Our legal team is proposing deleting all transactions in NS as of X years before first of the year. So if x=7, on 1/1/2023 we'd delete all transactions dated 2016 & before; 1/1/2024, we'd delete 2017, and so on. I know this would be possible without disrupting the financial statements (in theory) by posting single entries each month equivalent to the financial impact of entries that were deleted, but this seems risky. Anyone ever had this requirement proposal (not technically a requirement yet) and/or done it?

Have you checked with your controller or CFO and your auditors?

They're aware of this ask yeah and I don't believe they're in favor of it although it's a new discussion. I'm not familiar with this being a thing in any company I've worked for or with, just looking for perspectives. FX stuff and Interco getting messed up are my main concerns.

i do not think it is technically possible. try to delete an employee record, for example, it won’t be possible even though there are no related records to it. Same goes for any other static record; transactions records are also tricky with revaluation being one….

Heh. I think it would be possible if you start at the "end" of the flow. Like delete the customer payment, then the invoice, then the fulfillment, then the SO, etc. I think those currency revals that auto-associate with records will delete without issue. I'm not necessarily chomping at the bit to try it, but I think it could in theory work.

well, in theory…. it might work

In theory deleting in order of the flow would work but that's not always the case (prepayments and deposits, invoiced before received etc) and you will have transactions across a year end (bill paid after 1/1 for invoice prior to 1/1) so you can't delete every transaction prior to a specific date. You would also have to do a reconciliation for every bank account and credit card account in the system for the start of the first detailed year. And if you're dealing with multiple currencies, to have no financial impact, you would have to figure out how to load a TB for each month for each currency so that the historical rates still apply and report correctly. If you're using inventory then you would have to rebalance the inventory quantities per item/location as of the start of the new detailed transaction year. On top of all that, I hope you don't use rev rec, fixed assets, assembly builds, or amortization schedules as that would add even more complexity. Your CFO should just tell legal no as I find it implausible that this could be done without financial impact.

You don’t need to delete it buy new netsuite instance ( Talk to account manager) migrate adjusted trial balance for 7 years and then move open transactions. Just like new implementation. I had to do this for a client but Client did all the hard work and paid one off fee to NetSuite too. We did it because it was easier that way. We did it because volume was our issue.

technically deleting all the past transaction would be a nightmare due to too many related record, also you will need to open every single period and which may corrupt GL itself. Best option is what @sam1128 said.