Data Retention Policy Automation
The length of time you must keep data for is often governed by the laws and regulations of your local jurisdiction. One thing most jurisdictions share in common however is that you should only keep personal data for as long as is necessary.
The Data Retention Policy Automation introduced in WHMCS 7.5 allows you to have WHMCS automatically enforce your data retention policy in relation to the length of time you keep your client records for.
Data Retention Settings
The data retention settings are in Configuration () > System Settings > Automation Settings (Setup > Automation Settings in WHMCS 7.10 and earlier).
Automatically Delete Inactive Clients
Paid Invoices and Transactions
The presence of paid invoices or transactions within the specified period determines whether WHMCS retains client records. If you enable this feature, WHMCS will immediately delete clients who are in the Inactive or Closed statuses and have no invoice or transaction history.
This setting causes the system to perform the Data Retention Pruning task each day. This will delete client records that meet the following criteria:
- A status of Inactive or Closed.
- No paid invoices within the specified number of months.
- No entered or applied transactions within the specified number of months.
- If the client is an affiliate, a commission balance of 0 or no referrals within the specified retention period. Client Status Update
The system can automatically change the client status. Use the Client Status Update setting to control this.
To enable this setting, select After no invoice payment has occurred for the inactive or closed client in the following number of months and specify a number of months that is greater than 0. This setting is disabled by default.
WHMCS 8.3 and earlier
In WHMCS 8.3 and earlier, this was the After no invoice or transaction activity has occurred for the following number of months setting.
Optionally, you can set Delete associated users if the user(s) are not associated with any other client account. to YES to cause the Data Retention Pruning task to also delete users who are only associated with this client.