How to design flexible relationships between documents?

Edgard L. Riba wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an inventory application which also handles accounts payable, and
> accounts receivables.
> One of the problems I currently have is that I need to tie, in a flexible
> way, different transaction types.
> For example, I need to tie invoices to their "shipping-notifications", to
> the original orders, etc...
> A friend of mine was telling me about SAP and how there you can in a
> flexible way define documents (or transactions) so that they can be tied u
p
> to one or more documents of a given type.
> I've been thinking about this, but I can't figure out how a design that
> would allow this in a flexible way....
> How does this work?
> Thanks,
> Edgard
>
Can you not carry the original order number through to the shipping
notifications (i.e. "Order #xxxx has shipped"), then on to the invoice
(invoice header contains an invoice number and the original order number) ?Hi Tracy,
This was my original design, but the problem is that there are situations
where there are multiple orders on an invoice, or other types of transaction
relationship's, and this approach just doesn't cut it. For example,
there are other types of transactions where I want to 1) make a demand
forecast for all stores, 2) generate a consolidated purchase order, 3) Get 1
or more invoices for that purchase order, 4) send the merchandise to the
stores in one or more shipments, etc... The approach doesn't work in
something like this :-(
Apparently with SAP (and I imagine other ERP's would be the same) you can
define relationships between the transactions in a very flexible way:
Transaction A goes to multiple transactions B, which go to multiple
transactions C, etc...
I found this design quite interesting, and clever. I have searched on the
internet to see if there is information on how this is designed, but
couldn't find yet anything...
Thanks,
Edgard
"Tracy McKibben" <tracy@.realsqlguy.com> escribi en el mensaje
news:ez2ta7SmGHA.4100@.TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Edgard L. Riba wrote:
> Can you not carry the original order number through to the shipping
> notifications (i.e. "Order #xxxx has shipped"), then on to the invoice
> (invoice header contains an invoice number and the original order number)
> ?|||Hi Tracy,
This was my original design, but the problem is that there are situations
where there are multiple orders on an invoice, or other types of transaction
relationship's, and this approach just doesn't cut it. For example,
there are other types of transactions where I want to 1) make a demand
forecast for all stores, 2) generate a consolidated purchase order, 3) Get 1
or more invoices for that purchase order, 4) send the merchandise to the
stores in one or more shipments, etc... The approach doesn't work in
something like this :-(
Apparently with SAP (and I imagine other ERP's would be the same) you can
define relationships between the transactions in a very flexible way:
Transaction A goes to multiple transactions B, which go to multiple
transactions C, etc...
I found this design quite interesting, and clever. I have searched on the
internet to see if there is information on how this is designed, but
couldn't find yet anything...
Thanks,
Edgard
"Tracy McKibben" <tracy@.realsqlguy.com> escribi en el mensaje
news:ez2ta7SmGHA.4100@.TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Edgard L. Riba wrote:
> Can you not carry the original order number through to the shipping
> notifications (i.e. "Order #xxxx has shipped"), then on to the invoice
> (invoice header contains an invoice number and the original order number)
> ?|||Hi,
I have an inventory application which also handles accounts payable, and
accounts receivables.
One of the problems I currently have is that I need to tie, in a flexible
way, different transaction types.
For example, I need to tie invoices to their "shipping-notifications", to
the original orders, etc...
A friend of mine was telling me about SAP and how there you can in a
flexible way define documents (or transactions) so that they can be tied up
to one or more documents of a given type.
I've been thinking about this, but I can't figure out how a design that
would allow this in a flexible way....
How does this work?
Thanks,
Edgard|||Edgard L. Riba wrote:
> Hi,
> I have an inventory application which also handles accounts payable, and
> accounts receivables.
> One of the problems I currently have is that I need to tie, in a flexible
> way, different transaction types.
> For example, I need to tie invoices to their "shipping-notifications", to
> the original orders, etc...
> A friend of mine was telling me about SAP and how there you can in a
> flexible way define documents (or transactions) so that they can be tied u
p
> to one or more documents of a given type.
> I've been thinking about this, but I can't figure out how a design that
> would allow this in a flexible way....
> How does this work?
> Thanks,
> Edgard
>
Can you not carry the original order number through to the shipping
notifications (i.e. "Order #xxxx has shipped"), then on to the invoice
(invoice header contains an invoice number and the original order number) ?