I understand that they are disabled when they are not yet using it. The problem is that if I start using them, I’m going to be screwed at a certain point, without notification.
Also, if it’s by design, the lockdate is not working. Because it changes bookings made before the lockdate. Well ok, internally it’s still pointing there, but my balance sheets are not the same anymore.
Joe actually said that it will not be an issue as long as you don’t alter anything. That doesn’t seem like by-design. If that’s the case, I would expect a notification that all your bookings will be cleared, and it does not adhere the lockdate.
I’m not even sure if this problem is limited to payrolling, because there are many built-in accounts. A check if the account is used before updating would be nice. Also, you can keep it enabled when there are still other posts using the account.
This issue is exclusive to payroll only. This is because even though there are other built-in accounts, none of them allow direct entries from elsewhere.
For example, not even built-in Wages and Salaries account can be used outside of payslip items. So if payslip items don’t use it, it won’t break anything.
Payroll liabilities is the only built-in account which allows entries in other modules. I kind of knew about this issue before and I thought payroll implementation will eventually improve so this problem will go away.
Then why, after I convert the only payslip deduction item in my test company from Payroll liabilities to something else (as in post #10 above), does the empty Payroll liabilities account remain? The account is not in use for any transaction.
I’m able to reproduce it in the test file @joris_manager has posted. And I’d be surprised if I can’t reproduce it in your test file. I don’t have your test file though so I can’t see it for myself.
@joris_manager, @lubos found my problem. I had defined a contribution payslip item that included the default Payroll liabilities account. I had never used it, so the account could be empty, but it was still enabled because it was used by another payslip item, even though not used by any transaction. Therefore, it never disappeared like yours did.
The latest version (19.11.83) is removing built-in payslip item accounts so if user is setting up payslip items, they need to create payroll liability and expense accounts in their chart of accounts upfront. I think it’s good idea anyway because rarely you will be sharing the same accounts across multiple payslip items. Especially when it comes to payslip deductions and payslip contributions where each item is expected to post different liability accounts anyway.
Nothing. The update automatically converts the previously built-in accounts to ordinary accounts of the same name. You can continue to use them as before. If you had created other accounts to which you assigned payslip items, they remain unchanged.
Functionally, the only difference is that there are no longer default accounts for payroll. So if you create a new business, you will need to set up the accounts for payroll yourself. Many users already did that because of the desire to allocate different payslip items to different accounts.
I’m looking into a way to make localizations part of the program rather than being available separately on the website. This would prompt users to auto-create recommended payslip items/accounts for their country within the program. So eventually, it wouldn’t be required to do it manually anyway (unless you want to).