sounds like
You cannot archive it until the stock is moved.
What it actually means
Otherwise the stock is stranded and your valuation includes goods nobody can touch.
Can I still pay a retired supplier?
A good answer sounds like
Yes, settling is allowed, new business is not.
What it actually means
A retire button that blocks payment forces people to reactivate, pay and forget to retire again.
Do last year’s reports still show it?
A good answer sounds like
Yes, and the report filters still list it.
What it actually means
A retired record that vanishes from reports is a delete with extra steps.
The short version
In AWRA, a record you have finished with is made inactive rather than deleted. It leaves every picker, is refused on new work on the web, the API and the mobile app, stays in every document and report, and can be made active again. AWRA refuses to retire one while it still holds stock, a balance or open work, so nothing is ever stranded.
What AWRA OpsHub does today
- Active and inactive states on seventeen kinds of record, from items and suppliers to leave types, tills and users.
- Retired records hidden from new-work pickers and refused at save on the web, the API, the mobile app and the offline queue.
- History kept: documents, ledgers, reports and report filters still show a retired record.
- Retirement refused while a record still holds something, with a message that names what is in the way.
- Settling allowed after retirement: supplier bills and payments, customer payments and credit notes, journal reversals and final settlements.
- Bulk retire and import for items, and the item status on the Developer API.
More we can add to your workspace
- Retirement scheduled for a date, so a till or a supplier goes inactive at month end on its own.
- Bulk retire from the list for suppliers, customers and the other records, as items already have.
- A retired-records report across every module, showing who retired each record and when.
- A retirement reason recorded beside the date and shown on the record page.
- A retired value named on every mobile edit form, as it already is on CRM owners and stock counts.
Where we point you to a specialist
- We keep the refusal for every role, administrators included. A warehouse with stock in it is emptied before it is retired, so the shelf and the ledger still agree.
Scheduled retirement and bulk retire run the same refusal checks as the button, so we would quote them together.
Anything above that you need, we can build for you
Everything listed above as something we can add describes what ships in the standard product today — it is a starting point, not a limit on what AWRA OpsHub can do for your organisation. Kenya's eTIMS integration and its maintained payroll engine are both in the product because clients needed them and commissioned them; neither appeared by itself, and the same door is open for whatever you just read about. One qualification so this is worth what it claims: a small number of things on this blog we deliberately leave to a specialist rather than build — a statutory ledger we will not sign our name to, a rule that would decide a tax question for you, a clinical or member-funds record that belongs in a regulated system — and where that is true the post says so in those words. Everything else is a scope, a timeline and a price.
The operational work, which is what most commissions actually are
An extra approval stage in a chain that does not match the standard one, a custom field set on employees or assets that only your sector needs, an expiry that has to block an order rather than send an email, a report your board asks for in a shape nothing produces, or a scanner or weighbridge feeding the goods-in door. These are the commissions we are asked for most often and the smallest ones we quote — and unlike a revenue-authority pipeline, none of them waits on a regulator.
The module-shaped additions, which are the ones readers ask for most often
A price list with real discount authority, a customer-facing quotation that expires, a bill of materials or recipe costing, a staff advance that is issued, acquitted and chased, a member or unit ledger, a matching rule that holds a payment. Each of these is a build rather than a setting, and each has been quoted before — a bigger piece of work than a custom field, with a written spec and a date instead of a roadmap slide.
The report, document or pack nothing currently produces
The board pack in the shape your board actually asks for, a donor or funder layout, an invoice or receipt template carrying what your regulator or your customer expects, a dataset the report builder cannot reach yet. Usually the fastest thing on this list to deliver, because the data is already in the system.
Systems, rails and hardware you already run
The accounting package, CRM, online store, core banking or custom database you intend to keep — connected through our API so a fact is entered once and appears everywhere it is needed. Plus the physical edge: a scanner, a scale, a weighbridge or a till peripheral feeding the door it belongs to.
How it works: you describe the requirement, we return a written scope, timeline and cost, and once agreed it is built into your environment and maintained as part of the product. Nothing here waits on a regulator or a published specification, which is why operational builds are the ones we quote fastest. Tell us the requirement that would otherwise rule us out — that is a better first conversation than a demo.
Tell us what your operation needsRetiring records in AWRA
One help article covers every kind of record that can be retired, what each one refuses, and how to bring one back.
Read the help articleFrequently asked questions
Can I delete a supplier, customer or item I no longer use in AWRA OpsHub?
Make it inactive instead. It leaves every form where new work starts and is refused on new documents on the web, the API and the mobile app, while every past document and report keeps it. It can be made active again at any time.
Why can I not make a warehouse inactive?
AWRA refuses while the warehouse still holds stock or assets, is the default, or has open orders, transfers, counts, POS counters or users pinned to it. The message names what is in the way; move or close those first.
Can I still pay a supplier after making it inactive?
Yes. Bills and payments still go through for an inactive supplier, so you can settle what you owe. Only new RFQs, quotations, purchase orders, contracts and maintenance jobs are refused.
What is the difference between a suspended and an inactive customer?
Suspended is a temporary hold, for example while an account is overdue, and Inactive means you no longer trade with them. Both keep the customer off new invoices, quotes, sales orders and POS sales. A customer can be suspended at any time, but is made inactive only once nothing is left unpaid or open.
Can a user who approves purchases be deactivated?
Not from the users screen while they are named on a step of an active approval rule. Name someone else or a role on those steps in Approval Rules, then deactivate the user.
