---
title: "Jobber Inactive Products and Services: Hide or Delete?"
description: "Jobber inactive products and services: decide when to hide or delete saved items, audit CSV changes, and check old documents and QuickBooks."
author: "Pricebookr Team"
date: "2026-10-08"
tags: "Jobber, price book, catalog cleanup"
source: "https://www.pricebookr.com/blog/jobber-inactive-products-services"
---

# Jobber Inactive Products and Services: Hide or Delete?

**To retire an item from Jobber’s price list, make it inactive when you want to stop offering it, or delete it when the saved catalog entry should be removed.** Neither action rewrites a line item already added to a quote, job, or invoice. Export the list first, check any QuickBooks connection, and verify the item no longer appears where your team selects new work.

## What does “inactive” mean in Jobber’s Products & Services list?

Jobber calls its saved Products & Services list the default price list. A saved item supplies a name, description, and unit price when someone adds a line item to a quote, job, or invoice. An item can also carry a unit cost and markup on eligible plans. This is different from a line item already copied onto a specific customer document.

When you edit a saved item in Jobber, you can clear its “available on quotes, quote templates, jobs, and invoices” checkbox. Jobber calls that item inactive; it stops being available for selection on those new documents. Jobber also provides Delete on the item details. Its [Products & Services guide](https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/products-services-list/) says updating or deleting the saved item does not change lines already added to quotes, jobs, or invoices.

Retiring “Legacy thermostat install” should stop a technician from selecting it tomorrow. It will not fix a quote sent yesterday; review that quote separately.

## Should you make an item inactive or delete it?

Use inactive for a service or part that might return, still appears in your operating history, or needs a deliberate review before removal. Use Delete only after you have confirmed the saved entry is obsolete or erroneous and have kept an export. This is an operating rule for your shop, not a Jobber requirement. A name that looks duplicated may represent a different unit, scope, warranty, or tax treatment.

The following numbers are a **worked example, not observed customer data or industry benchmarks**. “Uses” means occurrences found by the office in a chosen 90-day review window. Jobber’s [Products and Services Report](https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/products-and-services-report/) can show how often items appeared on sent quotes, scheduled jobs, and sent invoices over a selected date range. A zero in that report alone is not proof that an item has no future value.

| Example saved item | Unit price | 90-day uses | Proposed action |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Standard capacitor replacement | $185 | 18 | Keep active; verify scope |
| Legacy thermostat install | $275 | 0 | Make inactive; review replacement |
| Duplicate “diagnostic visit” entry | $89 | 1 | Inspect the one document, then delete only if truly duplicate |
| Seasonal drain treatment | $145 | 3 | Keep active if still sold |

The table is a triage sheet, not a command to delete low-use items. Find the diagnostic entry’s document before deciding whether it is a separate service. Confirm the replacement thermostat task’s scope and price before disabling the old one.

## How do you audit a Jobber price list before hiding items?

First, export Products & Services to CSV from Jobber settings and keep the file with the date of the audit. Jobber says exports under 50 items download directly; larger exports arrive by email, and lists over 1,500 items are split into files of at most 1,500 rows. Those are [Jobber’s current export rules](https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/products-services-list/), not recommended catalog-size thresholds. Count every file before editing. If you need the exact import and update mechanics, use our [Jobber CSV update guide](https://www.pricebookr.com/blog/how-to-bulk-update-jobber-price-list).

Second, add review columns to a working copy: item name, product or service type, current unit price, cost if available, proposed replacement, reason, owner, and decision. Record the existing Active value from the export. If a cost is blank, do not convert it to zero just to complete the sheet; the [missing-cost audit](https://www.pricebookr.com/blog/jobber-price-list-missing-costs) explains why those states should remain distinct. If the Product/Service field is confusing, check the [Jobber category examples](https://www.pricebookr.com/blog/jobber-price-book-categories) before changing it.

Third, check where candidates are used. Jobber’s report counts use on sent quotes, scheduled jobs, and sent invoices. Inspect open quotes, recurring work, templates, and booking flows too. Its selected date window can miss a once-a-year service; zero uses in 90 days may be normal for a seasonal task.

Fourth, assign each row one of three outcomes: keep, make inactive, or delete. Require a replacement item where a technician still needs to sell the underlying work. Have the person who owns pricing approve the replacement scope and price. Then change a small test batch and ask a field user to search the new quote or job picker before applying the rest.

## Can you bulk make Jobber items inactive with CSV?

Jobber’s Products & Services CSV has an Active field, and its guide lists Active among fields that can be updated by re-import. Set the intended rows to FALSE in a working copy, select “Update existing items” during import, and review the result before repeating the process. The same guide says re-import can overwrite matching saved items, so preserve the original export and keep unrelated fields intact. Jobber caps an import file at 2.5 MB; split a larger file rather than assuming the upload will succeed.

Inactive changes availability; Delete is a separate action. For a small list, clearing each candidate’s checkbox can be easier to verify than a CSV. For a larger list, an approved row-by-row decision sheet makes the CSV safer. Spot-check names, prices, type, and Active status afterward, then test the Jobber app picker.

Here is a second **worked example, not a measured result**, for reconciling a staged cleanup. The office starts with 120 active saved items. It makes seven inactive and deletes three confirmed duplicates, leaving 110 active. Four approved replacement services are then added, leaving 114 active and seven inactive saved items. The three deleted entries are no longer in the saved list. Existing customer-document lines must be checked separately.

| Audit step | Active saved items | Inactive saved items | Deleted this audit |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Starting export | 120 | 0 | 0 |
| Seven made inactive | 113 | 7 | 0 |
| Three duplicates deleted | 110 | 7 | 3 |
| Four replacements added | 114 | 7 | 3 |

The arithmetic is 120 − 7 − 3 + 4 = 114 active items. If the export shows 115, find the extra row. Match names and types too: a correct total can conceal one missing service and one duplicate.

## What changes when Jobber is connected to QuickBooks?

Check which Jobber–QuickBooks integration your account uses before a catalog cleanup. Jobber’s [new QuickBooks integration guide](https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/how-items-sync-between-jobber-and-quickbooks-online-new-quickbooks-integration/) says Jobber is the item source of truth and an item already synced to QuickBooks must be deleted in both systems if you intend to remove it from both. Its [legacy integration guide](https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/how-items-sync-between-jobber-and-quickbooks-online/) says QuickBooks is the source of truth and deleting in one program does not remove the item from the other.

That version split is why “delete the duplicate in Jobber” is not a complete accounting plan. Establish the item owner, identify the matching QuickBooks record, and let the person responsible for books approve changes to accounting items. Our [Jobber–QuickBooks item ownership guide](https://www.pricebookr.com/blog/jobber-quickbooks-price-list-sync) walks through the version decision. If you do not know which integration you have, pause the deletion portion and ask your account administrator to confirm it.

## How does Pricebookr handle items you retire?

Pricebookr maintains its own catalog and can push enabled pricebooks to Jobber after review. Its catalog bulk-delete flow moves selected local items to Trash; the user can choose “Delete + hide in Jobber” for linked Jobber products. The server sends a hide request for those linked products because the Jobber API path used by Pricebookr has no product-delete mutation. Hiding is best effort, so the returned result should be checked for errors before telling a tech the old choice is gone.

Pricebookr’s local Trash is restorable for 30 days. A plain local deletion does not imply the linked Jobber entry was hidden. Active, non-deleted items in pricebooks marked for Jobber sync form the normal push plan; the owner still reviews and confirms a push. This is useful when a supplier replacement requires both a new sellable row and retirement of the old one, but it is not a substitute for checking existing Jobber documents or the account’s QuickBooks version.

If you are managing repeated catalog changes, see how the [Pricebookr master price book](https://www.pricebookr.com/) handles reviewed prices and a separate Jobber push. If you only need to hide two items this month, Jobber’s own edit screen may be the shortest route.

## What should you verify after the cleanup?

Re-export the saved list, reconcile the counts and names against your decision sheet, and search for the retired items while building a new quote and job. Check that each replacement has the intended unit price, description, Product/Service type, and tax treatment. Ask one technician to repeat the picker check in the mobile app. If the item is also part of online booking, verify the booking choices separately.

Then inspect any open customer document that actually needed a price or scope correction. Jobber explicitly says updating or deleting the saved item does not change lines already added to quotes, jobs, or invoices. The clean catalog governs future selection; past documents remain their own records. Keep the original export and the approved decision sheet so the next supplier change starts from a known state.

## FAQ

### Can I delete my whole Jobber price book?

Jobber’s Products & Services list is its default price list, not a separate book you need to delete before rebuilding. You can edit, inactivate, or delete saved items. Export the list first and identify replacement services before removing entries, because existing quote, job, and invoice lines are separate from the saved catalog.

### Does making a Jobber item inactive remove it from old quotes?

No. Inactive means the saved item is no longer available for selection on new quotes, quote templates, jobs, and invoices. Jobber says updating or deleting a saved item does not change a line already added to a quote, job, or invoice. If an open quote needs a different price or scope, review and edit that document directly.

### Can I set many Jobber items to inactive in a CSV?

Yes. Jobber lists Active as an updateable Products & Services CSV field. Work from a fresh export, mark only approved rows FALSE, and use “Update existing items” on import. Keep a backup, respect Jobber’s 2.5 MB import limit, and verify the resulting list and new-document pickers before treating the cleanup as complete.

### Will deleting a Jobber item also delete it in QuickBooks?

Do not assume so. Jobber’s new QuickBooks integration says an item synced to QuickBooks must be deleted from both systems to remove it from both. Its legacy guide also says deletion in one program does not remove the item from the other, while QuickBooks owns item edits. Confirm the integration version and matching accounting item before deleting.