Expanding the A/P Invoice

["George Sagen" <gsagen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yikes...

 

I have yet another client wanting to expand the A/P Invoice # from 10 to 15 digits. He has his reasons and is willing to invest, but wants to know what it would take. I told him I thought a programmer would want to take a week just analyzing the problem before giving a serious quote (client want's fixed bid). Has anybody had experience doing this? I'm interested in hearing how it went, what you encountered, etc. My client expressed his opinion that it seems like it should be easy and shouldn't take long. I related the following and want to know if I missed anything:

 

Table changes on any table that could store the A/P invoice #. (dozens?)

Code changes to any program that refers to the A/P invoice # in any fashion. (thousands of lines?)

Screen layout changes for panels that contain the A/P invoice #. (dozens)

Report layout changes. (dozens)

Testing. (weeks and weeks if you do it adequately)

Refitting each time they want to apply a BMR. (?????)

 

I'm really discouraging them from doing this, but they have many vendors--freight carriers in particular--that use long invoice #'s. They don't like the solution of putting in the last 9 digits followed by A, B, C,... for each duplicate, then putting all 15 digits in the description field. Far be it from me to tell folks how to spend their money, but my gut feel is the workaround is better. Any thoughts?

 

Geo.

 

 

George Sagen, CPIM, CNE

gsagen@primesourcetech.com

http://www.primesourcetech.com

PrimeSource Technologies, Inc.

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