Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149]

• 12-15-2011, 1:29 PM

  24378

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722

  Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] One of the big changes we released in 4.3 version is the ability for your members and contacts to see their current balance and full history of invoices and payments in their profile page. Financial module of Wild Apricot is tightly integrated into main workflows. Any paid membership transaction or event registration creates an invoice. Online payments create payment documents in the system settled automatically to corresponding invoices. For invoices that are paid manually (e.g. by check) administrators need to record payment to the original invoice. Taken together, invoices and payments records form the contact's balance and help to track financial history - which is very important.  Some of our clients have not been entering or settling all the payments which resulted in having contact records with open balances and/or open invoices or payments. Before 4.3 release all this "mess" was visible only to the administrators - but now transactions and balance for each contact /member are visible to that person as well.  The ideal solution is to review and clean up your contacts financial history - delete open invoices or record payments for them. If there are unsettled payments or refunds, either delete them, settle to invoices - or keep as credits. In the end, each contact will have a correct balance visible to both administrators and that contact.  This can’t be automated currently (because each situation can be different) so each open invoice and payment has to be processed manually, one by one.  Going forward, we are considering some additional tool to help cleaning up old messy transactions in bulk: tool to batch-delete open invoices - i.e. find open invoices within some time period and delete them  tool to auto-generate payments for open invoices - again, find open invoices within time period and generate payment records with a special comment and payment tender to close selected invoices.  (we are not currently considering the same for payments – they are different. Wild Apricot automatically creates payments and refunds only for online payments so any open payments were recorded for some valid reason so this should be reviewed individually). I would like to hear your comments about this.     Evgeny Product Design Team

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• 12-22-2011, 11:01 AM

  24459 in reply to 24378

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] We have another extension to the original thought.    Admin has an option (somewhere in settings) to "switch off" displaying of public balance.  When it switched off, system changes its behaviour: a) the tab "Invoices and payments" in profile renamed  and named as "Balance due"  b) the tab does not show payments, refunds and donations - only OPEN invoices. Partially paid invoices are also hidden (cause members have no way to pay partially, only admins can do this)  c) member balance is calculated based for the shown invoices only (so it would be different from what admin sees in his own admin UI),  d) incomplete transactions (i.e. event registrations) are also shown (with Continue / Cancel buttons)  e) as soon as invoice is paid, it's hidden (see logic in point b). When everything is hidden, then "Balance due" tab shows special message like "No balance due"  If we also implement multiple invoices closing tool (see previous comment),  it looks like we are killing two birds with one stone (or even more birds):  - we keep current workflow and navigation, including balance message box, completing unfinished transaction, paying for multiple invoices, etc.  - we do not expose "mess" with unsettled payments    But adminstrators would still need to close invoices that are paid manually - otherwise they will be shown in the profile. Evgeny Product Design Team

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• 01-10-2012, 5:31 PM

  24605 in reply to 24378

  Wgregan Joined about 4 months ago Posts 1

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149,11608] I feel it is very short sited on the part of WA to put in place a feture like this with out having a option to turn it off. We don't use the site for bookkeeping, but of course we can use it for online payments so there is history in the site but not one we want our members to see.     What you have done is created about 20 hours worth of work for me alone to correct something we never asked for.   Please in the future try not to be so helpful or short sighted     Also fix it it can't be that hard.   Wayne Gregan

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• 01-11-2012, 8:41 AM

  24608 in reply to 24605

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,265	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149,11608] Wayne - can you tell us more about your current setup - how are you using Wild Apricot, why do you want to turn this off/what issues it creates for you - and what exactly would you ideally like to hide/turn off? Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot
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• 01-12-2012, 1:29 PM

  24622 in reply to 24378

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,265

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149,11608] I would like to elaborate a bit further on the reasoning behind changes in version 4.3 Very frequent requests we have finally addressed in 4.3 are: 1) Ability to enter several transactions and then pay for those invoices in one payment 2) Ability to retry failed (online) payments for any transaction at any later time. (Also helps when people were changing their mind about how the want to pay - online/by check - at a later time) 3) Ability for members/contacts to pay ad-hoc invoices online To address these scenarios we have to show current list of unpaid invoices to each member/contact. Thus, for all transactions now we have a common workflow with three steps: 1) start transaction 2) review/confirm, invoice is generated 3) Pay for one or more invoices, manually or online. Step 3 is now totally independent from the first two steps.  So we can't simply hide the balance notification/list of open invoices without totally breaking the payment workflow in general. I would appreciate your suggestions on what exactly we can hide/change to address the situation when you have some old messy invoices - without breaking the payment workflow.  Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

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• 01-12-2012, 1:43 PM

  24623 in reply to 24622

  omar Joined about 8 months ago Toronto Posts 5	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149,11608] The balance notification gadget can be removed using CSS code.   Add the following code in Settings > CSS Customization: #WA_messagePopup {display:none}   Regards, Omar Omar Nerdy Apricot
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• 01-18-2012, 12:40 PM

  24690 in reply to 24459

  omar Joined about 8 months ago Toronto Posts 5

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] For those that wish to hide the invoices & payments page completely, it is possible to set up a redirect. The following Javascript code will automatically redirect your users from the invoices page to a page that you choose. You will need to replace your_site_url with the site or page you want your users to see. The code can be placed in Settings > Global javascript <script type="text/javascript"> window.onload = function(){ if (String(window.location).match(/Sys\/Profile\/Invoices/)) { window.location = "http://your_site_url"; }} </script> Regards, Omar Nerdy Apricot

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• 01-24-2012, 6:51 AM

  24756 in reply to 24623

  agratton Joined about 2 years ago Posts 7	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149,11608] I have added this to the css customization, but it still appears when someone registers.  what could be wrong? REgards andrea
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• 01-24-2012, 6:57 AM

  24757 in reply to 24690

  agratton Joined about 2 years ago Posts 7

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] I have implemented this and it works well.  I created a hidden web page with text that says : thank you for registering, you will recieve an invoice from us bla..bla.. bla..  It is a suitable fix.  One thing that still remains, the customers now get an automatic email with a log in and account to view thier finance.  We , as others do not use the finance module, we use an external system (oracle), so it is causing us a lot of work to "manage and close off invoices in the WA system.  This automatic log in is just confusing to our customers.    THere should be a way to shut of the finance managment portion of the system.. (that was a benefit in the past) that we did not have to do anything with the finance bit since it was only visable to admin. I have to say every update in the past has provided great new changes, but this change to the finance part is really not good.  There should at least be a shut off or disable option. Regards, andrea

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• 01-24-2012, 8:33 AM

  24760 in reply to 24757

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] Do you accept online payments? Or you work only with offline payments? How do you keep track of all unpaid registrations / applications / renewals when you use external system? Do you manually enter all invoices (for each event registration or membership application or renewal) into Oracle?  Evgeny Product Design Team
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• 01-24-2012, 7:56 PM

  24773 in reply to 24757

  AHVMA Joined about 5 months ago California Posts 32	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] I totally agree. Should be able to disable all of it for all members with a single click. Nancy Scanlan, DVM, CVA, MSFP Executive Director, AHVMA
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• 01-25-2012, 9:34 PM

  24788 in reply to 24773

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] Why? Can you elaborate your point? Evgeny Product Design Team
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• 01-26-2012, 2:08 PM

  24803 in reply to 24788

  AHVMA Joined about 5 months ago California Posts 32

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] We use Quickbooks, which is integrated with our bank, for offline payments. (We get a lot of checks.) We would like to use WA for credit card payments input by both contacts/members and by staff. We would also like the option to make comments on financial records to alert us to problems we have had. (One example: someone who paid for a membership in order to get a member's discount for a meeting, who then disputed the charge and successfully had it charged back to us - so he got a free ride, the credit card company did not agree with us, and we will not be allowing him membership again. I would not like someone like this to have access to any comments/annotations that we might make on invoices.) We use temporary staff during data-intensive times (dues payments, exhibitor payments, conference and other meeting payments, and donations for specific projects). No matter how intelligent the temps appear to be, there are always some data entry problems. And if those problems are apparent to our members, we hear about them immediately. I would rather have the time for us to double-check things, close out invoices that are not properly processed, delete any that were input more than once, etc., rather than for the public to see everything instantly. I would not mind them being able to see records of their donations. But if this is an all-or-nothing process, I would rather have nothing visible to contacts/members. Nancy Scanlan, DVM, CVA, MSFP Executive Director, AHVMA

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• 01-26-2012, 2:34 PM

  24804 in reply to 24803

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,265

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] Thanks for contributing - this is really great, we are always looking for these kind of insights to understand how our clients operate and use the system. About invoice comments: note that we have two different notes fields: Public memo (client can see) and Internal notes only visible to admins And the flipside of people being able to view their invoices is this makes entry mistakes more likely to be caught rather than stay in the system until some detailed internal review/audit which might never come.   Also, to clarify, is your current process that you do NOT enter checks received into Wild Apricot? If so, I wonder if maybe the best avenue to pursue is finding a way to import those from QuickBooks automatically.  Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot

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• 01-26-2012, 3:04 PM

  24805 in reply to 24804

  AHVMA Joined about 5 months ago California Posts 32

  Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149]           For some businesses it may be true that internal reviews may never come. We have data entry via staff, a bookkeeper who is a certified Quickbooks trainer who reconciles our accounts monthly, an accountant who reviews them quarterly, and an outside accountant for an annual audit. So we catch things pretty quickly. Just not as fast as members seem to, sometimes. You are correct, currently we do NOT enter checks into Wild Apricot. We use Quickbooks for all our financial information. We use their merchant services, our bank is integrated with it, and our payroll account also is automatically recorded in it. We generate all our financial reports from it. We are signed up with Authorize.net for Wild Apricot, and they also are integrated with the Quickbooks merchant account. So for our purposes, Quickbooks will ways be our primary source of this information. However, if you can figure out a way for importing Quickbooks info, or other means of tighter integration with Quickbooks, it would serve us well.       Nancy Scanlan, DVM, CVA, MSFP Executive Director, AHVMA

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• 01-26-2012, 3:24 PM

  24806 in reply to 24805

  Chief_Apricot Joined about 5 years ago Toronto Posts 4,265	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] Nancy, thank you very much for the follow-up. Understood and noted.  Dmitry Buterin, Chief Apricot
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• 01-27-2012, 4:25 PM

  24817 in reply to 24806

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] I have posted a dedicated thread to review analyse the reasons for not using financial module -http://community.wildapricot.com/24816/ShowThread.aspx Everybody is welcome to post his comments there.  Evgeny Product Design Team
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• 01-27-2012, 4:53 PM

  24819 in reply to 24817

  Apricot Kernel Joined about 5 years ago Canada, Toronto Posts 722	Re: Dealing with messy financial history shown to contacts [11149] I'm moving this thread into Archive as I want to understand real scenarios before going into any change - see separate thread I mentioned in previous comment.   Evgeny Product Design Team
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