Status

What is the status field?

There are two primary representations of documents in rating: DRAFT and FINALIZED. This distinction is based on the timeframe the document covers relative to the rating date. For example, if an invoice covered the first month of the year and the rating date was the last month of the year this invoice would have a status of FINALIZED. If the rating date was prior to or during the coverage period it would be labeled DRAFT.

Additionally, there is the VOID status which represents that a rated document should be ignored. An object will only move from FINALIZED to VOID and should not move back.

Why is the status field important?

The status dictates how a rated document should be treated. Specifically, finalized documents no longer have their inputs or outputs changed once persisted. For example, if a contract’s pricing changed, the associated finalized documents would not. Alternatively, if the same situation occurred with a draft document, the next scheduled rating should update it. This mechanism is important, since finalized invoices are used for revenue recognition and accounts receivable. If these documents could change without controls it would be a compliance disaster. The ability for draft documents to be constantly regenerated is also a boon. This gives stakeholders visibility into the current state of revenue, since each scheduled rating will take into account new events, customers and contracts.

As mentioned above, the VOID status exists to ignore documents. This is required since mistakes are unavoidable. Deleting bad documents is also a choice, but this destroys the audit trail. Labeling errant invoices, line items and rated events with VOID is a best practice when correcting upstream inputs.

How is the status field modeled?

This field can be found on every type of rated document. FINALIZED and DRAFT are auto generated based on the timeframe. The VOID status must be manually set when necessary.