Drafts, posting and voiding
How Finance keeps your books safe: drafts can change, posted documents are locked, and mistakes are voided, not edited.
Finance keeps a clear line between work in progress and your books. These rules are enforced by the database, so they hold on every screen and for the assistant too.
Who can do this
Owners, admins and members can work on drafts. Only owners and admins can post, pay and void. See Who can do what in Finance.
Drafts
- A new bill, journal, contra entry or supplier credit note starts as a draft. A draft can be edited and deleted.
- A draft has no number yet and is not in your books.
- Saving a draft never uses up a document number.
Posting
- Posting gives a document its number, such as BILL-0001, and puts it in your books.
- A bill can only be posted once its lines add up to more than zero.
- Some documents are sent or submitted rather than posted: a purchase order gets its number when it is submitted for approval, and an RFQ when it is marked as sent.
- Prefixes and next numbers are set in Accounting settings. A number is never given twice.
Posted documents are locked
Once posted, a document cannot be edited or deleted. Its lines are locked with it. If you try, you see a message such as "This bill is posted and can no longer be changed. Void it instead."
Voiding
To undo a posted document, void it. It stays in the list as Void, and the books reverse it. Voiding cannot be undone. If the document was wrong, void it and enter it again.
Some things must be undone first:
- A bill with payments cannot be voided until they are voided or deleted.
- A bill or invoice set off by a contra entry cannot be voided until the contra entry is voided.
- A bill with a supplier credit note against it, or credit applied to it, cannot be voided until that is voided, deleted or taken off.
- A posted manual journal is not voided. It is reversed: see Journals.
The books lock
An owner or admin can lock the books up to a date in Accounting settings. Nothing dated on or before that date can then be posted, voided or paid. You see "This date is in a closed period: the books are locked to …". Drafts are not affected.