Transaction Date Validation

For companies operating in some countries, transaction dates must fall within the currently active accounting period. You can set DPS up to enforce this requirement, either for the fiscal year or for the fiscal period.

Companies not subject to this requirement may also want to implement transaction date validation as a transaction entry control measure.

Implement Transaction Date Validation

To implement transaction date validation, do one of the following on the General tab of Settings > Accounting > Company:

• To require that transaction dates be within the currently active fiscal year, select Require Transaction Dates to be Within the Active Fiscal Year.
• To require that transaction dates be within the currently active fiscal period, select both Require Transaction Dates to be Within the Active Fiscal Year and Require Transaction Dates to be Within the Active Accounting Period.

You should post all open transaction files and payment processing runs before you enable transaction date validation. If you do not, you may find that you cannot open a transaction file in the current period and you cannot change the transaction dates when you open the file in a prior period.

What Happens in Transaction Entry

If you implement transaction date validation for the fiscal year but not for the accounting period, DPS displays an error message for a transaction date outside the current fiscal year, and the transaction cannot be saved unless either the date or the fiscal year is changed. For a date in the current fiscal year but not in the current period, DPS displays a warning message, but the transaction can be saved without changing the date.

If you implement transaction date validation for the accounting period, DPS displays an error message for a transaction date outside the current accounting period, and the transaction cannot be saved unless either the date or the period is changed.

In situations where DPS would normally display today's date as the default date but that date fails the validation, no default date is displayed.

If you do not implement transaction date validation, DPS displays a warning message for a date not in the current accounting period, but the transaction can be saved without changing the date.

Recurring Transactions

If you implement transaction date validation for the fiscal year and you recreate a posted recurring transaction for which the file end date or the transaction date is not in the currently active fiscal year, DPS automatically displays the Change Transaction Dates dialog box. You must change the dates to be in the fiscal year.

Similarly, if you implement transaction date validation for the accounting period and you recreate a posted recurring transaction for which the file end date or the transaction date is not in the currently active period, DPS automatically displays the Change Transaction Dates dialog box, and you must change the dates to be in the period.

Intercompany Transactions

If you have multiple companies and you do not implement transaction date validation for one company (Company A, for example) but do implement it for another company (Company B), DPS does not apply transaction date validation when you post a transaction from Company A (no date validation) to Company B (date validation implemented).

Scheduled Posting Processes

At the time that you schedule a process that posts transactions, DPS does not verify that the scheduled date is valid for the transactions to be processed. Be sure that you schedule the posting process to occur within the period for which the transaction files were created.

Transaction Dates Not Affected

For some types of transactions, some dates associated with the transactions are not affected by transaction date validation. These exceptions are listed below:

• AP Disbursements: Invoice dates
• AP Vouchers: Invoice date and payment dates
• Employee Expenses: Expense dates
• Invoices: Due dates
• Labor Adjustments: Labor adjustment dates
• Timesheets: All dates
• Units: All dates for unit transactions created by timesheet posting
• Absence Accruals: Accrual dates
• Adjust Salaried Job Costing: All dates
• History Loading: All dates
• Consolidations: All dates
• Billing Labor Transfer: All dates
• Billing Expense Transfer: All dates