Serial Numbers and the Tax Man

[datalink]

I'm not sure where to post this, so this seemed as good a spot as any.

We've constructed a few platforms that have a point of sale front end. Each sale record has an auto assigned serial number. Sometimes sale records will be deleted, as example if a sale is canceled or for some other reason.

One of our clients recently became concerned that if they were ever audited that the IRS would be worried about the gaps in the serial numbers created by deleted transactions.

There are very few gaps, but does anyone have any thoughts about this? In an audit situation would the IRS be interested in a system's internal serial numbers?

[Lee Smith]

What caused the gaps?

Lee

[David Jondreau]

Deleted invoices caused the gaps.

No I wouldn't be concerned at all.

But this is really a question for your client's accountant, not this forum.

[Lee Smith]

David,

That is an assumption on your part. However, we have seen so many ways that people have come up with for creating serial numbers that can break, that we should exaimine that part too.

I agree that the accountant should be answering the rest of the question.

Lee

[datalink]

Hi All,

Actually David is right. When a sale is cancelled (or voided) the system just deletes the sale record and that is what has caused the gaps.

David is also right that this isn't a question for this forum, but I did want to get some feedback from other developers before going to their accountant. He's the one that asked us if this is a problem in the first place. We've also had issues with him in the past so to have a good sense of what the answers should be before dealing with him is helpful.

Thanks for your thoughts,

DL