We often have a need to add custom fields to a transaction after it has posted to the General Ledger. The process to add the custom field was very easy/efficient in FE database view but is taking much longer in web view.

• In database view, we would:

  • Run a transaction query

  • Double click an entry to open the single transaction we wanted to edit

  • Confirm data listed on screen matches the transaction we are looking for.

  • Add the custom fields (attributes)

  • Save the transaction and advance to the next record.

  • *this would typically take less than 30 seconds per record to locate/open/update.

  
  

• In web view we have to:

  • Run a transaction query (making sure to include the FE transaction ID)

  • Double click to open the JOURNAL BATCH (not the individual transaction)

  • Click the Edit button at the top of the screen so a custom field can be added to a transaction line

  • Use the FE transaction ID to identify what line item we need to update.

  • Scroll to the correct line we need to add the custom field to.

  • Make sure to position the screen so we know what line to update (the line numbers are not locked on the left and disappear as you scroll to the right to find the custom fields).

  • Click the Custom Field hyperlink on the line you want.

  • Add the custom fields (attributes)

  • Accept the changes to the custom fields window

  • Save the changes to the journal batch

  • Close the journal batch

  • *This takes much longer to complete and can take awhile in cases where there are thousands of journal lines in a specific batch.

  • *It is also easy to pick the wrong row and apply the custom field to the row above or below that actual transaction you want.

  • *It is also difficult to confirm you have the correct row selected to add the custom field to.

  • *This journal batch opens in a window that is only a portion of the screen, so it is difficult to navigate to the correct line.

  • *The edit button is not locked at the top of the screen so if you forget to click edit before locating a transaction, you have to scroll back up to the top of the window to click edit and then scroll back down to where the transaction to edit is located.

This change is going to require a lot more work to produce the same result for us. When I started a support case, they said regardless of how the system worked in database view, the function is working as they intended in webview so they have no plans to add the ability to open the individual transaction or provide a more efficient way to accomplish the same goal (I would be happy to do this as an import or API function but alas, not available right now). I do actually like the ability to run a query and open a journal batch but think that should be a different query type (it should be a journal batch query not a transction query).

If you would also like to have the ability to be able to open an individual transaction back, please vote for this so that they might consider implementing in the future. Blackbaud support has told me they aren't going to do anything to move this forward without support from the community as they do not feel anyone else used this function or thought it was useful.

I'm also interested to hear if anyone has found an efficient way to add attributes to transactions that have been posted to the GL outside of the clunky workaround I have listed above.

GL Transaction ...

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