Every default date was yesterday’s until half past five

Every date field that filled itself in (the issue date on an invoice, the due date worked out from credit days, the date on a payment, a credit allocation, an expense, a journal entry, the start of a recurring journal, the lock-up-to date on a closed period, the date and time on a logged call) was being filled from UTC rather than from the calendar on your wall.

India is five and a half hours ahead of UTC. So between midnight and half past five, every one of them offered the previous day. Seventeen places in all.

Most of the time somebody notices and changes it. The times that matter are the ones where nobody does: once a month that lands in the previous month, and once a year in the previous financial year, on a document that goes to the government.

Nothing already saved is touched. A date somebody accepted is the date on that record, and changing it now would be rewriting the books rather than fixing them.

It is worth a look at anything raised in the early hours: an invoice, a payment or a journal entry created before half past five, whose date nobody changed by hand, is a day earlier than it should be.