Why Can't I Delete a Record?

You tried to delete a record but received an error or the delete option is unavailable.

Common causes

1. The record has related child records. If a Company has linked Contacts, Opportunities, or Activities, HARi prevents deletion to avoid orphaned data. You must remove or reassign the related records first.

2. Your profile doesn’t have delete permission. Administrators can restrict the delete action per entity and per profile. Your role may allow editing but not deleting.

3. The record is referenced in a workflow or process. Active workflows or business process flows that reference this record may prevent deletion.

4. The record is in a protected state. Some entity configurations prevent deletion of records in certain states (e.g., you can’t delete an invoice that has been marked as “Paid”).

Step-by-step fix

1. Check whether the record has related records by looking at the subgrids on the record form. If there are linked records, decide whether to delete them first or reassign them to another parent.
2. If there’s no delete button at all, ask your administrator to check your profile’s permissions for this entity.
3. If the error message mentions a constraint or related records, navigate to the related entity and remove the linkage.
4. Consider archiving instead of deleting. Archived records are hidden from default views but can be recovered if needed. Change the record’s state to “Archived” instead.

Still stuck?

If you believe you should have delete access and the record has no related data, ask your administrator to check the entity’s deletion rules in Settings > Entities. Some entities are configured to prevent deletion entirely, requiring archival instead.