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Preview residential billing invoices on admin erroring with NullReferenceException message

In this article, we explain why a 'NullReferenceException2' error occurs when previewing residential billing invoices in Admin. The error message may show slightly different depending on the version of Abacus being used.

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Written by David Bayley-Hamilton
Updated this week

'E0001 - Unexpected error.

System Exception: System.NullReferenceException

System Message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Source: Target.Abacus.Jobs'

Or

'System Message: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
​Error saved to the Error Log.
​Error ID reference: 1

Source: Target.Abacus.Jobs'

Solution

In Abacus Admin, selecting the menu option Income - Administration - Create Residential Billing Invoices and then clicking the Create New Job button creates a new job in Job Service to preview residential invoices.
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However, when you view the created job in the Administration - Job Service - View Jobs screen, the job status shows as Queued, and after a short pause, it changes to Failed.


If you click the Step Info column on the far right, it shows steps 1 to 4 of the job, with the failure occurring on step 1, Calculate Interest For Period.


Clicking Step Info again opens the Job Step Information screen. Selecting the Progress tab displays an error message.


This error may occur if the user previewing the residential invoices has access to children's accounts, but this functionality isn't used, or there are no Parental Contribution - Invoice Groups set up.
​

If the Access children's accounts option is ticked, the Invoice Groups selected when previewing residential invoices are filtered to include only Parental Contribution Invoice Groups. If there are no Parental Contribution Invoice Groups, A4W will display a message saying the preview can’t continue because there are no appropriate invoice groups for the current user.
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However, if billing invoices are no longer done in A4W but in Admin, the process fails to check the selected Invoice Group and creates the job, only to fail later when trying to apply the filter and finding no matching Invoice Groups.


The workaround is to untick the Access children's accounts:

  1. Go to System Maintenance - Users and Passwords - User Details in A4W.

  2. Select the username of the user you're updating.

  3. Check if the Access children's accounts option is ticked.

  4. If the option is ticked, click the Edit button.

  5. Untick the Access children's accounts option.

  6. Click the Update button to save the changes.

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