Active And Inactive Items
Retire an item you no longer stock or sell without losing its history. An inactive item drops out of everyday work; every past movement, document and report keeps it.
Every item is Active or Inactive. New items are active. Change it with the Status field when you add or edit an item, or with Make inactive / Make active on the item’s page, on the web or in the mobile app. You need permission to edit items.
What Inactive Does
- The item leaves item search and the pickers on check-in, check-out, transfer, count, reservation, POS, invoice, quote, sales order, procurement request, RFQ, BOM and price list forms, on the web and in the app, offline included.
- Anything new that names it is refused with a message naming the item — whether it comes from a form, a saved link, the API or the app’s offline queue.
- It no longer appears on low-stock and reorder lists, reorder suggestions, low-stock emails or dashboard stock alerts. An item retired at zero would otherwise read as out of stock for ever.
- Its check-ins, check-outs, sales, invoices, purchase orders, reports and stock history are unchanged. Old documents that already carry it can still be edited.
When It Is Refused
An item cannot be made inactive while it still has stock on hand, stock on a shelf, or an open stock hold — the message says which. Nobody could select it to issue, sell or count that stock out afterwards, so the shelf and the books would disagree with no way to fix it. Issue, sell, transfer or count the stock out, or release the hold, first.
Finding An Inactive Item
The Items list shows active items by default. Set its Status filter to Inactive, or to Active and inactive, to find one again. Inactive items carry an Inactive label on the list and on their page. In the mobile app, use the Status filter on the Items screen.
Inactive Or Delete?
| Use | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Make inactive | A real item you have stopped stocking, selling or buying. | Hidden from new work, history kept, reversible at any time. |
| Delete | An item created by mistake that never moved. | Moves to Trash. Refused once the item has stock, check-ins, check-outs or quotations. |
Common Mistakes
- Renaming a discontinued item and reusing it for a new product. Its past sales and counts would then appear to belong to the new one; make the old item inactive and create a new one.
- Expecting a customer return or supplier bill to be blocked. Returns, stock-count corrections and bills for goods already ordered still go through, because they settle what already happened.
- Leaving an item inactive by accident. If an item is missing from a form, check its Status first.
Need help with this topic?
Capture the module, record number, branch or warehouse, user, visible message, and what you expected to happen before contacting support.