How Do I Delete A Recorded Charge After I Add It?

[Sam]

Can't seem to find this anywhere. Thanks!

[flangefrog]

Do you mean a transaction? You can un-apply a transaction under Billing > Transactions > Edit > Unapply

[Michael]

And you can change the status of it to Void if you want to remove it fully, you can't just delete it.

[Sam]

And you can change the status of it to Void if you want to remove it fully, you can't just delete it.

Hmm. That's quite quirky and annoying. I should have that ability as an administrator.

Thanks

[Daniel B]

Hmm. That's quite quirky and annoying. I should have that ability as an administrator.

Thanks

 

The purpose of this is for accounting purposes in most instances.  Even if it's voided, you still don't want to delete it as it could raise questions down the road if you are ever audited/etc.  Having a valid record of every transaction should be preferable in every situation.

[Darin]

The purpose of this is for accounting purposes in most instances.  Even if it's voided, you still don't want to delete it as it could raise questions down the road if you are ever audited/etc.  Having a valid record of every transaction should be preferable in every situation.

 

While I agree that every valid financial transaction should have an audit trail, it doesn't mean that every error or test entry should remain visible in the interface (or loiter in the database). Let's face it, we're working with quickly evolving software and every time there's a new or modified feature some of us will misunderstand how it works and make a mistake, or maybe just test it to see how it works. These things don't need to be indelibly recorded in our record books.

 

If there's one thing I've learned from reading these forums, every jurisdiction in the world has different accounting rules and record keeping requirements. Blesta can't be expected to police users for every possible scenario. Besides, Blesta isn't accounting software; it doesn't do all of the things necessary to keep your financial records in order. Blesta is online billing software with resource management.

 

Personally, I don't want to be restricted from doing some basic housekeeping simply because the rules/preferences are different for someone else. I want to have a choice about what information I delete (unless it breaks Blesta) and I'll live with the consequences.

[Paul]

 

While I agree that every valid financial transaction should have an audit trail, it doesn't mean that every error or test entry should remain visible in the interface (or loiter in the database). Let's face it, we're working with quickly evolving software and every time there's a new or modified feature some of us will misunderstand how it works and make a mistake, or maybe just test it to see how it works. These things don't need to be indelibly recorded in our record books.

 

If there's one thing I've learned from reading these forums, every jurisdiction in the world has different accounting rules and record keeping requirements. Blesta can't be expected to police users for every possible scenario. Besides, Blesta isn't accounting software; it doesn't do all of the things necessary to keep your financial records in order. Blesta is online billing software with resource management.

 

Personally, I don't want to be restricted from doing some basic housekeeping simply because the rules/preferences are different for someone else. I want to have a choice about what information I delete (unless it breaks Blesta) and I'll live with the consequences.

 

Sounds like a good idea for a plugin

 

*If* you could delete transactions, you probably wouldn't want all your staff to be able to do the same. Making money disappear in one area, sometimes mean it is re-appearing in someone's pocket, off the books. That's money laundering. If you can tell your auditor that Blesta doesn't allow you to delete transactions, then it makes you look a whole lot better and raises fewer questions. I'd rather explain why there's a voided test transaction than be under the heat lamp. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't take up much space in your database, and space is cheap.

[Sam]

While I agree that every valid financial transaction should have an audit trail, it doesn't mean that every error or test entry should remain visible in the interface (or loiter in the database). Let's face it, we're working with quickly evolving software and every time there's a new or modified feature some of us will misunderstand how it works and make a mistake, or maybe just test it to see how it works. These things don't need to be indelibly recorded in our record books.

If there's one thing I've learned from reading these forums, every jurisdiction in the world has different accounting rules and record keeping requirements. Blesta can't be expected to police users for every possible scenario. Besides, Blesta isn't accounting software; it doesn't do all of the things necessary to keep your financial records in order. Blesta is online billing software with resource management.

Personally, I don't want to be restricted from doing some basic housekeeping simply because the rules/preferences are different for someone else. I want to have a choice about what information I delete (unless it breaks Blesta) and I'll live with the consequences.

My hero. I'm not sitting here saying everyone from users to basic staff should have the ability to do this. I'm saying that administrators, privileged super users that have the ability to control and edit every facet of the system, ought to be able to remove charges (or any other record) that doesn't belong. Now my test charges are an ugly stain on my system, and are horrible for audit purposes

[Sam]

If you can tell your auditor that Blesta doesn't allow you to delete transactions, then it makes you look a whole lot better and raises fewer questions. I'd rather explain why there's a voided test transaction than be under the heat lamp. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't take up much space in your database, and space is cheap.

This is not your decision, nor your responsibility.

[flangefrog]

If they are test charges then you can manually remove them from the database.

[Paul]

This is not your decision, nor your responsibility.

 

It's our job to make an effort to do things right. If you are running a lot of tests, they should probably be done in a dev environment, not your live environment. If this is part of your set up process, it doesn't need to be a feature.

[Sam]

It's our job to make an effort to do things right. If you are running a lot of tests, they should probably be done in a dev environment, not your live environment. If this is part of your set up process, it doesn't need to be a feature.

Regardless of what I want to erase them for, the software should not interfere. We are the users - not you! What we do, what we want to create/delete. The fact that you don't think that we should have the ability to fully administrate our systems is absurd

Edit: also, with this type of police-like behavior, you run the risk of users getting creative and attempting to manually edit the database manually to achieve functionality which ought to be standard. Who knows what users may side effect in that process? Then you've got an unnecessary support ticket on your hands.

Anything that can be created ought to be able to be deleted. If you don't think that people can't modify their systems without needing a babysitter, then you guys should have created a SaaS solution. Not something that is installed or managed by end users. Why so concerned with money laundering? You're not an agent of our companies. Crooks will find a way to be crooked, even without trivial, unnecessary roadblocks in place.

I decided to switch to blesta almost overnight. Once again, who are you to say that I should or need to have a long and drawn out beta process? I'm a business owner, man! My time is the most valuable thing that I own.

[Paul]

Regardless of what I want to erase them for, the software should not interfere. We are the users - not you! What we do, what we want to create/delete. The fact that you don't think that we should have the ability to fully administrate our systems is absurd

 

Blesta doesn't prevent you from doing anything. You can edit the database directly, or write a plugin that adds that functionality, or edit the core, it's open. There's an infinite number of things Blesta *could* do that it doesn't, some good, some bad, some indifferent. We have to be careful about what we implement. This is one of those issues that we feel pretty strongly about, but if demand were high enough we would consider a change in course -- there just isn't the demand.

[Sam]

Darin and I feel pretty strongly about this, in this thread alone. I'm sure more people have agreed, but just haven't told anyone! If we can do it in the database (and risk wreaking havoc on our systems), why not just make it easy and allow admins to do it through Blesta's intuitive, responsive UI?

[Darin]

Sounds like a good idea for a plugin

 

Accounting integration or housekeeping? Or both? 

 

I'd love to see a plugin that would allow Blesta to integrate with, or export to, AccountEdge

*If* you could delete transactions, you probably wouldn't want all your staff to be able to do the same. Making money disappear in one area, sometimes mean it is re-appearing in someone's pocket, off the books. That's money laundering. If you can tell your auditor that Blesta doesn't allow you to delete transactions, then it makes you look a whole lot better and raises fewer questions. I'd rather explain why there's a voided test transaction than be under the heat lamp. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't take up much space in your database, and space is cheap.

 

I appreciate your commitment to data integrity and I agree that it can be a selling point, especially for accountants.

 

I can live with the data remaining in the database, but I'd really like to be able to delete (i.e. remove from the interface) invoices and such, if I know they aren't important to my audit trail. Perhaps you could deal with them the same way you deal with deleted tax rules (and maybe other stuff), where you remove them from the interface but leave them in the database. That way, I can clean house and keep the data intact in case it's required for audit purposes.

[Paul]

Darin and I feel pretty strongly about this, in this thread alone. I'm sure more people have agreed, but just haven't told anyone! If we can do it in the database (and risk wreaking havoc on our systems), why not just make it easy and allow admins to do it through Blesta's intuitive, responsive UI?

 

You are welcome to make a feature request - http://www.blesta.com/forums/index.php?/forum/11-feature-requests/