Why my past invoices was not updated when I amended the item description?

I have this interesting case that I would like to share. I received this support email stated as below:

“… The first time when I entered this item was with no description. Due to without description, I have amended the item description in item list. The Description column of those past invoices with this item in the Sales by Item Detail report was not updated with the amended item description … ”

There is nothing wrong with QuickBooks 2009/10 (Asia). Past transactions should keep as a historical data and should not be allowed to amend automatically. I will use the example below to further illustrate my point.

Example:

On 20 Feb 2009, you sell a copy of QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10 software to customer ABC Pte Ltd with a 30 days payment terms. In this invoice, your item code was ‘QBac0910’ and your item description was ‘QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10’.

In the month of Mar 2009, you decided to do a promotion for QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10. You decided to bundle a 16 GB USB drive for every purchase of QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10 software.

Thus, you edited your item from your item list. Item code remains as ‘QBac0910’ and the item description you amended to ‘QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10 (with a free 16 GB USB drive)’.

On 30 Mar 2009, you did not receive any payment from ABC Pte Ltd, you decided to give them a call to chase after the payment.  ABC Pte Ltd informs you that they have loss the original invoice and would like you to send them a duplicated invoice. Hence, you simply reprint the original invoice from QuickBooks and send it to them.

When the item description was being amended and if QuickBooks allows item description to be updated in all the past invoices; this will be the possible issue:

When ABC Pte Ltd received the invoice, they may question you why the invoice’s item description stated that ‘QuickBooks Accounting 2009/10 (with a free 16 GB USB drive)’, but they did not receive the free 16 GB USB drive earlier on?

Therefore, what QuickBooks 2009/10 did was correct. When the Item Description was amended, it should not automatically update the past transactions. If they do that, it may confuse both the QuickBooks user and the client. Besides, Invoices are official document; it should not be amended automatically.