Comment 6 for bug 554194

I also know businesses that PO or SO don't need much invoices and Picks (stock moves).

Partners can agree that prices can be changed everyday. Seller of course is publishing the prices (fe, in web or on phone call with small negotiations) so Purchaser knows them but he doesn't waste a time to enter them into system. You can imagine order sent without prices but with clause "according to current day pricelist". In such case in current OpenERP functionality purchase operator would have some "average" referential prices which he doesn't mind. So then he receives invoices with prices which don't match PO.

The same could be with quantities. Partners can cooperate that they send order every day and they don't mind differencies in deliveries. Only matching of picking with invoice is important.

Lets divide it to cases:

SO:

Prices - If you sale you have to have pricelist up to date (no excuse) otherwise system doesn't work. And invoices match SO. This case doesn't exist.

Quantities - So you received order from customer. You have agreement with customer that if you send only part of order he will not complain. You both agree to not waste a time for order confirmation. In current OpenERP functionality such order hangs with some fulfilment percentage.

PO:

Prices - it is the case Ferdinand showed. Let say you agree with Seller that you sent order without any confirmation and Seller call you only if prices are different. When prices are lower than you ordered Seller will not call you. In current OpenERP functionality we can imagine that you should leave PO as not confirmed and you confirm it yet when Seller call or invoice arrive. But you don't have confirmed incoming Picking for warehouse worker in such case.

Quantities - It is not important for your business that you don't receive one or two products from 100 ordered. Or you receive less than you expect. (fe. you will not waste a time for confirming order when it would be lack of one kind of cake when you have 80 kinds on shelfs). In current OpenERP functionality order hangs.

So we can imagine real business that partners don't want to confirm prices or quantities.

However I don't think system should show us performance bar as Ferdinand suggested. I can agree that it can change but after particular order human acceptance. I mean when operator see that he has old order with price or quantity difference he should be able to decide "this order is fulfiled as in current state". And after such intervention (button click probably) order can show 100% or maybe something more meaningful. Maybe special state (like "exceptional done"). Principle is that Pick moves quantities have to be equal to invoice quantities otherwise button shouldn't work. So button should remove or decrease confirmed moves from pick lists.

All workflow (Procurement orders?) should be closed accordingly. And later on we can design reports showing what was different. Prices ordered versus invoiced, and quantities ordered versus picked. Fe Even when we agree with our customer that we can send less products than ordered to him without confirmation we should know how much sale we have lost.