FW: Small business invoice and PO formats

[Stefano POGLIANI <stefano.pogliani@sun.com>]

I think that this input is a good one for the TA document.
/Stefano

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Todd Boyle [mailto:tboyle@rosehill.net] 
> Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 8:15 PM
> To: ebxml-core@lists.ebxml.org
> Subject: Small business invoice and PO formats
> 
> 
> Monday, Simon Nicholson of Sun gave a presentation of ebXML 
> to the Seattle XML SIG.   A question was raised by Charlie Hoffman, 
> one of the authors of the AICPA's XBRL schemas, whether ebXML will 
> publish or recommend any standard XML format for the Invoice or 
> Purchase Order.   The answer was negative --is that correct?  
> 
> Hoffman argued quite effectively that this failure may raise the
> bar for small business, making the economics of ebXML similar to EDI.
> 
> I have always been baffled that ebXML will define such a variety of
> choreographies and BPs with admirable features, spanning time and
> multiple parties, etc. but not enable the lowly PO and Invoice. For
> example,  http://lists.ebxml.org/archives/ebxml/200006/msg00065.html
> 
> What will be the absolute simplest, plain and easy way for small business
> to interact with trading partners using ebXML?  
> 
> Please tell us *the simplest way* to begin understanding ebXML 
> exchanges.   Will they in every case, require the full round
> of dialogue with reg reps, composing and exchange of TPAs, etc? 
> 
> Small business is willing to do whatever they're told, by bigger
> trading partners-- they are willing and able to implement XML 
> interfaces.   But many of them cannot afford a whole new set of
> XML applications and parsers infrastructure, the middleware server,
> and presumably the Operating System upgrades that go along with it.
> 
> All these new software will be the opening rounds of a series of
> upgrades which will screw up the rest of their software.
> 
> Many small businesses are fully capable of forming valid XML documents 
> and implementing HTTP or SOAP interfaces.  SMBs are telling me they 
> want to manually view and approve documents crossing their borders
> before they post them anyway.  They haven't quite hoisted in yet, why
> they need multi-step choreographies, dualities, etc.  I believe they 
> will be quite receptive to an ebXML that they can try out cheaply and 
> incrementally starting with a few POs and particularly, invoices 
> which speed their collection cycle.
> 
> Basic ebXML exchanges must not require a whole new set of applications
>  and OS upgrades from certain dominant US software vendors.  The 
> ability to participate in basic ebXML with existing linux tools 
> (e.g. Apache, java, python, perl, etc.) and a choice of simple, 
> standard invoices and POs are  an important litmus test for main street.
> 
> Was the BASDA PO and Invoice not a great thing?  Wasn't OAGIS a great
> thing? 
> 
> Maybe SMBs need to go down the street and form a separate organization,
> to choose a few hundred words of vocabulary and couple dozen document
> formats from ebXML's core, to escape from the infinite permutations 
> of the full ebXML design.  This would be a customer-side organization,
> 
> Todd Boyle CPA
> Webledgers
> www.gldialtone.com
> 
> 
>   
>