Generic OrderBillingStatus business object

The generic OrderBillingStatus business object, which is one of the generic business objects used by the Order Status collaboration template, is independent of the other status objects. It is used to capture the state of an invoice or billing document associated with a sales order whenever that state changes.

For example, the creation of an invoice triggers the creation of a corresponding OrderBillingStatus business object with a status of "Not billed". Sending an invoice to bill for partial shipment of an order triggers creation of a new OrderBillingStatus business object, this time with a status of "Partially Billed". Sending the final invoice to bill for the fully shipped order triggers creation of the final OrderBillingStatus business object, with a status of "Fully Billed".

Business object structure

The OrderBillingStatus business object is hierarchical. One of its attributes references the OrderBillingStatusLine child business object, which contains billing status information about a line item in the associated a sales order.

Each OrderBillingStatus business object matches the structure of its associated sales order. If the sales order has two line items, OrderBillingStatus has a header and two OrderBillingStatusLine business objects. Even if the triggering event reflects a change of billing status for only one line item, OrderBillingStatus references separate child business objects for each line item in the sales order.

For example, assume a sales order has two line items, only one of which has been delivered. Sending the invoice for the shipped line item triggers creation of an OrderBillingStatus business object with two OrderBillingStatusLine business objects. Only one of the child business objects contains the change in billing status. The other child business object contains no information specific to the current triggering event. A summary billing status for the entire order is stored in the OrderBillingStatus header object.

OrderBillingStatus: Reporting a summary status

OrderBillingStatus contains such header information as the identifiers of the order and its associated customer and purchase order, the reason for the order, and the person who last changed the order as well as the date of the change. In addition, it contains the BillingStatusHeader attribute, which summarizes the billing status of all line items in the order. The values of this attribute might include "Not Billed", "Partially Billed", and "Fully Billed"

OrderBillingStatusLine: Reporting line item status changes

OrderBillingStatusLine contains such line item information as the identifiers of the sales order line item and its associated item and billing document, and the person who last changed the line item as well as the date of the change. It also uses three attributes to contain the billing status of the line item, as explained in Table 1.

Table 1: Status attributes in the OrderBillingStatusLine business object

Business object attributes
Attribute Value Reported
LineItemBillingStatus The status of the billing document for the line item; for example, values might include "Not Billed", "Partially Billed", and "Fully Billed"
AccountingStatusLine Whether the invoice for the line item has been released to the accounting department; for example, values might include "Not Released", "Partially Released", and "Fully Released"
PaidStatusLine Whether the billing document for the order line item has been paid; for example, values might include "Not Paid", "Partially Paid", and "Fully Paid"

Often the items represented by a single sales order ship at different times. Sometimes the shipments represent separate line items and sometimes the items in a single line item are delivered in partial shipments. Every invoice generated for a shipment or partial shipment of a sales order triggers creation of an OrderBillingStatus business object.

The generic OrderBillingStatus business object reports status changes even when the relationship between the sales order and its billing documents is complex. For example, it can report billing status changes during the following operations:

For information on the business object's capability to handle complex sales orders, such as a single sales order with multiple billing documents, see the generic OrderDeliveryStatus business object.

Supported verbs

OrderBillingStatus supports the following verbs:

Examining the object

To examine the attributes of the generic OrderBillingStatus business object, use System Manager or Process Designer Express.

Related References

Copyright IBM Corp. 1997, 2004