In brief: Net Net deactivates, archives, retires, and moves records instead of deleting them; delete is permanent in only two places, Contacts and your own Chat messages.

Applies to: Everyone in the workspace, though deactivating people and retiring types need Owner or Admin access.

See also: Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final) covers the one address book exception, Job Lifecycle: Pending, Active, Completed, Archived covers where finished work goes, and Moving a Task Without Losing Its Time or History covers misfiled work.

Net Net will not let you delete records that other records depend on. Instead of deleting them it deactivates people, archives Jobs, retires classification labels, and moves logged time rather than destroying it. The reason is the same every time: the record is holding up history that already happened, and removing it would quietly rewrite work you actually did. Contacts and your own Chat messages are the two places where delete is real and permanent.

Most of the time the thing you are looking for is not Delete. It is Deactivate, Archive, or Retire, and it is usually one menu away.

The rule underneath all of it

Net Net measures effort and timeline across the life of a Job. Every one of those measurements is assembled from records: who logged the time, which task it landed on, which service type it counted as, which deliverable it belonged to.

Delete one of those records and the numbers do not go blank. They go wrong. A report that used to say Design ran forty hours over starts saying something else, and nothing on the screen tells you why.

So Net Net takes a consistent position. A record that other work points at gets moved out of your way, not out of existence. You stop seeing it. Your history keeps it.

People are deactivated, not deleted

When someone leaves your team, you deactivate them from Settings → Team. There is no option to remove a person from a workspace outright, and that is deliberate.

If that person planned Jobs, logged effort, or led a deliverable, their name is attached to real numbers. Deleting them would leave a hole in every report that touches their work, and the totals would stop adding up.

Deactivating cuts off their access immediately, leaves every record they touched intact, and files them in the Inactive view. When they come back, you reactivate that same row and their role and history come back with them. The full walkthrough is in Managing Team Members, Invites, and Join Requests.

Jobs are archived, not deleted

A Job is the largest container in Net Net. It holds Deliverables, Tasks, effort pools, every time entry logged against it, its baseline, and its Chat. There is no version of deleting that which is safe.

So Jobs have four statuses, and Archived is the last one. Archiving takes a Job out of your working view and stops it counting toward your bill, and nothing inside it is lost. Bring it back whenever you need it. All four states are covered in Job Lifecycle: Pending, Active, Completed, Archived.

This is also what happens to your Jobs when a trial ends or a workspace is suspended. They are archived, never removed, which is set out in When a Trial Ends or a Payment Fails: What Happens Next.

Classification labels are retired, not deleted

Service Types and Deliverable Types are the labels your effort and your outcomes are filed under. Past reporting reads them, so they cannot simply vanish.

Service Types. A Service Type carries rates and sits on planned effort pools, tasks, and every time entry logged against those tasks. When one falls out of use, retire it rather than reaching for delete. Historical reporting still needs to know what that work was called at the time it happened. See Service Types and Service Groups: What Each One Does.

Deliverable Types. Removing a Deliverable Type from Settings → Deliverable Types takes it out of the picker going forward. Deliverables that already carry that label keep it, so nothing in your history changes. The usage count on that screen tells you how many deliverables would be affected before you touch anything. See Deliverable Types and Setting Your Primary Industry.

The pattern is the same in both cases. The label stops being offered to you. It does not stop being true about work that already happened.

Logged time follows the work rather than disappearing

This is the one that catches people out, because the instinct is to delete a task that ended up in the wrong place and recreate it somewhere better.

Do not. Deleting the task throws away every hour logged against it, and those hours are the only record that the work was done at all.

Use Move task from the ellipsis menu on the task row instead. The task keeps its identity, its status, its dates, its assignees, and all of its time. The source Deliverable's actual hours drop by exactly what the destination's rise by, so the Job total never moves. Moving a Task Without Losing Its Time or History covers it in full, including the one rule that will refuse a move.

The plan itself is never rewritten

When you activate a Job, the plan becomes the baseline that everything afterwards is measured against, and Net Net stops letting you edit it in place.

That is not a restriction for its own sake. If the plan could be quietly adjusted to match what actually happened, drift would be impossible to see, because the target would move every time you missed it. Scope that genuinely changes goes through a Change Order, which adds to the record rather than replacing it.

The reasoning is worth reading once in full, in Baselines: Why Net Net Never Rewrites the Plan and Activating a Job: What Happens When the Plan Locks.

Where delete is real

Two places, and it is worth knowing both.

Contacts. Delete on a Company or a Person is permanent, and there is no restore control in Contacts. Net Net does not have a deactivate state for contacts today, so the guidance is to leave the record in place when a relationship simply ended, and reserve delete for records that were wrong to begin with. Deleting a Company does not delete the People at it. See Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final).

Chat messages. You can edit and delete your own messages, because a message is a conversation rather than a measurement. Nothing downstream is calculated from it. See Chat Threads: Replying, Editing, and Deleting Messages.

Where to go when you cannot delete something

If you are stuck on a specific record, start here.

A teammate who has left. Deactivate them in Settings → Team. Managing Team Members, Invites, and Join Requests

A Job you have finished with. Archive it. Job Lifecycle: Pending, Active, Completed, Archived

A Service Type nobody uses any more. Retire it. Service Types and Service Groups: What Each One Does

A Deliverable Type cluttering the picker. Remove it from the list in Settings. Existing deliverables keep their label. Deliverable Types and Setting Your Primary Industry

A task filed in the wrong place. Move it rather than deleting and recreating it. Moving a Task Without Losing Its Time or History

A plan that no longer matches the work. Raise a Change Order. Change Orders: How to Add Scope to a Locked Job Plan

A contact you do not want in your pickers. Leave it where it is and use search. Navigating Contacts: Grouped View, Search, and Select Mode

A control you cannot see at all. Check your role before you assume it is a fault. User Roles Explained: Owner, Admin, Lead, and Member

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can't I delete someone from my workspace?

Because their name is attached to planned effort, logged time, and completed work. Deactivate them from Settings → Team instead. Their access ends immediately, every record they touched stays intact, and you can reactivate the same person later without re-inviting them.

What happens to my data when I archive a Job instead of deleting it?

Everything inside it is preserved. Deliverables, Tasks, time entries, the baseline, and the Chat all stay exactly as they were. Archiving takes the Job out of your working view and stops it counting toward your bill, and you can bring it back at any point.

Can I delete a Service Type we stopped using?

Retire it rather than deleting it. Past Jobs, logged effort, and old reports all reference that label, and reporting history needs to know what the work was called when it happened. A retired type stops being offered on new work.

If I remove a Deliverable Type, do my old deliverables lose their label?

No. Deliverables that already carry the type keep it. Removing it only takes it out of the picker going forward. The usage count in Settings → Deliverable Types shows you how many deliverables carry a type before you touch it.

What happens to logged time if I delete a task?

It goes with the task, which is why deleting is the wrong tool here. If the task simply belongs somewhere else, use Move task from the row menu. Every time entry moves with it, the source Deliverable's actuals drop by exactly what the destination's rise by, and the Job total is unchanged.

Why can't I edit the plan on an active Job?

Because activation turns the plan into the baseline the Job is measured against. If the plan could be edited to match what actually happened, drift would be invisible. Real scope changes go through a Change Order, which adds to the record instead of overwriting it.

Is anything in Net Net actually deleted?

Yes, in two places. Contacts and your own Chat messages. Contact deletion is permanent and has no restore control, so it belongs to records that were wrong rather than relationships that ended. Chat messages can be edited and deleted because nothing is calculated from them.

Does Net Net delete my data if I stop paying?

No. Nothing is deleted over billing. Active and Completed Jobs are archived and everything inside them is preserved, whether the trial ended, a payment failed, or the workspace was suspended.

Related articles

Net Net deactivates, retires, and archives far more often than it deletes, and the reasoning is the same everywhere it comes up. Deactivating vs Deleting Contacts (and Why Delete Is Final) covers it for the people and companies in your address book, and Managing Team Members, Invites, and Join Requests covers it for the people in your workspace. Job Lifecycle: Pending, Active, Completed, Archived shows where finished work goes instead of being removed. Baselines: Why Net Net Never Rewrites the Plan is the same principle applied to the plan itself: the original is kept rather than overwritten.

Updated on: 08/04/2026