Try filtering by "all statuses"?

I've learned it is useless to expect software updates for QBO, or complete features, for that matter. The QBO Projects "feature" is a beta at best and this is another example of it's half-baked implementation.

-1 for QBO

I tried that

Hi Jon,

I ended up being able to do what I wanted, it just took more time and confusion than it should.

When attempting to "Archive" QBO Customers with associated QBO Projects, it will complain, as you know. There is no "Archive" function within QBO.

I first made a dummy Customer and moved all old projects to this customer. Not a great solution.

Then I discovered you can "Delete" QBO Projects, except Intuit uses Delete and Archive synonymously.

TL;DR: "Delete" your QBO projects and they will become archived (not deleted). You can then "archive" the QBO Customers.

My workaround for this is I've created a dummy customer and placed all inactive customers under it so it's the parent.  That way no projects or transactions have to be moved or deleted. 

I also found this helpful with Time Tracking as I could simply hide the dummy customer and not have to worry about a bunch of clients showing up for employees to clock in to. 

I have this same issue. My issue came about not from adding projects on purpose but from migrated from Desktop to QBO. The migration turned my sub-customers which (which I could easily make inactive in Desktop) into "projects" which are now preventing me from making the project and the header customer inactive. A QBO support person just recommended that I delete all the transaction under the project in order to delete the project but these are financial transactions from prior fiscal years. Wouldn't deleting them alter the past financials? The client is a charitable organization and the sub-customers are prior campaigns. Please help. I have submitted feedback to QB multiple times. Thanks in advance

We appreciate you for joining this thread, Christine. Let me share some information on how your sub-customer in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) be migrated and recorded in QBO.

Beforehand, deleting the transaction under the Projects would affect your past finances.

Going back, are you using QBO Plus or Advance subscription? If so, your sub-customers in QBDT will be entered as Projects when migrated into QBO on both versions.

If you've recently migrated your data, you can migrate them to QBO again to overwrite the current data. This time, make sure to subscribe and use the QBO Essentials version. On this subscription, your sub-customer in QBDT will remain as a sub-customer when migrated to QBO.

Meanwhile, if you've already added or created entries after the first migration, you'll need to re-enter them after the second migration to overwrite your current company data. Please take note or keep a copy of the entries you've created to use as a reference when re-entering them.

After that, you can upgrade your subscription to the Plus or Advance version.

In addition, you can also check this article to learn your way around QBO by watching the step-by-step videos: QuickBooks Online Tutorial.

Don't hesitate to comment below if you need additional assistance with your migrated data from QBDT to QBO. We'll make sure you're taken care of.

None of the QBO (intuit) suggestions in this feed make sense what-so-ever.
Just give us a way to make projects inactive and customers with projects inactive.
It's plain and simple.  This is just another area that Intuit ignores while they waste time on unnecessary changes in the software.
There have been so many negative changes in the last 8 months that many accountants are looking for other accounting solutions.  Meanwhile Intuit keeps asking us to give feedback. WHY??? You ignore it or give canned responses with absolutely no real solution.
INTUIT! WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING YOUR PRODUCT? Why aren't you listening to highly trained end-users? 
PLEASE LISTEN TO US! Please fix the truly broken issues and leave everything else alone!

Thanks for the response. 

Thanks for the information that if I had deleted the transactions in a project, it would have impacted my prior financials. I recommend you let the QB support staff know - someone this morning was guiding me to delete them. Fortunately, I refused as it didn't make any sense to me.

 Your suggestions on re-migrating won't help me. I migrated back in June 2023 and discovered the problem when we did our annual census in January 2024. Any other ideas? 

I appreciate your prompt response, Christine. Allow me to provide additional insight when migrating data from the desktop to the online program.

As QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online are two different plans, distinct features are only available inside a specific program and version. When converting sub-customers from QBDT, this feature will be converted as Projects in QuickBooks Plus and Advanced versions.

Since you've already migrated back in June 2023 and had created transactions after the first migration, it's best to consider re-migrating your data and entering the entries again to overwrite your current company data. This time, you may opt to migrate them to a QBO Essential subscription. This version can convert jobs from desktop to stay as sub-customers in the online program, then upgrade your account to Plus or Advanced versions. You'll now have the ability to manage your projects and make the header customer inactive.

Please take into account the detailed information stated in this article: Learn how features and data move from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.

Moreover, you may want to run specific reports to help review your business finances and other data.

You're always welcome to reply to this post if there's anything else you need further assistance with when managing QuickBooks data. I'll be around anytime you require additional help. Keep safe and have a good one! 

You must see how this response is not satisfactory by the user base given our complaints. This isn't one user, this is every user asking for the same thing. Asking for us to re-migrate is a massive and scary proposition that can jack up our books. Most of us are already migrated and cannot go back and re-migrate. Everyone on this page is screaming for the same thing. Asking the users to handle this on their own is not the right play here. I implore you to get the dev team to take this request seriously. We should not be responsible to untangle a past bad decision on Intuit's part. We expect your devs to figure out how to properly migrate the technology in a way that doesn't break all of our stuff. Nobody wanted Intuit to change from "sub-customers" in Desktop to "Projects"  in the Online version and make the 2 not completely compatible, then have this weird "we still have sub-customers though" thing going on. Intuit did that and it was a bad choice. This is one of several major issues, I've already outlined the specifics above (calling archive "delete"-- seriously??) The users need resolution on this. Please read the myriad of complaints on this page. We should not be responsible for fixing this. The canned recommendations thus far do nothing but deflect responsibility and pass the buck using unhelpful solutions that all of us are saying NO to. Please-- escalate this!! What do we have to do here? The past comments are very right that this is so frustrating we are seeking other solutions. Yes you've got us stuck in vendor lock-- for now-- but once another company fixes these problems and offers us an easy migration process and listens to our needs-- it's bye bye time on a massive scale for Intuit.  

I can see the importance of having the option to make a customer inactive inactive even after projects are completed.

As mentioned by other users on thread, this function is unavailable. You'll want to consider sending feedback to let our product team know how this will help your business. To do that, you can follow the steps outlined below:

1. Select Go to the Gear icon, then Feedback.
2. Enter your comments or product suggestions. Then select Next to submit feedback.

The request goes to our Product Development team to help improve your experience in QuickBooks Online. You can also track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

Furthermore, QuickBooks offers several reports that you can use so you'll be able to get the right data for your business. Ensure to customize them for you to show the information on how you want it to be. I've added this article for reference: Customize Reports In QuickBooks Online.

Post your comment below if you have any other concerns about customers or projects. I'll be one post away if you need further assistance. Have a nice day!

I have submitted feedback multiple times about this issue. 

Thanks for explaining. It still doesn't make sense from my perspective that Intuit has been pushing the migration to QBO, in fact subtly forcing it, and yet doesn't provide a parallel program. That said, and considering what you have written back to me, why didn't the rep who guided me through the migration let me know that this would be a problem? I would have had a chance to figure out a different strategy. 

Also, not only would it not help to re-migrate (some of my sub-customers still had balances), it is completely unrealistic to think re-entering 10 months of data for a client with a huge number of transactions is a viable option. 

I feel like none of us are being listened to. I don't get it. 

Woah there.  Don't delete any transactions.  While this is a really stupid feature, it is not the end of the world.  If you delete the project, all of the transactions will still be there under the customer.  So just delete the project, make the customer inactive and be on your way.  Trust me, it works OK  

I agree with you 100%.
When a program comes about that will be a fit there will certainly be a mass exodus from all things INTUIT.

As has been mentioned before, feedback from customers seems to be ignored, sometimes for years.

This is terrible advice. These time entries were used to run payroll and can't be edited or deleted. 

You people are morons.

I agree with you.

First off, this is terrible UI.  QBO, you need to fix this and use your terminology consistently.  "Delete" means that a record is deleted.  "Inactive" means that it's not deleted and still visible throughout the software.  Use your terms the same way throughout the software.

Second, the functionality actually isn't that broken, just the labels are awful.  So, here's how to do this properly:

1. Go to the Customer Record
2. Click on Projects
3. Scroll to the right, click the drop down and select Delete (this doesn't really delete it, it just deactivates it)
4. Click Edit and select to make the Customer Inactive.
5. Note that it now shows as Customer (deleted): Project (deleted).  From what I can tell all the projects are fine now and the old Customer and Project no longer show in search.

Thanks @lorengd - I appreciate you taking the time. Your steps don't work in my case because invoices wet out from the header customer but payments were received on the subs. So the now "project" can't be deleted. I went through a process of deleting the payments made to the subs and re-applying them to the header customer. Then I could delete the project and then make the customer inactive. This process did not break my reconciliations HOWEVER it created a bloated total in the prior fiscal year reports for the income categories impacted. I haven't had time to investigate how to solve this yet.

What? This is not accurate. You should NOT delete the customer's past transactions. 

I also cannot make 2 clients inactive because it says there is an open project but there is NOT. I have deleted all projects for these 2 clients from QBO and from TIME and still cannot make them inactive. All time for these clients is approved. I've tried in Incognito, etc.

I appreciate all your efforts in dealing with this, Kelsey.

I know the importance of making our customers inactive in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

As much as I'd love to help you with this, we're unable to check your account here in the Community space for security reasons. That said, I suggest contacting our support team to further help you. They have the necessary tools to check your account and initiate a screen-sharing session to investigate this issue. 

Here's how to reach them:

1. Go to Help.
2. Select the Search tab, then choose Contact Us.
3. Type in your issue or concern in the field.
4. Hit Continue.
5. Click the Chat or Callback option.

For future reference, you can check this article to guide you on how to use projects to track your labor cost and profitability in QBO: Track hourly labor cost and profitability by project

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions about making the customer inactive. I'm always here to help, Kelsey. Take care.

I also cannot delete old clients. Getting This client cannot be deleted because it has one or more projects.

Unfortunately, these clients have NO PROJECTS at all.