Transaction lifecycle

The transaction lifecycle describes the actions you can perform on a transaction before the debtor close date. Once the debtor close date for a transaction has passed, the transaction is locked and you cannot make any changes to it.

The debtor closed date lags behind real time to give you a window of time to correct mistakes before the transaction is locked, and to ensure long-term report stability. Your accounts team moves the debtor closed date forward each month or at an interval that suits your business processes.

The stages in the transaction lifecycle are:
Closed
Smile closes the transaction and adds the transaction value to the account balance.
Transactions may be open for some time before they are closed, for example, quotes or credit card payments pending bank approval. Other transactions are closed immediately, for example, invoices, receipts for cash payments and adjustments.
Allocated
Smile allocates the transaction to another transaction. If necessary, you can also deallocate transactions.
Reversed
Smile raises a reversal transaction against an existing transaction, then allocates the reversal to the original transaction. Both transactions appear in the account history.
Use a reversal when you cannot delete a transaction or when you want a record of the reversal to appear in reports.
Reopened
Smile reopens the transaction and any items in the transaction, and removes the transaction value from the account balance. You can now make financial changes to the transaction.
After you close a reopened transaction, Smile adds the new transaction value to the account balance and updates the transaction.
Updated
Smile updates the transaction's due date or comments, but does not reopen the transaction. The transaction value remains unchanged and on the account balance.
Deleted
Smile deletes the transaction, removes the transaction value from the account balance and removes the transaction from the account history. Smile records the delete action in the logs to maintain an audit trail of the event.
You cannot delete a transaction that will affect the integrity of other Smile data. For example, you cannot delete the receipt for a credit card payment because Smile keeps a record of the payment approval.

Smile emits a SmileTransaction message each time a transaction changes. The following diagram shows the messages that Smile emits at each stage of the transaction lifecycle:

Figure: The transaction lifecycle

The image shows the message that Smile emits when the state of a transaction is changed.