It's coming: bug in invoices Auto Reset Numbering (EU VAT Addon)

[stormy]

It's that time of the year again.

 

Most of us in the EU, using WHMCS official EU VAT Addon, will want our invoice numbers to reset to 1 on January 1st, at 0:00.

 

However, the numbering will not reset then. It will reset whenever your cron runs, on the 31st. Which means you have to (ilegally) modify your invoice numbers.

 

Maybe we still have time to get this bug fixed (via a module?) in time for the New Year. Any ideas?

[stormy]

Here's the official response from WHMCS support:

 

I'm not aware of any plans at present to change this behaviour at present.

[Damo]

Why not run your cron just before midnight on the 31st?

[stormy]

Why not run your cron just before midnight on the 31st?

 

Lots of reasons. First of all, the cron takes a few minutes to run, so there's no guarantee as to when invoices will be generated, before or after midnight. I also don't know if the numbering is reset before issuing invoices or after. The cron shouldn't be run twice in a day either.

 

This is very simple: an invoice issued at 23:59 on December 31st can't have its numbering reset. An invoice issued at 0:00 January 1st must have its numbering reset.

 

The WHMCS official EU VAT Addon module already provides this functionality, see screenshot:

 

 

The module does little else, so the feature should work. If it says it's going to reset numbering anually, I expect that to happen with the New Year and not at some random time on New Year's Eve. Remember we're talking about a billing system. Precission is mandatory (by law), not simply something "nice to have".

 

However, WHMCS support says:

 

The case has been logged with our developers and it's their decision what action to take on it, it has been decided this is a feature request and not a bug

 

I wonder how I should phrase my feature request: "Please add another annual auto reset numbering feature to the EU VAT Addon, one that actually resets the numbering with the New Year and not on a cron run on New Year's Eve"?

 

Anyway, not all is lost because support also said

 

As a result I am attempting to provide you some alternative solutions you might implement yourself in the meantime.

 

I hope they come through. It shouldn't be that hard to create a little script that runs at midnight and does the reset. After all, it's simply a change in one field of the database.