Invoices (was Re: [xml-dev] XML's greatest cultural advantage overJSON)

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

On 4/9/13 9:08 AM, Stephen D Green wrote:
> :-) I walked into that one!
> How, then, would you envision the alternative, e.g. for invoices?

There are two rough answers:

1) Fiat standards.  Accounts payable departments have a long history of 
rejecting invoices that arrive in formats they don't like. 
Organizations that are large enough to inflict their standards and 
requirements on people they owe money to will do just that.  (See, for 
example, the earlier tax conversation.)

2) Local transformations.  Most invoices come with relationships that 
also need management, and it is rare that an invoice by itself triggers 
a payment.  If I had a billion invoices arrive, all different every 
time, I might be overwhelmed, but that is not usually reality.  I 
usually have some idea who the requesters are, the data is usually 
comprehensible, and matching the forms is typically not difficult.  It's 
not difficult to set up a recurring transformation from a form X likes 
to the form I like.

And yes, I know bureaucracies can't imagine #2, but as is obvious I have 
diminishing sympathy for their perception of efficiency.

And now I need to get back to work!

Thanks,
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/