Yes, it’s true that you can’t make a customer inactive if there is a project and time entries linked to them, @lmcnally.

To resolve this, you can create a temporary customer called "Dummy Customer" to hold the project and its time entries. Move the project and all associated time entries to the dummy customer.

Although the dummy customer is not real, your transactions and data will remain unchanged. This method allows you to keep all records while making the original customer inactive.

Here’s how:

1. Hover over My apps, then click Projects.
2. Select the project linked to the customer, then click Edit.
3. In the Customer drop-down, click Add New.
4. Create a new customer and name it (example: Dummy Customer), then click Save.
5. Once done, click Save and close.
6. Select Assign New Customer to finish transferring the project.

Once done, you can now make the original customer inactive.

If you have more questions about QuickBooks, feel free to ask. We’re here to help.

I see. What is the reason that I cannot make a customer inactive when there are time entries linked to it?

The time entries are linked so that we can see our profitability on the project. To be clear, we are not billing our customers for the specific labor hours, we just associate labor hours with a project, so the labor expense is reflected on the project profitability.

Is there another way to accomplish these project profitability reports that does not result in having to edit all the time entires later? I understand what you are saying about moving the time entries to a dummy customer, but that will be a tedious process, especially for our volume of customers. 

Thank you for getting back to us, Imcnally! As of right now, that is the best workaround. However, I will submit a feature request to include this in future updates. I encourage you to join me as well by filling out the form below:

• QuickBooks Feedback Request

Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns! I will be more than happy to assist.