Registration Group
A registration group is a kind of registration number: the national tax number, the sales tax number, the identity card, the passport. Unlike most of the small lists in this module, this one carries real rules - whether the number must be unique, whether the dates are required, whether it prints on paperwork and in what order.
What it is for
A registration number is only useful if it is recorded consistently, and consistency is what this screen buys. Each kind of number is set up once, with the rules it has to obey, and Registration then holds the client to them.
Two things here catch consultants out.
The first is the category. Each group belongs to a category, and apart from the general category, there can only be one group per category. There is one national tax number group, one sales tax number group, one identity card group. The save refuses a second one and says so. That is deliberate: the rest of the system looks for the tax number by its category, so two competing groups would make the answer ambiguous. Use the general category for anything else the client wants to record.
The second is the status list. If you tick Required Registration Status, you have to add at least one status line, or the save refuses. The statuses are the states a number can be in - filed, active, suspended - and the registration record then picks one per number.
Print on Report and Index are what put the number on paperwork. Index is the order, and no two groups may share the same index.
Every field, in plain words
Header
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration Group | Your short code for the kind of number. | NTN | Required. It must be unique. |
| Name | The kind of number as it should read on paperwork. | National Tax Number | Required. This is the wording a reader sees beside the number. |
| Registration Category | Which standard kind of number this is. | National Tax Number | Required. GEN General, NTN National Tax Number, STRN Sales Tax Registration Number, TRN Tax Registration Number, NIC National Identity Card, PASP Passport. Only GEN may be used more than once. |
| Required Registration Status | Whether a number of this kind has to carry a status. | Tick it where the client tracks whether a registration is active or suspended. | Ticking it means you must add at least one status line below. |
| Unique | Whether a number of this kind may be recorded only once. | Tick it for the tax numbers and the identity card. | With it ticked, the save refuses the same issuer, group and number if it is already recorded against a party of the same kind, on this record or on another. |
| Primary For Country | The country this kind of number applies in. | Pakistan | Optional, picked from the country list. Fill it where the client operates across borders and the same kind of number exists in each. |
| Registration Date Required | Whether the date of registration must be filled in. | Tick it for anything with a filing date that matters. | |
| Expiry Date Required | Whether the expiry date must be filled in. | Tick it for a passport or a licence. Leave it clear for a tax number that does not expire. | |
| Print on Report | Whether this number appears on printed paperwork. | Tick it for the tax numbers. Leave it clear for an internal reference. | |
| Index | The order the printed numbers appear in. | 1 for the national tax number, 2 for the sales tax number | No two groups may share an index. The save refuses a duplicate and names the number it refused. |
Registration Status
One line per state a number of this kind can be in. Required if Required Registration Status is ticked.
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Registration Status | A state the number can be in. | Active | Add the states the client actually distinguishes. Three or four is plenty: filed, active, suspended, cancelled. |
How to configure it
- Set up Registration Authority first.
- List the numbers the client quotes: the tax numbers, the identity card, anything a buyer asks for.
- Open Registration Group and create one record per kind. Type the code and the name, and pick the category. Remember that only General may be reused.
- Tick Unique for anything a party can only hold one of.
- Tick Registration Date Required and Expiry Date Required according to what the number actually has.
- For anything printed, tick Print on Report and set Index. Keep the indexes in the order you want them printed, with no two the same.
- If the client tracks states, tick Required Registration Status and add the status lines.
- Save, then record one real number on Registration and check the rules bite.
Scenarios
"Our invoices have to carry the tax numbers in a fixed order"
Tick Print on Report on both groups and set Index to 1 and 2. The order on the paperwork is the index order, not the order the numbers were entered.
"The save refuses a second group and says one already exists for this category"
It will. Apart from General, each category allows exactly one group. If the client really needs a second kind of number, give it the General category and its own name.
"We want to know which registrations are suspended"
Tick Required Registration Status on that group and add status lines for the states the client distinguishes. Each number then carries one.
"The same tax number was entered twice"
Tick Unique on that group. The save then refuses the same issuer, group and number a second time, which is what stops two records claiming the same registration.
What it is connected to
- Needs Registration Authority for the issuing bodies.
- Read by Registration, which holds the actual numbers and is where these rules are applied.
- Also read by the party screens that hold registrations of their own, which in a combined installation are the vendor and customer records.
- The employee equivalent is Identification Type in People Directory, which does the same job for the documents a person holds.
If something looks wrong
- "The save says the code cannot be empty" - both the code and the name are required.
- "The save says the registration group already exists" - that code is already used.
- "The save says a registration group for this category already exists" - the category is not General and another group has already taken it. Use General, or open the existing group instead.
- "The save says at least one registration status is required" - Required Registration Status is ticked and there are no status lines. Add one, or untick it.
- "The save says that index already exists" - two groups share the same Index. Renumber one of them.
- "The number is not printing on the invoice" - Print on Report is not ticked, or the group has no Index.