Calc Invoices to Pay?

[Stanley Barnett]

> There may not be "one list".  Just like there's not necessarily "one
true way" or "one true OS".

Agreed, see below...


> If two sets of invoices can result in the same sum as the single
payment, which list do you want 
> presented?

Simple put up a messagebox that informs the user that there are multiple
combinations and either reject all of them, or offer to print all the
combinations.  As I have already stated, a human will have final say,
but a suggestion list would be very helpful and useful 99% of the time
in our case.  Using your methodology, I could quickly determine that a
call to the customer is necessary to resolve it. 

I agree with a lot of what you are saying, and I totally agree that it
is unwise for the system to automatically process all payments using
this routine, but maybe not, after reviewing the patent for such a
process.  

I spent an hour trying to manually calculate the correct invoices that
totals to the check and I gave up.  There were no duplicate totals.
This is not the first time I've run into this problem and a little
routine that can identify the only set, identify multiple sets, or
cannot find a set would be very helpful and time saving.  After all,
computers are very good at this kind of stuff...

Thanks,
Stanley Barnett  -  stanley at stanlyn.com
Stan-Lyn & Associates, Inc.  -  http://www.StanLyn.com
Office: (859) 402-8165  -  Cell: (606) 568-5412

-----Original Message-----
From: filepro-list-bounces+stanley=stanlyn.com at lists.celestial.com
[mailto:filepro-list-bounces+stanley=stanlyn.com at lists.celestial.com] On
Behalf Of Fairlight
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 12:20 PM
To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
Subject: Re: Calc Invoices to Pay?

With neither thought nor caution, Stanley Barnett blurted:
> > Yeah, but if you have a pool of 35 invoices that are unpaid and get 
> > a
> lump sum payment of $1074.37,
> > the way I understand it you're looking to automatically find the
> combination of invoices that equals
> > that amount and flag them paid.
> 
> YES, but instead of flagging them as paid, I just want the list and 
> then our people will verify and if it makes sense to do so they will 
> manually apply the payment to the list.  I totally agree that the 
> program should not be the poster.

Okay, I'll try again...

There may not be "one list".  Just like there's not necessarily "one
true way" or "one true OS".

If two sets of invoices can result in the same sum as the single
payment, which list do you want presented?  That in itself is a
logistical problem.

Maybe I'm just looking at it the way I usually do--I want a robust
solution that will work no matter how simple or complex the data thrown
at it.  You may have 5 invoices.  That would be simpler to solve,
although it may or may not decrease the chances of multiple
solutions--all you need is -one- pair of invoices in the same amount and
you're S.O.L.  But I'm extrapolating out to something (given the sums
you cited) where you might be looking at 20+, not just 5.

In both cases, a single pair of matching invoices will still throw a
wrench in the works.  So your odds of this working correctly are already
slim enough if there are -any- recurring payments or duplicate orders,
for instance.  But those odds go up as the number of potential
collisions increases due to the number of invoices increasing.

And that just accounts for matching invoices in the same amount.  That
doesn't count permutations where different sums add up to the same
sub-part of the whole sum.  That's further complexity.

It's like multiverse theory; at every branching point, a whole new
"correct" universe (list of invoices in this case) is generated.  Now
which of those "universes" is the "real" one to be presented to the
observer, even if there's a human operator reviewing it?  And there's
the practical problem.  It's not that there are no algorithms available,
it's that there is no guarantee of non-multiple solutions.

mark->
_______________________________________________
Filepro-list mailing list
Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list