Recycle bin & recovery
Deleting a supported record normally does not destroy it immediately. It goes to the Recycle Bin, with a reason, where it can be restored or—by an owner—permanently removed.
How deletion works
When you delete a transaction, product, customer or similar record:
- You give a reason for the deletion.
- The item moves to the recycle bin — out of your working views, still recoverable.
- The deletion is written to the audit trail.
Restoring
Open Recycle Bin, find the item, restore it. It returns to its original place with its history intact.
Restoring an invoice
Invoices follow an accounting-safe rule. An unpaid invoice returns in its saved state. An invoice that had payments and was voided before deletion always returns as Void. Its payment reversals remain in place, so restoring the document does not silently restore revenue, balances or receivables.
If a balance is suddenly wrong and nobody knows why, check here first. An accidental deletion is a far more common cause than a mysterious calculation error.
Why a reason is required
An entry that vanished without explanation is indistinguishable from one that was hidden. Requiring a reason means:
- Your accountant can see why something went, not just that it did
- An auditor gets an explanation instead of a gap
- You can tell a genuine correction from a mistake, months later
"Duplicate of receipt #4412" is a complete answer. "Wrong" is not — write the reason you would want to read in a year.
Permanent deletion
Owners can permanently remove items from the recycle bin. This cannot be undone, and is itself recorded.
For a previously paid invoice, permanent removal deletes the invoice document and its dependants but retains the already-nullified payment transaction records required for the append-only ledger audit.
Reserve it for genuine cases: data entered against the wrong business, test entries from setup, or a legal obligation to erase personal data. Never permanently delete something because the books look untidy — untidy books with a full history are worth far more than clean books with holes.
Closed periods
Deleting anything inside a closed period changes numbers you have already reported and possibly filed. Post a correcting adjustment in the current period instead.
Paid and partially paid invoices
A paid or partially paid invoice cannot be moved to the Recycle Bin directly. Open it under Invoices, Void it first so its accounting entries are reversed, then select Delete. See Invoices & getting paid.
Prefer deactivating
For products, customers and employees you no longer deal with, deactivate rather than delete. They disappear from pickers and tills while their history stays attached to past transactions — which is almost always what you actually wanted.