Sage - Deleting Customers/Suppliers

Sage - Deleting Customers/Suppliers

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Does anyone know if its possible to delete customers/suppliers on Sage L50? I'm using 2008 if it makes any difference.

I have recently taken over the bookkeeping for a local sports club and the previous bookkeeper put every receipt or payment as a sales or purchase ledger item, so I have loads (over 400 in total!)on each list and about 100 regular customers and 15-20 regular suppliers.

Anyone know if I can chop any out to make it less cumbersome? I have tried right click - delete but it tells me there are transactions associated with the account - is there any way round this?

Thanks

Replies (10)

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By Richard Willis
08th Aug 2011 16:11

Sage 'stale' files

You cannot delete any file for which transactions exist in the database.  You CAN delete any file which has NEVER been used.

You can (or could) however mark a file as unused and then filter reports, queries, etc. to exclude them.

Thanks (1)
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By johndon68
08th Aug 2011 16:22

Deleting Customers

As Richard said, if there are transactions then the accounts cannot be deleted.

What you could do, for example, is assign all the customers the same status then, using the Search button at the bottom of the list, set a filter so that those customers with a given status are not included - this will 'hide' them from the customer lists whilst retaining them in the database.

John

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By petew
08th Aug 2011 16:34

Sounds great, but...

I can't see how to do that, there doesn't seem to be a way to give a customer a  status either in the record section or by right clicking.

Am I missing something?

Possibly because its an old version?

Thanks again.

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By johndon68
08th Aug 2011 16:51

Version...

If the option is there, it is either on the Details tab of the Customer Record at the top right just below the balance field or on the Credit Control Tab.

Alternatively, you could, for example, change the name of all the customers in question to something like 'DO NOT USE' and then apply a filter based on that.

John

 

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By User deleted
08th Aug 2011 16:56

I would be inclined ...

... to archive, wipe the data, delete the accounts you don't need and start again! Bit of a fag setting up the opening position, but worthwhile in the end.

Status is set by double clicking the customer, then change account status under the Ceredit Control Tab. If you don't have this it may be that your version can't - nothing to do with the age. We all tend to use Financial Controller, but there are accountant and accountant plus (or whatever they call them nowadays) which have less features.

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John Stokdyk, AccountingWEB head of insight
By John Stokdyk
10th Aug 2011 13:59

Further advice available in discussion group

I hope the advice here has taken care of your needs for the short-term, but if you want any more expert advise about using the program (or perhaps the elusive workaround you're looking for), you might find it in our Sage 50 Accounts discussion group.

With so many Sage users out there, it's not surprising tht the group is one of our most active ones.

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By petew
10th Aug 2011 14:10

Thanks John

Thanks for the pointer, I'll head over there for a nose around.

As a fairly sporadic user never know where to look or post things!

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By EmmaBrowne
11th Aug 2011 11:57

If you have old transactions that you no longer need to view in Sage then you can clear the audit trail, obviously you will need to leave everything you currently require so make sure the date you choose to clear the audit trail to doesn’t delete data you require.  Once you have cleared the audit trial any transactions that are closed will be removed from customer and supplier accounts up to the date you choose, this means that if all the transactions are removed the customer/supplier account then the account can be deleted as if it was never used.  Have a look in the Sage help tab for the advice on clearing the audit trail and make sure you take a few back up before going down this route in case you manage to delete information you later require.

 

Hope this helps – if you have a large number of transactions this can also speed the program up a lot.

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By Chris Smail
11th Aug 2011 13:01

Emma has it

To delete a customer or supplier account you first have to ensure all transaction on that account are matched and then clear down the audit trail beyond the last transaction on that account. Then it will delete.

 

Some worrying advice further up though!

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By johndon68
11th Aug 2011 13:32

Clearing the Audit Trail

Whislt clearing the Audit Trail will remove transactions and may allow the customer accounts to be deleted, it is important to be aware of implications of doing so as it may not be suitable in which case, some of the earlier options that will 'hide' unused customer accounts are perfectly valid alternatives.

Things to be aware of:

1. Clearing the Audit Trail removes ALL transactions that are fully paid and reconciled prior to the date entered, it does not, for example, discriminate between ledgers so, in order to remove customer transactions, you are losing supplier/nominal transactions as well.

2. If any of the customer accounts have transactions that are in the current financial year then the Clear Audit Trail routine should not be run with a date in the current year as this can, under certain circumstances (listed below), lead to big problems with the Management Reports.

3. If the Audit Trail is cleared in the current year and it becomes necessary to change the Financial Year End Date, the monthly 'buckets' that the management reports get their data from can only be rebuilt based on the transactions that are still on the Audit Trail, any transactions that have been removed will not be taken in to account which will lead to inaccuracies in the 'period' figures on the P&L and Balance Sheet.

4. Likewise, if any form of corruption occurs and the buckets have to be rebuilt, you get the same problem as above.  I've seen this on a few occasions where I've fixed corrupt data and the client has reported that, for example, the Month 1 figures on the P&L are blank and this is because the Audit Trail was cleared in Month 2...

Whilst none of the above may be true in this case (albeit you can never forecast corruption occurring), if you are going to clear the audit trail, you need to be aware of the implications...

John

 

 

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