The Difference Between Deleted and Inactive Accounts
The primary difference between deleted accounts and inactive accounts is that when an account is deleted, it is physically removed from the system. When it's made inactive, it's merely "tagged" so that it can be identified as "inactive' and a warning will be given if you try to apply invoices to it.
Deleted accounts . . .
Accounts can only be deleted if they have NO tanks assigned to them and/or they have NO outstanding balance.
To delete any account, you must first set the Company Preference for deleting accounts to "Yes".
When an account is deleted, it is physically removed from the system along with all of it's detail transactions.
If you have set the Company Preference for deleting accounts to "Yes", you will NOT be able to Age Accounts from a date earlier than today. This is because the deleted account transactions will make the aging inaccurate.
No transactions (deliveries, payments, etc.) can be made to a deleted account.
If a deleted account becomes active again, you will have to add it from scratch. The "old" account cannot be resurrected (unlike inactive accounts, which can be).
If you want to delete an account and it has an unrecoverable balance owed, you should first "write it off" as a bad debt. See How to Handle Bad Debts for details on this.
Since deleted accounts are physically removed from the system, they will no longer show on the account screens (unlike inactive accounts, which will show).
Inactive accounts . . .
Accounts can only be made inactive if they have NO tanks assigned to them and/or they have NO outstanding balance.
If you want to make an account inactive and it has an unrecoverable balance owed, you should first "write it off" as a bad debt. See How to Handle Bad Debts for details on this.
No transactions (deliveries, payments, etc.) can be made to an inactive account.
If an inactive account becomes active again, you can simply make it "active" from the Account Preferences.
Since inactive accounts are still in the system, they will still show on the account screens (unlike deleted accounts, which will not show).
Inactive accounts can be included (or excluded) in the various customer reports. Deleted accounts cannot.