Fishbowl: "Cannot be deleted because it has a payment" — what to do

What triggers it

The sales order has at least one payment recorded against it. In Fishbowl a payment is money taken in advance of or at fulfillment: a customer deposit, a card or Stripe charge, a cash or check receipt applied to the order. Delete removes the order and its lines outright, but the payment is a separate record that points at the order. Fishbowl refuses so the payment is never left pointing at nothing.

Why Fishbowl blocks it

Deleting the order would strand the payment. That payment carries a real dollar amount that has to land somewhere: a customer deposit liability, a bank or clearing deposit, or a receivable applied on the customer account. If it disappears with the order, your cash-in no longer matches an order, the customer may show a credit you cannot trace, and any figure already handed to your accounting system stops reconciling. Void behaves differently: it keeps the order and payment records in place and marks the order as voided, so the history and the money trail stay intact.

What to do

Decide whether this order should vanish or be closed out. If the payment was recorded in error and nothing has left Fishbowl, open the order, reverse or delete the payment, then delete the order. If the order is real but dead, void it instead of deleting; that preserves the number, the lines, and the payment for audit. Voiding is the safer default whenever money has touched the order.

If it is already reconciled or exported

If the payment already synced to QuickBooks or Xero, or has been reconciled against a bank feed, treat this as an accounting correction, not a simple undo. Do not delete on the Fishbowl side and leave a matched deposit or invoice orphaned in accounting. Void the order in Fishbowl and post the reversal in your accounting system (a refund, credit memo, or reversing entry) so both ledgers show the same thing. Match the amounts before you close it out.