Reusing obsolete products
We have a question about if unwanted/unused products can be renamed. We searched on this but couldn't find anything relevant.
This is what happened last time we tried it:
A client was invoiced for a service product called Blood Test. This invoice was finalised. A couple of weeks later, we rearranged some of our products and that product called Blood Test was renamed Enema (we then created a merchandise product for the blood test which was used for future invoices). Now, looking at the old invoice for the customer, it includes an item called Enema (the price stayed the same as originally invoiced for the blood test). Should this have happened?
An analogy is the food companies which regularly change names and/or pack sizes. If the old product is overwritten with the equivalent new product, will an old invoice for a customer now show the new details i.e. the wrong pack size? Do we need to create a whole new set of products each time these changes occur?
Regards, Mary.
Re: Reusing obsolete products
The issue isnt the renaming its the invoice template.
The template is using the product.name derived from the participation from the act.customerInvoiceitem for example
The solution I would imagine is to update the act.customerInvoiceitem and set the description to derive the product.name and save it there
Then you update the invoice templates to use the description field rather than product.name
That being said I probably wouldnt reuse items, because it will completely ruin your drilled down financial history reporting by product, even with the above change.
Re: Reusing obsolete products
Mary - it is probably worth noting that products (and everything else in OpenVPMS) are distinguished by their ID. You can happily have 5 customers called John Smith in the system - each will have a different ID. The system will not get confused but your staff might. [We have 152 Chan's in the system and I found 4 Chan,Wing Lee's - you can understand why the first question reception asks is 'what's your phone number'.]
Same with products - the system can happily handle multiple products with the same name.
One side effect of this is that changing a product's name simply changes its name - the product is identified by its id. Hence when you changed the name - it also changes on all the invoices.
Hence, if you really do want to change a product's name (say because it was spelt wrong) - go ahead. However, if you wish to obsolete the product and replace it by another then the proper approach is to de-active the product that is going obsolete and create a new one (perhaps a different name, perhaps with the same name, or perhaps a different name but the same 'printed name').
This way the historical data stays as it was - if you print an old invoice or look at an old entry in the medical records it will show the obsolete product - but you will not be able to call it up in a new invoice - because it has been deactivated.
Note that the problem of the supplier package size changing a different one. If they used to sell in dozen lots and now do it in 24's - no problem just change the package size on the suppliers tab. However, if it used to be a 1kg bag but it is now a 2kg bag then this is a new product and you need to do the 'deactivate the old, create a new' thing.
Regards, Tim G
Re: Reusing obsolete products
Thanks Ben and Tim,
Once the invoice has been finalised, shouldn't the name and description be fixed, just like the quantity and price are?
What I am used to with our previous accounting packages, is that once an invoice has been finalised (posted to ledgers), the name, quantity and amount of a product don't change. This keeps the historical financial information intact.You could change the product as much as you liked but the posted invoice item remains the same. That is, the record name or description that was entered at the time never changed. Changes to products were only applied to invoices entered in the future.
Can't a name for the invoice item be entered in the database (which then doesn't change), rather than a link (which can change)? I have also noticed that the product name in the patient medical record has changed. Again, shouldn't the medical record only be changed by a person, rather than a link?
Shouldn't the contents of a historical tax invoice never be able to be changed?
Regards, Mary.
Simon Slater
Registered Linux User #463789 @ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Reusing obsolete products
I think Mary has a good point. This also has implications for medication dispensing. What if there was a complication from incorrect dosing? How do you know that a medications name has not been subsequently altered? Is it fixed in the medical record?
Matt Y.
Re: Reusing obsolete products
Q1: Why cannot the name be held in the invoice when it is finalised?
The are various reasons for this:
The above are all design decisions. I think that the OpenVPMS designers made the correct ones.
Q2: Matt's dispensing error senario. To fully address this sort of senario one would need to also hold copies of the dispensing notes in the medical records, and probably (to prevent coverups) have the ability to finalise medical records entries so that notes and label text could not be altered.
I stand by my previous response: if the name is incorrect, change it; if the product has changed, then deactivate it and create a replacement.
Regards, Tim G
Re: Reusing obsolete products
I guess one issue it raises is the preservation of medical records. It is rightfully a concern if a medical record or parts of can be inadvertently altered in this manner. Or indeed altered at all. This is (in my mind) an essential requirement of an EMS.
It certainly needs to be considered in the future for OVPMS for medical records to become locked and unalterable after a period of time. This should include notes, medications, labels, etc.
I understand this does not address the problem listed above, but is just a general comment that flows from this conversation.
Cheers,
Adrian
Re: Reusing obsolete products
If we change the price of a product, the price of an historically invoiced product doesn't change. Why can't this be applied to the customer name and product name also? Are the product price and quantity handled sufficiently differently to the product name and the customer name that historical invoices cannot be made to remain unchanged?
Regards, Mary
Simon Slater
Registered Linux User #463789 @ http://linuxcounter.net
Re: Reusing obsolete products
The fixed and unit prices in an invoice can be changed after the product is selected, so these need to be stored with the invoice.
Everything else associated with an invoice is referenced, rather than copied. This includes customers, patients, products, clinicians, users, product types, templates, and the practice location.
It would be impractical to copy all of this for each invoice.
In general, don't reuse reference data, as it affects all of the historical records that reference it.
-Tim