Reading a knock-off that half-worked — transcript

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This presentation is for whoever at GadgetSphere gets the call: the customer paid, the receipt was keyed, and something still says they owe it. In about eleven minutes you will learn where to look first, how two Contra tabs separate the four shapes this takes, which reports read the live figure and which read a photograph, what Trace Document can and cannot tell you about a settlement, and what to send support in the one case that is genuinely stuck.

Step 1 — Start from the customer’s statement, not from the invoice

After this step you will see the whole picture in one screen. Open the Statement of Account for the customer in the Debtor Report applet. It shows one row per customer and currency with Docs Open, Contra and Balance, and the Transaction sub-tab lists every document. The commonest shape reads like this: the customer’s total is right, the invoice is still open, and the receipt sits on its own line as a credit rather than against the invoice. That is a receipt finalised without a contra, whether because nobody ticked the invoice or because the second request that writes the contra failed after FINAL, and the two are indistinguishable from the statement. The total being right is the clue: the money arrived and the receipt’s journal credited the customer, so the ledger is fine; what is missing is the link between two documents, and the link lives on the Contra tab, not in any report.

Reference: Recording a Customer Payment — What success looks like

Step 2 — Separate the four shapes with two tabs

After this step you will name the shape before you touch anything. Open the invoice’s Contra tab and the receipt’s Contra tab. Both empty: the settlement was never written; apply it from either Contra tab and you are done. Rows on the receipt’s tab naming a different document: you settled the wrong invoice; delete that contra if you hold the permission, then apply the right one. Rows on the invoice’s tab whose sum matches the invoice’s Contra column: the settlement worked, and whoever is complaining is reading Doc Open, which never moves, or last month’s aging, which is the next step. Rows on the invoice’s tab that add up to more than its Contra column: the rare one, the rows written and the figure not refreshed, and that goes to support in the words of step five. Four shapes, two tabs, and the three columns on the report never disagree with each other.

Reference: I knocked it off and the outstanding balance hasn’t changed — The 30-second check

Step 3 — Know which report reads what, and what a back-dated contra’s date really is

After this step you will stop comparing two reports that were asked different questions. The as-of-today reports read each document’s live balance and are never stale. The historical debtor reports read a row written at one in the morning on the first of the month, for every document that still had a balance at that instant, and that row is never corrected by the monthly job. So a March invoice settled by a receipt keyed on the fourth of April and dated back to March still reads outstanding in March’s photograph until the month is rebuilt. Settlements created in bulk rebuild the months a back-dated contra touches; a single settlement or a void leaves the history alone. And the contra’s date is not always the date you keyed: a contra dated earlier than either document is moved to the later document’s date, so a March settlement against an April invoice is an April contra.

Reference: The aging still shows an invoice that’s already paid — What actually happened

Step 4 — Know what Trace Document does and does not check

After this step you will not wait for a Resolve button that does not exist. Trace Document in the Financial Report applet is the right tool for a receipt that posted badly: give it the document type and number and it runs six checks, four for a finalised document and two for a voided one, each with a Resolve button that creates or reposts the missing artefact. Every one of those is about the job chain. None of them is about a settlement, because the settlement was never a job: a receipt with no contra passes all six checks, and a receipt whose contra rows disagree with its Contra column passes them too. So Trace Document tells you the receipt’s own postings are sound, and then you go back to the Contra tab. The Posting tab is the same: it shows the journal, cash book and inventory states, and has no contra state to show.

Reference: Financial Report — Error Checking

Step 5 — Know when it is a support matter, and what to say

After this step you will write the message that gets it fixed first time. The one genuinely stuck case is the fourth shape: the Contra tab lists settlements whose total is more than the Contra column shows. The rows were written and the header was not refreshed, and Doc Open plus Contra will still equal Balance, so do not report the arithmetic. Report the two totals, the tab’s and the column’s, with the document number, and say that the balance was not refreshed after a contra. The correction is a data fix, which is a request, not a button: nothing in the product lists documents whose balance and rows disagree, no watchdog re-selects them, and the recalculation queue has never held a row. Across every live tenant, such documents number a few hundred in a base of some eleven million. And the next settlement against the same document will correct it by itself.

Reference: I knocked it off and the outstanding balance hasn’t changed — When it is a support matter

Step 6 — Run the routine

After this step you will close every knocked-off call the same way. Open the customer’s Statement of Account: if the total is right and the receipt floats on its own line, the settlement is missing, not the money. Open the receipt’s Contra tab: empty means the second request never got through, so apply the contra there; rows naming another document mean the wrong invoice. Open the invoice’s Contra tab and add up its rows: equal to the Contra column and you are done, and the complaint is Doc Open or last month’s aging; more than the column and it goes to support with both totals. If it is the aging, say which month and whether the settlement was keyed in bulk. Run Trace Document only for the receipt’s own postings, never for the settlement. Five screens, one question each, and the recalculation you were told to wait for is not coming, because it was never queued.

Reference: I knocked it off and the outstanding balance hasn’t changed — When it is a support matter

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Start from the customer's statement, not from the invoice"]
  s2["Step 2 — Separate the four shapes with two tabs"]
  s3["Step 3 — Know which report reads what, and what a back-dated contra's date really is"]
  s4["Step 4 — Know what Trace Document does and does not check"]
  s5["Step 5 — Know when it is a support matter, and what to say"]
  s6["Step 6 — Run the routine"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

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