Autofid's Archive System Explained: How Soft Deletion and Data Recovery Protect Your Business Records
In any business management system, deletion is a risk. When a team member removes a record — a customer, a supplier, a job card, a vehicle — there is always the possibility that the deletion was accidental, premature, or made without understanding the downstream consequences. Traditional hard-delete systems make this risk irreversible: the data is gone, and recovering it means restoring from a backup — a slow, disruptive, and often incomplete process.
Autofid approaches deletion differently. Instead of removing records permanently when a user clicks "Delete", the system moves them to the Archive — a dedicated holding area where deleted records remain fully intact, searchable, and recoverable for as long as your account retains them. Permanent deletion requires a deliberate second action. This two-stage approach eliminates the most common data loss scenario in any workshop system: the accidental or poorly considered deletion of a record that turns out to still be needed.
This guide explains exactly how Autofid's Archive system works, what entity types it covers, how to find and restore archived records, and when permanent deletion is appropriate.
What is Soft Deletion?
Soft deletion is a data management pattern where "deleting" a record does not actually remove it from the database — it marks it as deleted by setting an archived flag and recording the deletion timestamp. The record disappears from all normal operational views (the vehicles list, the customer CRM, the job cards table) but continues to exist in the system, fully intact, until it is either permanently deleted or restored.
For your Autofid account, soft deletion means:
- Deleted records do not appear in active operational views
- Deleted records do not count against your subscription limits (vehicles in stock, active customers, etc.)
- Deleted records remain available in the Archive for review, restoration, or permanent removal
- All data linked to the deleted record (documents, costs, history) is preserved until permanent deletion
Which Entity Types Does the Archive Cover?
Autofid's archive system covers all major record types in the platform. When any of these is deleted through the normal delete workflow, it moves to the archive rather than being immediately destroyed:
| Entity Type | Examples | Common Reason for Archiving |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicles | A specific stock vehicle record | Vehicle added by mistake, duplicate record, or test entry |
| Customers | An individual or business customer profile | Duplicate customer created, customer relationship ended |
| Jobs | A service job card | Job created in error, wrong vehicle or customer selected |
| Suppliers | A parts supplier or contractor record | Supplier no longer used, duplicate entry |
| Business Expenses | An individual expense record | Expense entered with wrong amount, category, or date |
| Technicians | A technician profile | Technician leaves the business; record deactivated rather than deleted |
Navigating the Archive
The Archive is accessible from the main dashboard navigation. When you open it, you see a unified table of all archived entities across all types — every deleted vehicle, customer, job, supplier, expense, and technician record in a single view.
Filtering by Entity Type
Because the archive can contain records from many different modules, the most useful first action is filtering by Entity Type — narrowing the view to show only vehicles, only customers, only jobs, and so on. This makes finding a specific archived record significantly faster in accounts with a large archive history.
Searching the Archive
Full-text search is available across the archive, filtering results by the record's name, title, or reference number. If you know you archived a specific customer named "Burke" last month but cannot remember the exact date, searching "Burke" in the archive immediately surfaces that record regardless of how many other archived entries exist.
What Each Archived Record Shows
Each row in the archive table displays:
- Entity Type — what kind of record it is (Vehicle, Customer, Job, etc.)
- Entity Name / Reference — the record's primary identifier (vehicle registration, customer name, job number)
- Archived Date — when the record was moved to the archive
- Actions — Restore or Permanently Delete
Restoring an Archived Record
Restoring a record from the archive moves it back into active operational status — it reappears in its respective module (vehicles list, customer CRM, jobs table, etc.) with all data intact, exactly as it was at the time of deletion.
Single Record Restore
To restore an individual record, locate it in the archive table and click Restore. A confirmation dialog appears to prevent accidental restoration. Confirm the action, and the record is immediately returned to active status — no additional steps required.
Bulk Restore
Autofid supports restoring multiple archived records simultaneously through the Bulk Restore workflow. Select multiple records using the table's checkbox column, then use the bulk action toolbar to trigger a restoration. This is particularly useful when a team member has accidentally deleted a batch of records — for example, selecting all records of a customer type and deleting them — allowing rapid recovery without needing to restore each record individually.
Bulk restoration runs as a parallel operation — all selected records are restored simultaneously rather than sequentially, minimising the time your team spends in recovery mode.
"The most common scenario where bulk restore saves significant time is when a new user, unfamiliar with the system, performs an unintended batch deletion during their first week. Without the archive, this is a support emergency. With the archive, it is a two-minute recovery: open archive, select all, restore. The team continues working within minutes."
Permanent Deletion: When Records Are Truly Gone
Permanent deletion removes a record from Autofid completely and irreversibly. Unlike the standard deletion that moves a record to the archive, permanent deletion has no recovery path — once confirmed, the data is gone.
Autofid requires a deliberate two-step confirmation for permanent deletion precisely because of this irreversibility. The workflow is:
- Locate the record in the archive table
- Click Permanently Delete
- A confirmation dialog explicitly warns that this action cannot be undone
- Confirm the deletion
This friction is intentional. The two-step process prevents accidental permanent deletion and ensures the action is always a conscious decision rather than a misclick.
Bulk Permanent Deletion
For cleaning out the archive of records that are definitively no longer needed — test entries, genuinely duplicate records, data from an old system migration that has been verified and is no longer required — bulk permanent deletion allows multiple records to be removed in a single operation. The same confirmation dialog applies to bulk permanent deletion, but describes the number of records being permanently removed.
When Is Permanent Deletion Appropriate?
| Scenario | Recommended Action | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Record added by mistake (test entry, duplicate) | Permanent deletion | No legitimate business data exists; the record has no historical value |
| Customer who left your business but had real transaction history | Leave in archive or restore as inactive | Transaction history may be needed for warranty disputes or audit |
| Supplier you no longer use | Leave in archive | Historical purchase records linked to that supplier remain relevant for VAT audits |
| Data migration cleanup (verified false records) | Bulk permanent deletion | After verification that no real data exists, cleanup is appropriate |
| GDPR erasure request from a customer | Permanent deletion | A verified "right to erasure" request requires complete removal of personal data |
The Archive and Your Subscription Limits
An important operational detail: archived records do not count against your subscription plan limits. When a vehicle is archived, it is removed from your active stock count — so you can add a new vehicle even if you were at your plan's maximum vehicle limit before the archival. When a customer is archived, they are removed from your active customer count.
This makes the archive useful not just as a safety net for accidental deletion, but also as a practical tool for keeping your active operational workspace clean. Records that are no longer actively needed — a vehicle sold years ago whose record you want to retain for audit purposes but that should not clutter your active vehicle list — can be archived to keep your workspace focused while preserving the underlying data.
Archive Access and Permissions
The Archive module is gated by the canManageSettings permission in Autofid's role-based access control system. This ensures that only appropriately authorised users can view, restore, or permanently delete archived records. Service advisors and technicians — whose roles do not include administrative data management — do not see the archive in their navigation, keeping the interface clean and preventing unauthorised data restoration or permanent deletion.
For business owners and managers, the archive provides complete visibility and control over the full lifecycle of every data record in your Autofid account — from creation, through active use, through archival, to either restoration or permanent removal. This lifecycle visibility is the foundation of a data management strategy that is both operationally efficient and genuinely compliant with data governance obligations.