For Tax Purposes Form default

Would it be possible to change form defaults to allow users to set options such as “for Tax Purposes - This is a Purchase or Purchase Adjustment” - without having to set a line item with Vat.

The reason is that my accountant does about five journal entries every year. Four which do not have any VAT. The last one will have VAT but it needs to default to Purchase or Purchase Adjustment.

I can’t speak for other people, but not every journal entry will have VAT somewhere in the transaction as it is normally dealing with end of year return stuff like corporation tax, dividends etc.

However form default will only allow me to set the Tax purpose if I select a line item for VAT.

Form defaults remembers the setting you choose even when hidden. So in form defaults

  • Set a tax code
  • Set purchase / sale preference.
  • Delete the tax code
  • Save changes

The option is only shown when it effects the current journal entry. The default setting being revealed when it is used.

Didn’t realise that you could do that. In theory, that should not work. While it accomplishes my desired result, I would consider that a programming bug. But I am happy as it achieves my aim.

It should work

Why not? Program operation is controlled by what shows, not what is hidden. This has always worked in every part of the program. For example, clone a bank receipt with a clearance date set, then edit it to be Pending. When you later change that to Cleared, the clearance date on the parent transaction is waiting there.

This topic was discussed in both the March 2019 and April 2020 newsletters.

I don’t think it is good programming practice to do something like that. It is not intuitive as I had to create a topic to ask how to do this. You should not need to select something to have an option show up - then select that option and un-select the first setting. Yes, this might be supported in Manager but I don’t think it’s best practice for programming.

Consider the following: I have set this for purchase or purchase adjustment and removed the vat field.

A new person replaces me and cannot find any setting in Manager to remove this default - because this setting is now hidden. This is not how programming should work in my opinion. If you set an option, it should remain visible on form defaults.