Background

Purging information is a way to keep your company file a reasonable size. Certain information needs to be purged for you to do things like deleting old cards or accounts. Always be sure that you have made a backup of your company file before purging.

Starting a New Fiscal Year

During the procedure to Start a New Fiscal Year, closed sales, closed purchases and paycheck information, are kept or purged according to selections in the Start a New Fiscal Year Assistant.

Some transactions will not be deleted when using this feature. For example, if you indicate to keep transactions for accounts that you reconcile, those transactions will not be purged until the related transactions are reconciled.

Purging Without Starting A New Fiscal Year

In addition to the Start New Fiscal Year procedures, you have the ability to purge information that is no longer needed. To do this, you should first create either a backup or a copy of the company file. To ensure future transactions cannot be entered into this backup or copy, you should mark the file Read-only (Setup > Preferences > Security > Mark This File as Read-only).

To purge data go to your top menu bar and select File > Purge then choose the type of data that you would like to purge. This will take you to a window with additional settings for the purge.

Deleting Old Information

Deleting cards, items, and accounts can be difficult because if there are any transactions tied to it, you will not be able to delete it. You will have to make sure that all transactions associated with the card, item, or account you wish to delete have been purged before you can delete them. You can find more information on this below.

• Deleting Old Employees
• Deleting Old Customers
• Deleting Old Leads
• Deleting Old Vendors
• Deleting Old Accounts
• Deleting Old Items
• Deleting Old Quotes

Deleting Old Employees

Purging timesheets may be necessary to delete certain employees. To purge timesheets go to your top menu bar and select File > Purge > Timesheets.

The following process requires Starting a New Fiscal Year. Backup before doing so. There are certain screens during the Start a New Fiscal Year process that are necessary for deleting old employees.

1. "Receipts and Payments": Uncheck the box next to "Pay Liabilities Accruals"
2. "Closed and Other Entries":
   1. Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Closed Transactions" or make sure that the employees in question do not have transactions from the Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.
   2. Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Paychecks from Prior Fiscal Years" or make sure that the employees in question do not have paychecks from Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.
3. "Unreconciled Transactions": You would want to make sure that any account which you paid paychecks or liability payments from was unchecked in this screen - if the transaction had not been reconciled yet.

Deleting Old Customers

The following process may require Starting a New Fiscal Year (without going through the Start a New Fiscal Year process it may be possible to just purge the invoices attached to the customer). To delete old customers we first need to make sure that the customer has nothing outstanding (open invoices, orders, quotes, credits). To do this:

1. Go to Reports > Index to Reports.
2. Click on the Sales tab.
3. Scroll down until you see the bold heading Customer.
4. Customize the "Customer Sales Detail" report.
5. Select the specific customer in question, the date range 1/1/20XX to 12/31/9999, and the Sales Status “All Sales”

Any open sales will need to be closed, any quotes deleted, any orders either deleted or closed and all credits either issued or deleted. If any payments had to be made against these sales you will need to Start a New Fiscal Year.

If you had nothing open you can try just purging sales:

1. Backup the company file
2. Go to Sales > File > Purge Closed Invoices.
3. Click next.
4. Select a date so that you will not keep any sale for this customer. Select to purge the entire invoice.
5. Click next through the rest of the process and purge

If you can't delete the customer after doing this it means you will need to Start a New Fiscal Year. Backup before doing so. There are certain screens during the Start a New Fiscal Year process that are necessary for deleting old employees.

1. "Closed and Other Entries": Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Closed Transactions" or make sure that the Customers in question do not have transactions from the Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.
2. "Unreconciled Transactions": You would want to make sure that any account into which you received money from this customer or issued credits to this customer from was deposited was either unchecked or the payment/credit reconciled.

Deleting Old Leads

To Purge Leads we first need to make sure that the lead has no outstanding Quotes for them. You can use the Purge Quotes process above.

To purge Leads:

1. Backup the company file
2. Go to File > Purge > Sales Quotes and Cards
3. Click next and next again
4. Switch from All Cards to All Leads
5. Click next through the rest of the process and purge

Deleting Old Vendors

This process is similar to deleting/purging customers. First make sure that the Vendor has nothing outstanding (open Bill, orders, quotes, Debit memos ). To do this:

1. Go to Reports > Index to Reports
2. Click on the Purchases tab
3. Scroll down until you see the bold heading Vendor
4. Customize the “Vendor Purchase Detail" report
5. Select the specific Vendor in question, the date range 1/1/20XX to 12/31/9999, and the Purchase Status "All Bills”
6. Any open Bills will need to be closed, any quotes deleted (you can use the Purge Quotes feature listed above), any orders either deleted or closed and all Debits either issued or deleted. If any payments had to be made against these Purchases you will need to Start a New Fiscal Year

If you didn't find any open Purchases you can try just purging Purchases:

1. Backup the company file
2. Go to Purchases > File > Purge Closed Bills.
3. Click next
4. Select a date so that you will not keep any Bill for this Vendor. Select to purge the entire Bill
5. Click next through the rest of the process and purge

If you can't delete the Vendor after doing this it means you will need to Start a New Fiscal Year. Please note that once you have closed a Fiscal Year you can no longer change or make any entries in that year. Make sure you backup before doing so. There are certain screens during the Start a New Fiscal Year process that are necessary for deleting old Vendors.

1. "Closed and Other Entries": Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Closed Transactions" or make sure that the Vendors in question do not have transactions from the Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.
2. "Unreconciled Transactions": You would want to make sure that any account into which you spent money from this vendor or received refunds from this vendor from was deposited was either unchecked or the transaction reconciled.

Deleting Old Accounts

The following process requires going through the Start a New Fiscal Year process. There are certain screens during the Start a New Fiscal Year process that are necessary for deleting old accounts.

1. "Receipts and Payments": If the account in question would have been attached to any of these make sure to uncheck them
2. "Closed and Other Entries": Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Closed Transactions" or make sure that the Accounts in question do not have transactions from the Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.
3. "Unreconciled Transactions": You would want to make sure that the account in question is unchecked.

Deleting Old Items

The following process may require Starting a New Fiscal Year (without going through the Start a New Fiscal Year process it may be possible to just purge the transactions attached to the item).

You can first attempt to purge from a few of the individual modules. To do so:

1. Backup the company file
2. Go to Sales > File > Purge Closed Invoices
3. Click next
4. Select a date so that you will not keep any sale for this item. Select to purge the entire invoice
5. Click next through the rest of the process and purge
6. Backup the company file
7. Go to Purchases > File > Purge Closed Bills
8. Click next
9. Select a date so that you will not keep any purchase for this item. Select to purge the enter bill
10. Click next through the rest of the process and purge
11. Backup the company file
12. Go to Inventory > File > Purge Item Movements
13. Click next
14. Select a date so that you will not keep any movement for this item
15. Click next through the rest of the process and purge

If you can't delete the item after doing this it means you will need to Start a New Fiscal Year. Backup before doing so. There are certain screens during the Start a New Fiscal Year process that are necessary for deleting old items.

1. "Closed and Other Entries": Either uncheck the box next to "Keep Closed Transactions" or make sure that the Customers in question do not have transactions from the Fiscal Year you are keeping data from.

Deleting Old Quotes

To purge quotes:

1. Backup the company file
2. Go to File > Purge > Sales Quotes and Cards or Purchase Quotes and Cards
3. Click next
4. Select a date so that you will not keep any sale for this customer
5. Put a check next to the quote you would like to purge or select all and click purge quotes
6. Click next through the rest of the process and purge

Benefits of Purging

Purging will likely make a company file smaller, and will remove references to disused customer, employee, vendor cards, and items. Those cards can thereafter, be removed. (Multiple cards can be removed at a time by highlighting the cards in the Cards List window, and selecting Delete from the Edit menu at the top of the screen.)