Chapter 5: Sales and Collections Business process

access controls

Limit who can use and change records in the system; for example, passwords control who can use an application.

accounts receivable

Monies owed by customers for prior sales of goods or services. In a data modeling context, accounts receivable are calculated as each customer’s sales less corresponding cash receipts.

agents

The people or organizations, such as customers or salespeople, who participate in business events.

application controls

Specific to a subsystem or an application to ensure the validity, completeness, and accuracy of the transaction.

cash

The organization’s monies in bank or related accounts. The instances of the class are individual accounts. This is considered a resource.

cash receipts

Record receipts of cash from external agents (e.g., customers) and the corresponding deposit of those receipts into cash accounts. This is considered an event.

choreography

The science of examining raw data (now often Big Data), removing excess noise from the dataset, and organizing the data with the purpose of drawing conclusions for decision making.

collaboration

A BPMN model showing two participant pools and the interactions between them within a process.

customer

The external agent in the sales and collection process.

error event

An intermediate event in a BPMN model showing processing for exceptions to the normal process flow.

events

(UML) Classes that model the organization’s transactions, usually affecting the organization’s resources, such as sales and cash receipts; (BPMN) important occurrences that affect the flow of activities in a business process, including start, intermediate, and end events.

one-to-many relationship

Exists when instances of one class are related to multiple instances of another class. For example, a customer can participate in many sales, but each sale involves only one customer.

orchestration

In BPMN, the sequence of activities within one pool.

product

Class representing the organization’s goods held for sale—that is, the organization’s inventory. This is considered a resource.

quote

Description of the products and/or services to be provided to a customer if ordered.

REA

Resource-event-agent framework for modeling business processes, originally developed by William McCarthy.

resources

Those things that have economic value to a firm, such as cash and products.

sales

Events documenting the transfer of goods or services to customers and the corresponding recognition of revenue for the organization.

sales order

Event documenting commitments by customers to purchase products. The sales order event precedes the economic event (sale).

subprocess

Represent a series of process steps that are hidden from view in BPMN. The use of subprocesses in modeling helps reduce complexity.

type image

Class that represents management information (such as categorizations, policies, and guidelines) to help manage a business process. Type image often allows process information to be summarized by category.