Comment 50 for bug 1160365

On 04/09/2013 01:19 AM, Raphaël Valyi - http://www.akretion.com wrote:
> 1) as Joël said, we need two keys because we absolutely need to be
> able to consolidate business documents by companies (not just by
> contacts). I also want to be able to compare my purchase prices
> by supplier, not by supplier contact (unless I really want to)...

That's probably the biggest misunderstanding and the reason why we are
not aligned with the best solution.

If you read carefully the proposition of Olivier:

  - We do not plan to allow invoicing to contacts (in the meaning of
    the person who purchased, or a contact person)
  - We allow invoicing ONLY on "Valid Invoicing Entities"

Be sure you understood the two lines above as it's the biggest
misunderstanding in all our discussions.

That's what Olivier calls the valid level of granularity for invoicing
operations.

With the default configuration:

  - The "Valid Invoicing Entity" is the company itself (Camptocamp),
    not the person (Joël, Camptocamp)
  - So, All invoices will be entitled to Camptocamp, not Joël of
    Camptocamp in the default configuration. Whether it comes from
    a sale order or a manual invoice, the behaviour must be the same.
    Invoices are only entitled to Camptocamp by default.

The great improvement with the v7 approach is that we are also able to
manage hierarchies of partners. (we had hierarchies in v6.1, but it was
not used anywhere, so not useful at all)

So, if you want to define hierarchies of companies:

  - Camptocamp Group [is company]
      - Camptocamp Switzerland [is company]
          - Joël
      - Camptocamp France [is company]
          - Marc
          - Cécile, Accounting Department

With Olivier's proposition, by default, OpenERP allows invcoing to C2C
Group, C2C Switzerland, C2C France. Not to the 3 others contacts. This
is the expected behaviour.

But, if the user wants (only if he explicitly configure OpenERP to allow
it), he can also say that "Accounting Department" is a "Valid Invoicing
Entity" by setting it's address type to 'Invoicing'. (which is not the
default).

In this case, we think that the "Valid Invoicing Entity" is the right
level of granularity for most reporting.

Please note also that there is usually only one "Valid Invoicing Entity"
per company. So all invoices to Camptocamp France will be entitled to
"Camptocamp France, Accounting Departement".

You will not have problems of several lines in your group_by reports,
unless you manually decide to have two "Valid Invoicing Entities" for
the same company AND you create a manual invoice for the other. (which
is a rare situation and, if you do so, you probably expect this level of
granularity in your invoices and invoice reports)

Several notes to answer others confusions:

  - We do agree that adding a partner_id field on the object for the
    legal entity (not on the view) linking to the main company is a
    good improvement. It's even in our proposition. (read Olivier's
    proposal)

  - But for the future version because: according to my explanation
    above, the "Valid Invoicing Entity" is the right level of
    granularity AND we prefer to respect our strict policies for stable
    versions (do not break the schema) --> and this can be easily done
    by another module if you think it's mandatory.

  - v7 improves the partner model because, compared to v6.1, it
    perfectly handles all hierarchies. (search on C2C, you get all
    contacts (child_of), clean definition of Invoicing Address)

  - Olivier's proposition works with base_contact

  - There are still bugs in Olivier's implementation. (according to
    Joël, I did not tested) Olivier is on holliday today so I guess he
    tried to deliver something quickly yesterday, before leaving.

Hope it clarifies a bit,

--
Fabien Pinckaers
CEO OpenERP
Chaussée de Namur 40
B-1367 Grand-Rosière
Belgium
Phone: +32.81.81.37.00
Fax: +32.81.73.35.01
Web: http://openerp.com