33.5 Correcting and deleting invoices

There’s only one way to persist an invoice in LedgerSMB: posting it. This means the invoice becomes part of the accounting information. One of the primary properties of an accounting system is to record full audit trails and help enforce internal controls as detailed in Section 2.2 on page 2.2. Because of that fact there’s no way to delete or edit invoices after they have been posted ¹⁶¹⁶LedgerSMB currently does not support saving an invoice without posting it. This functionality is on the roadmap for addition when the AR/AP functionality is being rewritten - currently 1.5 or 1.6..

The only way to “undo” an invoice is by voiding it. This is important for several reasons:

1. 1.

   Invoices can’t be deleted (because they’re accounting data)

2. 2.

   Invoices pose a claim on the assets of a customer

3. 3.

   @@@ others?

Specifically item 2 is important: when you sent the invoice to your customer, you effectively sent them a claim. When you decide to refrain from pursuing that claim, you should notify them of that fact so they have the documentation to update their accounting system to reflect that fact: they need your documentation to void their vendor invoice, instead of paying it.

For the same reason it’s ill-advised (and no longer supported) to edit invoices: when a customer has multiple invoices, each stating a different amount, all using the same invoice number; how is that customer supposed to document (verifiably) that the claim has been settled satisfactorily by paying the one he did?

See the Remarks section at the end of this chapter for details on how to handle the draft invoice requirement.