Warning cannot enter more than 14,500 customers

Hi there, @Bogierich.

I'm here to help guide you delete old customers in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

If you're using QuickBooks Pro/Premier, yes, the maximum number of total names(employees, customers, vendors, and other names combined) is 14, 500. To enter/add a new customer in QBDT, please ensure not to exceed the limit set by QuickBooks. In your case, you really need to delete old customers or inactive customers. Let me help guide you on how.

1. Click on the Customers menu.
2. Select on Customer Center.
3. Right-click on the customer you want to delete.
4. Click on Delete Customer:Job.

Do the same steps for the rest of the customer you want to delete. Once completed, you can now add a new customer.

1. Go to the Customers menu.
2. Select Customer Center.
3. Click on New Customer & Job.
4. Select New Customer.
5. Fill in the necessary information.
6. Click OK.

To learn more about the maximum number of lists entries in QBDT, you may check this article: Maximum number of list entries (list limits and custom fields).

You can also check this article for your future reference: Help articles for QuickBooks Desktop.

Stay posted if you have any other questions about adding and deleting customers in QBDT, I'll be always here to help you. Have a great day ahead!

Thank you for the information. One final issue with this. In order to delete the customers as you say, how can I be sure to delete only old customers who no longer are doing business with us? It's certainly not easy to pick and choose which customers to delete from a pool of 14,500!

Hello,

I have followed your directions as a test to our ability to delete a customer. Unfortunately, we were given another roadblock, as QB stated that we cannot delete the customer as there are payments applied to the customer's invoice and doing so will cause the payment to be unapplied. How do I get past this?

Hi there, @Bogierich!

You can inactivate your customers who are no longer doing business with you. I'm here to help you accomplish this.

To start with, you can only delete your customers with zero amount in the BALANCE TOTAL column. This column shows the total open balance of your customers who are still doing business with you.

In addition, you're unable to delete your customer whose payments are applied to invoices. This is to avoid an unrecognized balanced or unapplied payments with your books.

That being said, here's how you can inactivate your customers:

1. Go to Customers.
2. Select Customer Center.
3. Find and double click to open your customer's profile.
4. Click Customer is inactive.
5. Select OK.

This way, you can exclude them from your customer's list so you can add a new customer's profile. You can check the screenshot below for your visual reference.

In addition, here's an article you can read to learn more about inactivating your customers: Change Vendor, Customer or Employee Name Type.

As always, you can visit our Help Articles page for QuickBooks Desktop if in case you need to learn some "How do I" steps.

It'll be always my pleasure to help if you have any other questions. I'll be keeping an eye for your response.

I appreciate the help but issues continue. So while I AM able to make old customers inactive, I am NOT able to delete them because they have been used in at least one transaction--despite the fact that the last transaction was over 10 years ago. Making the customer inactive does not free up space for more customers--I am still hitting that 14,500 limit.

Basically you have 3 choices.

Archive and condense.

Go to the Enterprise version, which has much greater list limits.

Or, Start a new company file using the lists of active customers, vendors and employees, put in the balances and move forward in the new file.

The easiest route would be to go with Enterprise, since it will update the data from your existing file. But it is more expensive, and is an annual subscription that you must maintain.

Is there a limit for Quick Books Online?

Glad to see you in the Community @GeneSAWINpro.

Let me share some information regarding the number of customers, vendors, and employees you can add to QuickBooks Online.

There is no actual limit for these types of data you can enter into your QuickBooks Online account. However, it may affect the software's performance if you have tens of thousands of customers, vendors, or employees. The more data you have in QBO, the longer it may take for the program to open pages. Please check out this article for more details: Why is my QuickBooks Online slow?

Just in case you want to know the features available per subscription plan, you can check out the QuickBooks Online Plans and Pricing link: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/pricing/.

If you have other questions in mind, feel free to comment below. Have a great day ahead!