A misconception we've heard before is when a member is dropped, or an individual under a specific company no longer works for that company, you should always deactivate the record.
When you deactivate a record (make it inactive), you're saying that this company or person will never be tied to the association in any way again, and that you have no need to see their audit history, transaction history, keep them in a group, etc. in the future.
In this article, we'll dive into what you should do in this scenario instead and when deactivating a record is most useful.
This article covers:
When To Deactivate A Record
Deactivating a record removes it from your main members list. These records are not counted in any current member, expired member, inheriting member, non-member, etc. counts on the website. You can still find the record by going to the Members list > Filter > Active in QuickBooks Online > Inactive, but these records do not retain a member type, do not appear in groups and therefore cannot be synced to MailChimp/Constant Contact, and do not appear anywhere else on the website.
Truly the only time a record should be deactivated is when:
You are sure that the person or company will not be associated with your association again and you want to remove their record and all of its history.
OR...
The record is the "losing" record during a merge and any information you still need was transferred to the winning record.
OR...
A new member registers, is not approved for membership by the association, AND you do not want to keep them in the system as a prospect or non-member. You can deactivate the record from the Recent Signups List in this case.
If your scenario does not fall into one of those three scenarios, please see the scenarios below.
Scenarios To NOT Deactivate A Record
If a member is being dropped due to non-renewal/non-payment...
If this is the case, you'll simply want to perform a Non-Renew and Credit for the dues invoice to drop the member.
A Non-Renew and Credit will automatically change the member's expiration date to be in the previous year, so that they are automatically labeled as Expired. No need to do anything else unless the member falls into one of the reasons to deactivate above.
If an individual no longer works for a certain company...
In this scenario, you'll simply need to replace the Parent Company on the record's Details tab rather than creating a brand new record for them.
If the person inherits their membership from their company, the membership benefits will automatically be transferred as coming from the new company.
If the person does not have a new company, simply remove the parent and save the record. If the person was inheriting their membership from the company, they'll now show as a non-member and will be in your system as such until they have a new company.
The benefit of this is that the person's transaction history, event attendance history, and profile information travels with them no matter which company they are with.
If the record is just a non-member...
Sometimes admins think of non-member records in their system as "clutter" or unnecessary data and deactivate these records, but you may want to think twice about that! Non-member records definitely serve their own purpose.
Let's say that John Smith creates a non-member user account and registers for an event. Instead of checking out as a guest, he chose to create an account and give you his information.
Now, because he has a record, you can add him to a Group and sync his email to MailChimp or Constant Contact, which can result in him coming to more events and eventually signing himself or his company up as a member.
How To Deactivate A Record
To deactivate a record (make it in inactive) in your database, follow these simple steps:
Open the record on the backend.
Go to the Settings tab.
Near the bottom of the tab, click the Deactivate Record button (see screenshot below).
Please Note:
This can be done for a company or an individual record. Read below to learn more about what will happen to the record once it's deactivated.
Records with an open balance cannot be deactivated. You'll want to collect your open amount before removing the record.
You can't deactivate a record in Novi that has deleted/deactivated people/sub-company records.
This is not to be confused with a fully deleted record. Records can only be fully deleted inside of QuickBooks Online. We recommend not deleting records if you can help it. This permanently removes the record for good.
What Happens When a Record is Deactivated?
If you are getting ready to deactivate a record in Novi, please be aware that by deactivating a record, it will result in the following:
The record is visibly removed from the Novi database.
The record is still searchable in the database by going to the main Members list > Filter > Active in QuickBooks Online > Inactive (or Any) should you need to find/recover the record.
The record is removed from the QuickBooks customer database.
Similar to the record in Novi, the record in QuickBooks is removed from the database but is still searchable should you need to find that record again.
Any associated sub-company/people records are deactivated.
Deleting a record with associated sub-companies and/or people will also deactivate those records and dissociate them from the main record.
Record is removed from all Custom Reports & Groups.
Once the record has been deactivated, the membership status will be cleared out so that it no longer appears in a "Current Members" report for example.
The record is updated to have a non-member status.
The deactivated record will show a status of "Non-Member" but it will retain it's membership information from when it was active, such as member type and membership dates, so that if you re-activate it, it is given back its original member status.
How to Reactivate a Record
Do you have some records that have already been deactivated? Never fear. If you've deactivated records that should have been handled in one of the other ways above, simply:
Go to the main Members list > Filter > Active in QuickBooks Online > Inactive
Find the deactivated record and open it.
Go to the Settings tab and click the Reactivate Record button (see screenshot below). This will change the active status of the record.
Please Note:
If you reactivate a record that once had membership information such as a member type and dates, this will be re-populated once re-activated.
This active status change will automatically be reflected in both Novi and QuickBooks Online.
