Zero Value Transactions

Allow Journals to be created with a transaction amount of zero.

Overview

By default, Fynapse rejects financial data with a transaction amount of zero. A Journal received directly by the Subledger with a zero amount on every Journal Line is rejected and not posted, and a Business Event whose amounts are all zero does not generate a Journal.

The Zero value transactions setting changes that behaviour. When you enable it, zero value transactions are treated as valid financial data: they produce balanced Journals that are posted to the Subledger and are queryable alongside every other Journal.

Enable this setting if your source systems emit transactions that legitimately carry a zero amount - for example fee events that resolve to nothing after a waiver, or contractual events that must be recorded for completeness even when no value moves.

The setting is disabled by default. Existing instances keep rejecting zero value transactions until you explicitly enable it.

Behaviour when Enabled

Journals Received by the Subledger

A Journal received directly from an external system is accepted when every Journal Line carries a zero amount. All other validations still apply - the Journal must still have at least one Debit and one Credit entry, a posting date, a full set of Subledger dimensions, and must still balance.

Business Events Processed by the Accounting Engine

A Business Event whose amounts are zero generates a Journal, but only through Posting Patterns whose Amount Signage is set to AUTO.

Amount Signage tells the Accounting Engine which side of the Journal an amount belongs on:

  • POSITIVE - the Posting Pattern applies only when the amount is greater than zero.
  • NEGATIVE - the Posting Pattern applies only when the amount is less than zero.
  • AUTO - the sign of the amount decides the side, so the Posting Pattern applies to both.

A zero amount is neither positive nor negative, so a Posting Pattern configured as POSITIVE or NEGATIVE has no defined side for it and does not generate a Journal Line. AUTO does, and produces the same Debit and Credit structure a non-zero amount would - with an amount of zero on each Journal Line.

If none of the Posting Patterns linked to a Business Event Type use AUTO Amount Signage, enabling this setting changes nothing for that Business Event Type. Its zero value Business Events continue to report “The Business Event did not generate a Journal, because the amounts on the Business Event equal ‘0’.” Check your Amount Signage configuration in the Accounting Rules Navigator before enabling.

Foreign Currency

A zero value transaction in a foreign currency does not require an exchange rate for its Core Date, because converting zero produces zero in every currency. When the setting is disabled, such a Journal is rejected if no rate is available.

Balances and Reporting

A zero value Journal contributes nothing to any Balance, but its Journal Lines are stored, queryable on the Journals screen, and included in extracts like any other Journal Line. Expect Journal Line counts to rise once the setting is enabled, while Balances remain unchanged.

Effect on Existing Data

Enabling the setting is not retrospective. Journals and Business Events already rejected for having a zero amount stay rejected - enabling the setting does not reprocess them. To post them, reprocess the source data after enabling.

Disabling the setting again stops new zero value transactions from being accepted, but zero value Journals already posted remain in the Subledger. Remove them the same way you would remove any other posted Journal.

Configuration Data

The setting is included in the Configuration Data JSON file, so it travels with configuration downloads and uploads:

"zeroValueTransactions": {
"zeroValueTransactionsEnabled": false
}

If the key is absent from an uploaded file, the instance keeps its current value. This means Configuration Data files created before this setting existed continue to work unchanged.

For more details, refer to Configuration Data.

Auditing Changes

Every change to this setting is retained with the value it was changed to, the user who changed it, and the time of the change. Saving the System Settings screen without altering the toggle does not create a record.

The history is held in Fynapse and is not currently shown in the interface. Contact your Fynapse administrator if you need a record of who changed this setting and when.

Tutorials

  1. Go to System Configurations > System Settings.
  2. Click the Edit button.
  3. Turn on the Enable zero value transactions toggle in the Zero value transactions section.
  4. Click the Save button to save the setting, or the Cancel button to discard your changes.

The Zero value transactions section shows a status of ENABLED. Zero value transactions ingested from this point forward are accepted.

Fynapse services cache this setting, so allow up to a minute for the change to take effect across all processing.

  1. Go to System Configurations > System Settings.
  2. Click the Edit button.
  3. Turn off the Enable zero value transactions toggle in the Zero value transactions section.
  4. Click the Save button.

The Zero value transactions section shows a status of DISABLED. Zero value transactions are rejected again, but any zero value Journals already posted remain in the Subledger.

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