If you try to delete a budget, deal, or service, you may see a message saying it can't be deleted. This happens when it contains related time entries, expenses, or bookings you don't have permission to delete.
Productive blocks the deletion instead of letting it happen partially.
Why This Happens
Deleting a budget, deal, or service can also delete its related records. Before that happens, Productive checks whether you have the required permissions for each type of related record:
Add, edit, and delete time entries for other people — required to delete related time entries.
Add, edit, and delete all expenses — required to delete related expenses.
Add, edit, and delete budget bookings — required to delete related bookings (for deals and budgets).
Deleting a budget or deal checks the same permissions for every service underneath it, and for their time entries, expenses, and bookings. Only related records that actually exist are checked. If a service has no expenses, the expense permission isn't required.
If you're missing any of the permissions above, the whole deletion is blocked. Nothing is partially deleted.
📌 This check applies even when moving an item to the Recycle Bin, not just permanent deletion.
What You'll See
If any required permission is missing, you'll see a message naming the item and the reason it can't be deleted, for example:
Budget can't be deleted
Contains related time entries you don't have permission to delete
If more than one related record type is blocking the deletion, each one is listed as a separate reason.
Click OK to dismiss the message, then ask your admin or someone with the required permissions to delete those records.
Bulk Deleting Budgets or Deals
When you bulk delete budgets or deals, each one is checked separately:
Items you have full permission to delete are removed.
Items you don't are skipped, and you'll see a summary of what succeeded and what didn't.
👉 See Permission Groups and Permissions for the full list of available permissions.
👉 See How to Delete a Budget for step-by-step deletion instructions.
The Permission Chain
Here's how the check flows from a budget, deal, or service down to its related records.
