Construction stage cannot be reopened or re-dated

You tried to take a completed stage back with Reopen, or to record a commencement or completion date, and the Construction Stages tab refused.

What you see

On Construction Stages:

• After Reopen on a completed stage, a red toast: "<n> installment(s) on this stage are paid or hand-dated". The stage stays Completed.
• In the Record commencement dialog, after Mark commenced: "The commencement date cannot be later than the completion date." (The date picker already stops at the completion date, so you normally meet this only when someone completed the stage after you opened the dialog.)
• In the Mark stage completed dialog (opened with Completed), after Mark completed: "The completion date cannot be earlier than the commencement date." (The picker's earliest date is the commencement date; the hint reads "Commenced <date>; completion cannot be earlier.")
• When your screen is out of date and someone else has already changed the stage: "This stage is already commenced.", "This stage has no commencement date.", "This stage is already marked completed." or "This stage is not completed.", as a toast or in the dialog.

Why it happens

Marking a stage completed is a billing event. Every construction-linked installment waiting on the stage gets the completion date as its due date, and the demand run then bills it. Reopen undoes that: it clears the due date on every installment linked to the stage and puts the stage back to In progress (or Not started if it never had a commencement date). The app allows that only while all those installments are still untouched: Pending, and dated by the stage rather than by hand. As soon as one of them has been paid (even in part), waived or cancelled, or someone has set its due date by hand on the booking's schedule, reopening would rewrite money that has already moved or a date someone chose on purpose, so it is refused. The number in the message counts those installments across every booking of the project.

The two date rules keep the stage's own story straight: work cannot start after it finished. A stage may be completed without ever recording a commencement, in which case only the completion date is checked.

The "already" and "not" messages mean the action no longer applies: the stage was commenced, completed or reopened by someone else after your screen loaded. Nothing was changed by your click.

How to fix it

1. For "<n> installment(s) on this stage are paid or hand-dated": the completion stands. If the completion date itself was wrong, the installments still waiting on the stage can be re-dated one by one on the booking's schedule (Edit installment on Termsheet & schedule, the Edit permission on Bookings); rows that are paid keep their dates. If a demand was already issued on a wrong date, handle it under Demands rather than through the stage.
2. For the date messages: choose a commencement date on or before the completion date, or a completion date on or after the commencement date. If the stage really did finish before the recorded start, use Undo commencement first (shown while the stage is In progress), then Completed with the right date, then Commencement again. All of these need the Edit permission on Construction Stages; in the default roles that is the Administrator, the Project Manager, the Compliance Officer and the Site Engineer.
3. For the "already" and "not" messages: reload the page. The stage shows its current state and the right buttons; act on that.
4. Remember that Reopen and Undo commencement ask for no confirmation. Reopening also notifies the Finance Leads and Project Managers, through a workflow rule that is on by default, so they can review demands already raised on the stage.

Related

• Construction Stages
• Termsheet & schedule
• Demands
• Construction stage cannot be deleted: payment schedules reference it