AU Tax - Improve the validation error experience
I had a validation error CMN.ATO.DISTBENTRT.000013 generated in an SMSF tax return.
When I clicked on the validation error it took me to a specific trust income schedule (number 10 of 18), which had several fields highlighted. The error says that there must be a number in any of the fields A B D U and so on - this schedule met this condition.
After much wasted time trying to re-enter fields, checking there were no blank spaces, deleting and re-entering all fields, deleting and re-entering the whole schedule, I contacted support.
It turns out the error was actually generated in schedules 17 and 18 - these schedules did not have any fields marked in red. I don't know how the support staff found this.
The process to identify and locate actual issues triggering validation errors needs to be improved so users can rectify issues efficiently and not need to resort to Support.
Vicki Carlisle
shared this idea
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Samantha Madden
commented
I had the same experience recently assisting colleagues clear validation errors. It took me 1.5 hours doing the same "mucking around" to figure out the schedule highlighting the errors was the wrong schedule. This is time not billable to the client.
We also had it occur on a return with 48 beneficary schedules and thankfully I had the previous experience above to know it wasn't the schedule highlighted. The issue was an error relating to the beneficiary address showing C/- and no second line so we scrolled through the return to manually find which beneficiary had this address and update their client record. The validation screen should be updated to list the schedule number with the issue for assistance.