How do I make a Project Inactive, without deleting it.

Hi there, 

You've reached the right place for help. I'll be happy to share more info about using the Projects feature in QuickBooks. 

At this time, QuickBooks doesn't offer the capability to make a project inactive. The only option available is deleting the project. That being said, once you delete a project it can't be restored. I think having the option to delete a project is great feedback and I encourage you to send this to our engineers by clicking the Gear icon and looking for Feedback. New product ideas and improvements are largely based on the feedback we get. 

In the meantime, check out this helpful article with more info on Projects: Set up and use the Projects feature.

Let me know if you have other questions. I'm here to help. 

The fact that transactions linked to a deleted project still show up on the books is such a terrible flaw in the Quickbooks platform. After you delete a project those transactions are permanently locked in to all your financial statements - "right or wrong, who cares" apparently!

Hello again, cjholowatyj,

I've responded to you post on Twitter, but I want to make sure you see the steps here in community as well. I know not being able to make edits to or even delete transactions you need to can throw your balances off. I want to assure you that whether your books balance matters and I'm here to help and that I've got steps you can take to manage these transactions to get the numbers back to where they need to be. I'll outline the steps for you again as they may be easier to read here rather than from a tweet.

1. However over the Sales menu and choose Customers.
2. Click the customer to which the project was linked.
3. Find an invoice payment transaction that was linked to the project and click to open it.
4. Choose More from the bar at the bottom of the screen.
5. Choose Delete, then Yes.
6. Click Make customer active in the error message that appears.
7. On the same transaction, click More again.
8. Choose Delete.

Once you've deleted the payment transaction, you can go back to the invoice and either delete, void, or edit it to move it to a new customer. To move it to a new customer, simply change the customer it's associated with using the drop-down menu. Other transactions that were previously linked to the project should also be freed up for you to edit or delete as needed. Although the project name will once again appear in your customer list, you'll need to handle the transactions directly from the main customer's transaction list.

One thing to take note of is that "reactivating" the project like this will put it back in your customer list without a way to remove it. I recommend moving forward that you ensure all project transactions have been taken care of before deleting it.

As I mentioned to you previously, I know this is a bit of extra legwork. I encourage you to submit feedback about this to the product development team. Our goal with QuickBooks is to make sure you can mange your transactions as easily as possible. Learn how to leave feedback here: How do I submit feedback?

I'll keep an eye out for other messages from you, but don't be afraid to get back in touch!