[Mifos-developer] Collection Sheet API Question - Payment Types

[John Woodlock]

Hi all,

sorry for being a bit noisy on the list today but I have a couple of
validation related questions I need to ask of those who know mifos
requirements. I've decided to do them one by one as I get a handle on them.

1. Payment Types - i.e. CASH, VOUCHER, CHEQUE
Current collection sheet functionality is simple for payment
types. The user has to choose 1 of the above payment types.
So I just iterate over the PaymentTypes enum to validate.

However, I've looked at StandardAccountService.java and it (for loan
and customer accounts) checks the table accepted_payment_type which
implies that different transactions (there are 5 of them) may have
different valid payment types. And it seems like much of the
non-collection sheet transactions follow this model.

So, I was wondering what the correct approach to payment type validation is:
a) keep it simple like collection sheet does i.e. it's been
over-implemented so far
b) important to check by transaction type i.e. collection sheet has a
bug and it needs to check by transaction type.
c) something else

Regards
John

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[Emily Tucker]

Hi John,

Comments inline...

> implies that different transactions (there are 5 of them) may have
> different valid payment types. And it seems like much of the
> non-collection sheet transactions follow this model.

Yes, that's right. For example, Mifos can be configured so that payment
type of "Check" is the only one allowed for disbursements (if the MFI
only disbursed loans in check format).

> So, I was wondering what the correct approach to payment type
> validation is:
> a) keep it simple like collection sheet does i.e. it's been
> over-implemented so far

We only accepted cash for the collection sheet entry b/c we didn't want
to handle the UI complexity of asking the user to specify different
payment types for each different transactions (since the collection
sheet handles every type of transaction on a single page). Plus, our
key customers at the time only accepted cash.

I'd vote to keep it simple for now. We can always add the functionality
later if and when it becomes a higher priority.

Thanks for asking!
Emily.

[Adam Feuer]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:34 PM, John Woodlock <jo...@nassles.com> wrote:
> So, I was wondering what the correct approach to payment type validation is:
> a) keep it simple like collection sheet does i.e. it's been
> over-implemented so far
> b) important to check by transaction type i.e. collection sheet has a
> bug and it needs to check by transaction type.
> c) something else

John,

Like Emily says, keep it simple for now. Each collection sheet needs
to be set to one payment type. (We may have new transaction types in
the future, such as mobile payments. The list of possible types is
stored in the database, yes?)

cheers
adam
--
Adam Feuer <adamf at pobox dot com>