> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.arcuserp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Delete an account (protected hard delete) > PROTECTED HARD DELETE. Permanently removes the account row and its transaction-free children (contacts, addresses, payment methods). Industry standard (NetSuite / QuickBooks / Acumatica): an account that has **any financial or transaction history cannot be deleted.** If the account is referenced by orders (any document type: quote / sales order / invoice / return / purchase order), payments, returns, vendor bills, AP payments, vendor credits, vendor prepayments, customer deposits, journal entry lines, inventory transactions, or pricing policies, the call returns **409 `account_not_deletable`** with a clear hint and per-type dependency counts. In that case, DEACTIVATE the account instead (`POST /v1/accounts/{id}/deactivate`). A transaction-free account is hard-deleted and the call returns `{ deleted: true, display_name }`. This behavior is identical to the in-app (Cognito) delete -- one canonical handler serves both callers. ## OpenAPI ````yaml /openapi.yaml delete /accounts/{id} openapi: 3.1.0 info: title: Arcus ERP Public API version: 1.0.0 description: > Arcus ERP public REST API. Designed for external integrations and data migration. **Authentication.** Bearer token (API key) via the `Authorization` header. Format: `Authorization: Bearer ark_live_ent__` (or `ark_test_*` for sandbox). API keys are issued per-entity in **Settings > Developers > API Keys**. **Entity scoping.** The entity is encoded in the API key prefix; routes are flat (e.g. `/v1/accounts`, `/v1/orders`, `/v1/products`). A small set of platform endpoints (migration, reconciliation, events, webhook endpoints, API keys) use the `/v1/entities/{entity_id}/...` form -- those are noted in their tags. **Key capabilities.** - Related-resource hydration via `?expand[]=` (see `x-arcus-expand` on each resource). - Cursor-based pagination (`starting_after` / `ending_before` / `limit`). - Idempotency via the `Idempotency-Key` header. - Webhook events for asynchronous notification. - Conditional requests / ETag for cache validation. servers: - url: https://api.arcuserp.com/v1 description: Arcus ERP API (accepts both live `ark_live_*` and test `ark_test_*` keys) - url: https://dev-api.arcuserp.com/v1 description: >- Dev sandbox API (test-only data, accepts `ark_test_*` keys against dev RDS) security: [] paths: /accounts/{id}: parameters: - name: id in: path required: true schema: type: string description: > Account UUID or account_number (e.g. ACCT-001, CUST-00042). Polymorphic lookup: if the value is not a UUID it is resolved to a UUID via accounts.account_number within the entity scope before the record is fetched. (NEW-GAP-API-V1-POLYMORPHIC-LOOKUP-CROSS-RESOURCE 2026-05-20) delete: tags: - Accounts summary: Delete an account (protected hard delete) description: > PROTECTED HARD DELETE. Permanently removes the account row and its transaction-free children (contacts, addresses, payment methods). Industry standard (NetSuite / QuickBooks / Acumatica): an account that has **any financial or transaction history cannot be deleted.** If the account is referenced by orders (any document type: quote / sales order / invoice / return / purchase order), payments, returns, vendor bills, AP payments, vendor credits, vendor prepayments, customer deposits, journal entry lines, inventory transactions, or pricing policies, the call returns **409 `account_not_deletable`** with a clear hint and per-type dependency counts. In that case, DEACTIVATE the account instead (`POST /v1/accounts/{id}/deactivate`). A transaction-free account is hard-deleted and the call returns `{ deleted: true, display_name }`. This behavior is identical to the in-app (Cognito) delete -- one canonical handler serves both callers. operationId: deleteAccount responses: '200': description: Account permanently deleted (no financial history). content: application/json: schema: type: object properties: data: type: object properties: deleted: type: boolean example: true display_name: type: string '401': $ref: '#/components/responses/Error' '403': $ref: '#/components/responses/Error' '404': $ref: '#/components/responses/Error' '409': description: >- Account has financial / transaction history and cannot be deleted. Deactivate it instead. content: application/json: schema: type: object properties: error: type: string example: account_not_deletable code: type: string example: account_not_deletable type: type: string example: precondition_failed hint: type: string example: >- Account has 12 orders, 8 payments, 3 returns. Accounts with financial history cannot be deleted -- deactivate it instead (set inactive). has_transactions: type: boolean example: true dependencies: type: object description: Per-type counts of records referencing this account. properties: orders: type: integer invoices: type: integer payments: type: integer returns: type: integer vendor_bills: type: integer ap_payments: type: integer vendor_credits: type: integer vendor_prepayments: type: integer customer_deposits: type: integer journal_lines: type: integer inventory_transactions: type: integer pricing_policies: type: integer security: - ApiKeyAuth: - accounts:delete components: responses: Error: description: Error response (400/401/403/404/409/422/429/500) content: application/json: schema: $ref: '#/components/schemas/ErrorEnvelope' schemas: ErrorEnvelope: type: object description: | Canonical error response envelope. All API errors use this shape. required: - error - code properties: error: type: string description: Machine-readable error key example: not_found code: type: string description: Machine-readable error code (often same as error) example: not_found type: type: string enum: - validation_error - permission_error - not_found - conflict - rate_limit - internal - expand_error - not_implemented example: not_found hint: type: string description: Human-readable one-sentence explanation (English) example: >- The requested order does not exist or does not belong to this entity. param: type: string description: The parameter that caused the error, if applicable example: expand[0] required: type: string description: The scope required (only on insufficient_scope errors) example: accounts:read request_id: type: string description: >- Unique request ID for support tracing (maps to CloudWatch log stream) example: req_abc123 securitySchemes: ApiKeyAuth: type: http scheme: bearer description: | API key issued per entity via Settings > Developers > API Keys. Each key carries scopes (e.g. orders:read, products:write). Bearer token format: Authorization: Bearer ark_live_ent__ Test keys use ark_test_ent__. Both are issued per entity via Settings > Developers > API Keys. ````