Reduce personal data in old orders by choosing an appropriate retention period.
This guide is for the person responsible for order data and retention in the shop. Open Orders → Settings. This is an order setting, rather than a theme or separate payment integration. Your administrator account must have access to these settings.
Decide what must be retained first
The shop is responsible for deciding which personal data is needed and for how long. Accounting records, ongoing claims and other obligations can require retention. The end of a warranty does not automatically mean that all personal data should be removed.
Under Swedish accounting rules, accounting information must normally be retained through the seventh year after the end of the calendar year in which the financial year ended. Other countries and records can have different retention requirements. Abicart instead compares the order date with a date a whole number of years before today. Selecting 7 years therefore does not guarantee that the accounting retention period has ended. Ensure that the required complete accounting records remain available before enabling removal.
What changes in the orders?
Names, addresses and contact details in old placed orders are masked. Other identifying information, notes, certain customer fields and personal gift-card messages are also affected. Products and amounts remain. Choosing a longer period later does not restore the removed information.
Do not assume that this also clears customer records or information already transferred to payment, shipping or accounting systems. They need their own retention procedures. Remaining financial amounts do not mean that an anonymized order alone is a complete accounting record.
Choose and save the retention period
Open Orders → Settings in the correct shop. In a multishop system, check the setting for each affected subshop.
Read the existing anonymization setting. Never means that this age-based removal is not enabled.
Choose between 1 and 10 years after determining a suitable retention period and preserving the records that must remain available.
Save. Age-based anonymization is performed by the scheduled process, rather than immediately when you save.
Check the result
After the scheduled process, check an old placed order within the selected age range. If details remain, check the order date, shop and saved setting. Contact support with the shop and order numbers if an eligible order has not been anonymized. Avoid sending the personal data unnecessarily.
Quick start
Determine retention obligations.
Preserve required accounting records.
Select and save the period.
Check an affected order after processing.
The setting should be managed by the person responsible for order data. A selected number of years is not an automatic guarantee of GDPR or accounting compliance.
