Did you know that in some countries, recording a reason for deleting transactions is legally required? And even if you don’t have business transactions in a country with that requirement, you may still find it helpful to keep a record of why you chose to delete transactions. The NetSuite Use Deletion Reason feature provides a native NetSuite way for you to do that.
Overview
What are some of the basic details about the NetSuite Use Deletion Reason feature? You can enable this feature on the ERP General section of the Company tab in Enable Features. This feature can be disabled at any point in time after enabling it. Essentially, enabling this feature makes including a deletion reason on transactions mandatory.
Now, let’s look at some key steps in the process of working with the Use Deletion Reason feature. We’ll cover everything from creating a new deletion reason, to selecting a deletion reason on transactions, to viewing the deletion reasons that were selected on deleted transactions. Let’s dive in!
Create a New Deletion Reason
First, how would you create a new deletion reason? To create a new deletion reason, navigate to Setup > Accounting > Accounting Lists > New. On this page, you’ll see all the different types of accounting lists. Choose Transaction Deletion Reason.
On the Transaction Deletion Reason page, all you need to do is name the new deletion reason and save the record. If your NetSuite account is set up for multiple languages, then you will also have the option of including a translation for each language that you use.
Edit Existing Deletion Reasons
Suppose you need to edit existing transaction deletion reasons. How would you do that? And who would have the permissions to do that? Because the transaction deletion reasons are housed in the Accounting Lists, anyone who has permission to access the Accounting Lists would also have permission to edit the existing transaction deletion reasons.
To edit an existing deletion reason, navigate to Setup > Accounting > Accounting Lists. On the Accounting Lists page, set the filter to Type: Transaction Deletion Reason. In this list, you’ll see any deletion reasons you have created for your account as well as the two standard deletion reasons provided by NetSuite: Original Document Damaged and Other.
From this page, then, you can select Edit or View next to any of the deletion reasons in the list.
Select Deletion Reason on Transactions
Selecting a deletion reason on a transaction is simple. Edit a transaction that you need to delete, hover over Actions, and select Delete.
When you do, a window will pop up, requiring you to select a deletion reason before the transaction will actually be deleted. If you select “Other” as the reason, you will also be required to write a memo to elaborate on why you are deleting this transaction.
How do you know which transactions you can delete in this way? If you go to the Set Up Auto-Generated Numbers page (Setup > Company > Auto-Generated Numbers) and select the Transaction Numbers tab, you’ll see a complete list of transaction types that are eligible for deletion reasons. (And if you don’t see the Transaction Numbers tab on this page, you can turn it on by going to General Preferences and selecting the checkbox Show Transaction Numbering Setup.)
View Deletion Reason for Deleted Transactions
After you’ve deleted transactions, what if you needed to view the transactions that were deleted and see their deletion reasons? You can do this on the Transaction Numbering Audit Log. To access this page, navigate to Transactions > Management > Transaction Numbering Audit Log.
On this page, you can filter results by things like the transaction type, location, subsidiary, and deletion reason code. In the list of results, you’ll see things like the date the transaction was deleted, the deletion reason, and the individual who deleted the transaction. This makes tracking down specific deleted transactions relatively easy to do.
Conclusion
No matter why you need to track deletion reasons for your transactions, the NetSuite Use Deletion Reason feature makes the entire process simple and straightforward for you. To learn more about helpful features like this one, be sure to subscribe to our mailing list below to have our newest NetSuite blogs delivered right to your inbox each week!