SubBase has no way to delete a material. When your team stops using one, you deactivate it instead, which takes it out of everyone's search results and leaves its order and invoice history intact.
Before you start
You need the Can edit material database permission. By default that is Admins and Purchasers.
If your company syncs materials to an accounting or ERP system, read the section below on what deactivating does. It breaks that material's link, and reactivating does not rebuild it.
Deactivate 1 material
Open the menu at the top right, then click Material Database.
Find the material.
Clear the checkbox in the Active column at the far right of the row.
You can also open the material and clear the Active checkbox next to its Description, then click Save.
The row disappears from the list as soon as it saves. That is the Active filter doing its job, not the material being deleted.
Deactivate several at once
Tick the checkbox on each row you want, at the far left.
Click Deactivate in the bar above the list.
Confirm when SubBase asks you how many materials this will affect.
If you have ticked every row on the page, SubBase offers to select every material matching your current filters, not only the ones on screen. Check your filters before you take it up.
Bring a material back
Open the options panel and add inactive materials to the Active filter.
Find the material.
Tick the checkbox in the Active column, or select the rows and click Activate.
What deactivating does and does not do
It does not delete anything. Past orders, invoices, commitments and price history all keep pointing at the material.
It hides the material from the list by default, and from the searches your team runs when they build requests, RFQs and orders.
It does not release the material's details. The material still counts as existing, so nobody can create a new one with the same description, unit and product details while it sits there.
It breaks the link to your accounting or ERP system. If the material was matched to an item over there, deactivating clears that match. Reactivating does not restore it, and the material stays unmatched until somebody maps it again.
Best practices
Reuse the existing material rather than deactivating it and adding a replacement. The old one keeps blocking the new one, and you lose the price history that hangs off it.
Map the material again in your integration after you reactivate it. Nothing prompts you, and until you do, orders carrying that material have nothing to sync to.
Check the Active filter before you use Deactivate on a full page of rows. The offer to select everything matching your filters covers materials you cannot see, and there is no single action that reverses it.
If this doesn't work
Start a chat from the Messenger in the bottom-left of this page, or email help@subbase.io. Include the order or project number and what you expected to happen.