CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Editing contributions through Civi leads to incorrect info being stored in the MYSQL database. 

It seems to only create problems with the civicrm_line_item table.  As most people seem to report income based on the civicrm_contribution table it could be happening on many installations without people realising what is going on.  It also means I can't check easily that the behaviour I see on my installation can be replicated on the Demo site

But just because people aren't aware it happens it doesn't mean it isn't a bug.  As we are moving towards CiviAccounts and more rigorous accounting processes/reports I think this needs to be addressed.

So far I have come across this problem twice as outlined below:

Case 1
An offline contribution was made for $5 line.

• One entry was created in the civicrm_contribution table for $5
• One entry was created in the civicrm_line_item table for $5.

The wrong Contribution type was used however meant the daily Income Allocated listing we use to post to our accounting package was incorrect.

I edited the payment through the Civi.  After editing the situation was:

• One entry in the civicrm_contribution table for $5
• Two entries in the civicrm_line_item table: the original one with the old contribution type for $5 and a new one with the new contribution type also for $5.

So one contibution for $5  was linked to two line items each for $5.


Case 2
An offline registration was entered for an event that used a price set.

• One entry was created in the civicrm_contribution table for $220
• Two entries were created in the civicrm_line_item table: one for $65 and the other for $155.]

However the wrong Payment type was selected which meant the daily Income Recieved listing we use to post to our accounting package was incorrect.

I edited the payment through the Civi.  After the editing the situation was:

• One entry in the civicrm_contribution table for $220
• Two entries in the civicrm_line_item table: one for $65 and the other for $220.

So there is one contribution for $220 linked to line items that total $285.

I realise that not many people report on a line_item level, but I do think it is a bug.

I don't even know how to start tracking down the problem.  I can barely customise a system workflow message template.  However, I do want to want to learn more, so I am happy to fossick around if someone can point me in the right direction. 

Eileen suggested you might see if you can recreate these bugs in your personal sandbox. If not, then some investigatiion / debugging will need to happen w/ a copy of the production DB.