add toggle to remove overpayments section from AR/AP and related entry screens -- and/or a way to "obsolete" such accounts

[brush]

Version

1.11

What browsers are you seeing the problem on?

Firefox

What happened?

overpayments are currently unreliable and deprecated in production use, in the current codebase. however there's no easy way to reduce the likelihood that users will add overpayments to transactions, if your organization has chosen to use an alternative method (such as credit or debit notes).

What should have happened?

this toggle should simply make the existing overpayment entry sections invisible or removed, but should still allow existing accumulated overpayments to be used.

[ehuelsmann]

My first reaction was that we already have this functionality: these sections are hidden when no overpayment accounts are configured. However, the issue is not about entirely disabling the functionality, but by allowing entry of new data.

My second reaction would be that the key to this would be in marking the overpayment account "Obsolete". That is: existing data can still be seen and used, with the account being classified as an overpayment account, but since the account is obsolete, no new data should be created against it.

Functionality along the lines of the latter certainly does not exist (in general, the impact of an account being 'Obsolete' hasn't been thought through very well, I'm sorry to say).

[brush]

this all makes sense!

here's a thought that might address both issues:

1. add a flag for accounts that can be set to "obsolete" (with perhaps some hoverable questionmark that informs what this does)
2. then add a check to the logic that will fail (gracefully) any attempt to create a transaction using an account with an account flagged obsolete. (ideally this is at some low level where all transactions get created, so you don't have to ensure that a dozen different entry screens are correct.)
3. then in the docs (or possibly even the overpayments screens, perhaps using a hoverable questionmark or the like) prominently flag that one can suspend overpayments from getting entered by flagging as OBSOLETE all overpayment accounts.
4. what to do in the case that there are overpayments still to be used, is complicated. perhaps easiest first step would be to not allow overpayments to be used (as above), but to suggest in the docs that prior to obsoleting overpayments accounts, all overpayments get used up, by creating credit and debit notes as needed and paying on those.

(currently i deal with obsolete accounts, contacts, departments etc. by changing the name to start with DO NOT USE, but this is not a pretty approach)

[brush]

(eventually, if moving in this direction would be nice for all obsoleted accounts to display in italic or something visibly different, but that can come down the road)

[ehuelsmann]

Question is if we should put in the effort required to address this issue of instead start fixing the overpayments situation which gets the functionality back into endorsement.