Old Customers inactive

Welcome aboard to the QuickBooks Community space, @cherrirapp.

You can pull up and customize the Customer Contact List report in QuickBooks Desktop that will let you view your inactive customers. 

Let me show you the steps:

1. Click the Reports menu at the top and pick Customers & Receivables. 
2. Select Customer Contact List.
3. Hit the Customize Report button at the upper left side. 
4. Go to the Filters tab. 
5. On the Current Filter Choices section, click Active Status then set to Not-active.
6. Choose OK. 

Here's some screenshots for your visual guidance:

You can check out this article to know more about the process above: Customize customer, job, and sales reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you need additional assistance when running a report in QuickBooks, please let me know. I’ll be right here to help. Enjoy your day!

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Thank you. This has helped me a little. Is there a way to take this list and narrow it down even more. I want a list of our customers that have had no activity at all. Only customers that have had activity since 2010 are showing activity in our database. I would like to delete anyone else. So customers with no history. We have over 13,000 customers in our database and the ones with no history I would like to delete. Is there a better way than to go through each individual customer?

Hello there, cmoil. 

Thank you for reaching out to the Community. I am here to help you sort it out. We can simultaneously select multiple customers on the list to make a group of your customers inactive at the same time. Let me show you how to do it: 

1. Click Customers menu, then select Customer Center. 
2. Under Customers and Jobs tab, tap the drop-down, and choose All Customers. 
3. Hover your cursor next to a customer you want to make inactive, and then click when the cursor turns to an "X." 

That's it! Hiding your inactive customers from the Customers and Jobs list makes the file shorter and more manageable without deleting each customer’s historical data.   

To learn more about this process check out this relevant article: Customize customer, job, and sales reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Please keep in touch if there's anything else I can do to help you succeed with QuickBooks. I've got your back. Have a great day!

This is what I already do, I was wondering if there is an easier way. As I stated before we have about 14,000 customers. To go through each customer would take months. I am looking for an easier way to maybe isolate the inactive customers, and then isolate them even more for only the customers with invoices from before 2018.

Thanks for getting back to us, @cmoil,

Deleting customers in QuickBooks requires doing it manually. If you need to identify which customer has no activity for a certain period of time, you may refer to the Balance Total section of the Customers & Jobs list.

Another way to delete bulk customers in QuickBooks Enterprise are as follows:

1. On the Customer & Jobs section, right-click anywhere and choose Add/Edit Multiple Customer: Jobs.
   
2. On the next window, click the Customize Columns button.
3. Find and click the word Inactive in the Available Columns and click Add.
   
4. You can also include the Customer Balance to review which customer has no running balance.
   
5. Once done, hit OK.
6. After applying the filters, sort the Customer Balance by clicking the column header to show the 0.00 amounts first.
7. Then, click the Inactive box for one customer, and right-click on it.
8. Choose Copy Down to automatically make all customers inactive.
   
9. Since we are not making all customers inactive, scroll down to the clients with remaining balance and click the Inactive box to remove the check mark.
10. Once the field is empty, right-click again then select Copy Down.
    

Here's a Community link you can check to learn more about this feature: Add and edit multiple customers, vendors, and items

Otherwise, if you're using other versions of QuickBooks Desktop, you can try checking out for a third-party deleter app to do the batch action for you. Click this link to our app website to pick the right tool for you: Apps for QuickBooks Desktop.

Let me know if you have any questions or clarifications. I'll be right here to help you anytime. Have a nice day!

Jen_D Great Job! You actually address the OP's problem. So many admins provide generic answers that dont event match the question. You did a great job, and this helped me de-activate 15000 old customers in one click. I'm so grateful!

This sounds like a great way to disable customers in bulk, but doesn’t address how to delete customers. With the approximate 10,000 customer limit in QB Desktop, this is a real concern for service companies like ours with years of sub-customer / jobs. Is there any way to do this?

Thanks for following this thread, J_Outerbridge.

As mentioned by my peer, you’ll have to manually remove each customer. Let’s go to the Customer Center to perform this task.

1. In your company file, press the Customers menu at the top bar and choose the Customer Center.
2. Go to the Customers & Jobs tab and click the drop-down to select All Customers.
3. Right-click your mouse beside the customer’s name and pick Delete Customer:Job.
4. Click OK to confirm the deletion.

Alternatively, you can explore our different options for third-party applications from the App Center. This is a one-stop shop where you’ll find apps that integrate with QuickBooks. You’ll also get a better comparison and check if one of them meets your business needs (batch deletion of customers).

I’m also adding a guide that contains resources to help with your future tasks. Click on the topic to easily view the information: Self-help articles.

Feel free to click the Reply button if you have any other concerns or questions. I’ll be right here to answer them for you. Have a great rest of the day.