Completing, cancelling and archiving are three different actions used at different points in an opportunity's life. The simplest way to choose is to ask what actually happened to the opportunity.
Mark complete
Use this when the work actually happened. If anyone has logged hours against the opportunity, this is the right close-out - you shouldn't cancel or archive an opportunity that already has real logs on it.
📝 Note: You can only mark complete in-progress opportunities. If the opportunity never went ahead at all, use Not Completed instead - see How to mark an opportunity complete.
Cancel
Use this for an opportunity that was going to run but didn't go ahead. Cancelled is a status: the opportunity stays in your list alongside Open, In progress and Completed, just marked Cancelled, so you keep a record that it was planned.
📝 Note: You can only cancel in-progress opportunities. If real hours were logged against the opportunity before it fell through - which can happen with flexible opportunities - check with your admin on whether those hours are preserved in your totals, as this can vary.
Archive
Use this for an opportunity that shouldn't exist at all - created by mistake or a duplicate. Archiving is the closest thing to a soft delete: it moves the opportunity out of the active list into the archived view (the record is kept).
📝 Note: If the opportunity already has logged hours or donations against it, archiving may affect whether those logs count in your totals. If you need those logs preserved, check with your admin before archiving rather than assuming either way.
At a glance
Did the work happen? → Mark complete.
Never went ahead at all? → Not Completed (see How to mark an opportunity complete).
Was it planned but didn't run? → Cancel - stays in the list as a status.
Should it never have existed? → Archive - soft delete, moves to the archived view.
📝 Note: Cancel and Archive aren't mutually exclusive. You can cancel an opportunity and then archive it later just to tidy your active list - if logs exist by that point, check with your admin first, since archiving may affect what counts in your totals.
What's next
👉 See How and when to cancel an opportunity as an opportunity lead and How and when to archive an opportunity as an opportunity lead.
💬 Need more help? Contact us anytime at support@goodsted.com.