Nothing on the screen says why: Platform Concepts
“Where did this figure come from? Nothing on the screen says.” Of all the questions people ask about BigLedger, that is the commonest. This section answers it for the six places a figure is stored, and holds the four ideas under most other answers, true on every screen.
This section is for whoever keeps the books or looks after the tenant — the finance lead, the accounts clerk who gets asked “why is this number wrong?”. In ten minutes you will know which page answers your question, and you will have checked one of your own invoices.
One sales invoice, followed through all four ideas
One sales invoice, followed through takes one RM 4,452 credit sale at GadgetSphere through all four ideas: what Finalise starts and in what order, where each figure on and around the invoice came from, what can go wrong with nobody told, and what a void would undo. The check below uses the same invoice.
When it goes wrong: the symptom, and the idea behind it
These are the questions people actually ask, in their own words.
| What you see | The idea that explains it | Read |
|---|---|---|
| “Where did this figure come from? Nothing on the screen says.” | Some figures are stored when a job runs, others are worked out when you open the screen. One sales invoice, followed through shows that split for one invoice | Stored figures and live figures |
| “I saved it and nothing happened.” | Saving keeps a draft. Only Finalise starts the jobs | The generic document |
| “What actually happens when I press Finalise?” | One queue row and a fan-out to the jobs your tenant subscribes to | How work actually runs |
| “Every sales invoice finalises, but none of them post, and the trace names a missing default GL code.” | The posting runs after Finalise and stops on the missing default | Map it in Chart of Account, then press Resolve in Trace Document |
| “Why is the cost on my document different from what I paid for the item?” | The cost is the moving average written back by the costing job, not your last purchase price | How work actually runs |
| “I keyed a purchase dated last month and my earlier margins changed.” | A back-dated purchase rewrites the cost already stored on later lines | The margin report and the P&L don’t agree |
| “I voided the document and the report still shows it.” | A void adds opposite entries beside the originals | What a void undoes |
| “My colleague can see it and I cannot.” | A permission on a role, or a setting one of you switched on for yourself | Settings and permissions |
| “Why can’t I edit this? The field is greyed out.” | Finalising locks the header. On a sales invoice a setting reopens the sales agent and a permission the transaction date | Settings and permissions |
| “Where does my document number come from, and can I change the format?” | A counter per document type assigns it; a prefix is added when the document is printed, not stored | Document Numbering |
| “I finalised the invoice and nothing was submitted to LHDN.” | E-invoice is a follow-on job; the invoice waits in a pool for the scheduled run. An invoice finalised before the company’s e-invoicing was switched on never reaches a pool at all | E-invoice pools and routing |
What success looks like: the thirty-second check
Take your most recent finalised sales invoice and look in three places.
- The Posting tab, unless an administrator has hidden it. Journal and Inventory both read
POSTED. A blank status a minute after Finalise means the job has not run or it failed — the two look the same. - The TraceDocument tab, Journal Txn. The debtor line equals the invoice total, and there is a credit line for sales and one for tax. For the GadgetSphere laptop that is 4,452.00 against 4,200.00 and 252.00.
- The listing. The invoice shows a company and a branch number, because it is final.
If all three hold, the chain ran for that invoice, and the same subscriptions and default GL codes serve every later invoice at that company. If the first or second does not, open Trace Document in the Financial Report applet and use its Resolve button rather than finalising again. Who runs it: whoever keeps the books, once after setup and again after anybody changes the company’s default GL codes or the Sales Invoice settings.
What to read next
Start with How work actually runs. It is the idea the other three lean on, and twenty minutes with it explains most of the symptom table above. If your check failed on step 2, go straight to Getting Started for the default GL codes instead.