Karen,
We have a couple of scenarios. On almost all our invoices, we wait until the whole order has been shipped before invoicing. That way the freight charges are combined into one charge. Our customers have no problem with this because they do not get the invoice until they get the whole product. Kind of like using the product for weeks before paying for it. On the orders where we invoice separately, the accounting program cares for that. RBASE is not used there. We use RBASE for everything but the accounting. It is a reference. I place buttons on the forms so at any time the sales people can access multiple shipments and invoices if needed. As far as database design is concerned, would you prefer the shipdate left open until the order is complete with maybe a popup screen on the form that would alert the sales people if a partial shipment has been made? That way they are forced, so to speak, to look at the detail lines for more information when talking with the customer. Jim ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 17, 2009 8:51 AM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: database design for reports Nothing to add except that I will be eager to see how people handle this, too. If shipping charges are involved, then it's tough to keep items on just one invoice with different ship dates in the detail, because you lose the amount charged on each invoice. The shipping charge might be split on both, or only on one invoice .... So if a customer calls and asks a question it would be hard to recreate the actual invoice much less reprint the exact invoice that was sent out. However, you do want to associate the 2 invoices together as they were one "order". I struggle with this too with one of my clients (so far we keep on 1 invoice but don't like it) Karen
