Deleting Old Customers and Vehicles

It is a good idea to retain as much customer and vehicle history as you can. If a vehicle is kept in history, it can be pulled up by license number in case the vehicle comes back in. In addition, the more vehicle history you have, the better your estimate searches on jobs done for specific types of vehicles are.

To Delete Customer with No History

If the customer has no history, complete these steps:

1. Configuration module > Customers/Vehicles > Edit Vehicle.
2. Delete the vehicle associated with the customer.
3. Configuration module > Customers/Vehicles > Edit Customer.
4. Delete the customer.

To Delete Customers with History

If the customer has history, accounts receivables, and/or an open repair order, you cannot delete the vehicle or the customer because the customer record is part of your sales data.

In this case, there is an alternative method.

Complete these steps:

1. Create a "dummy" customer called SOLD or whatever you wish to name it.
2. Transfer the vehicles and all the history to the "dummy" customer. See Transferring Vehicle History.
3. Select Transfer All Vehicles/History From One Customer to Another and Delete Source Customer.

If you wish to verify the history was transferred successfully first before deleting the customer, leave the Delete Source Customer box unchecked. After you have verified the transfer, you can delete the customer.

4. Click OK.

When the repair order is closed, it is added to the customer's number of visits.

To Review Customers Before Deleting

To determine customers to delete, if you purchased the Marketing/Follow-up module, you can bring up a list of customers who have not been in your shop from a certain date or customers who have never been in your shop at all.

Complete these steps:

1. Open the Marketing/Follow-up module.
2. Select Use Customer/Vehicle criteria
3. Select Print Phone Follow-up List
4. Click on the Customer criteria tab at the bottom of the screen.
5. Select Total Visits Less Than 1
6. At this point, you can

• Click the How Many button to see the number of matching customer records.
• Click Print to send the list of customers to the printer.

NOTE: Be aware that some customers on this list however may be new customers on the WIP screen that you haven't closed the repair order for.

To Delete a Vehicle

When editing the vehicle from the Configuration module, a Delete button is available at the bottom of the window.

You can only delete a vehicle if there are no appointments, repair orders, or accounts receivable activity associated with this vehicle. If you try to delete a vehicle that does, an error message appears and you cannot delete it.