Business-documents in openTRANS© 2.0

openTRANS© 2.0 is a XML-based standard for electronic exchange of business documents. The technically wording is transaction. Hence openTRANS© 2.0 is a transactionstandard to support data exchange in the field of business-to-business. In contradiction e.g. BMEcat© 2005is a standard for the electronic exchange of product-catalogs. Both openTRANS© and BMEcat© are developed in close cooperation and have the same structure.

In openTRANS© 2.0 the following business documents are specified:

• RFQ (Request For Quotation)
• QUOTATION
• ORDER
• ORDERCHANGE
• ORDERRESPONSE
• DISPATCHNOTIFICATION
• RECEIPTACKNOWLEDGEMENT
• INVOICE
• INVOICELIST
• REMITTANCEADVICE

With the help of the electronic documents the processes between partners can be heavily simlified. One example for such a process is shown below:

Supplier -- BMECAT --> Buyer (buyer gets a catalog with orderable products)

Supplier <-- ORDER -- Buyer (buyer orders products)

Supplier -- ORDERRESPONSE --> Buyer (supplier confirms receipt of the order)

Supplier -- DISPATCHNOTIFICATION --> Buyer (supplier sends the products and the buyer gets a correspnding dispatchnotification)

Supplier <-- RECEIPTACKNOWLEDGEMENT -- Buyer (buyer confirms the arrival via a receiptacknowledgement)

Supplier -- INVOICE --> Buyer (supplier sends the invoice to buyer)

Supplier <-- REMITTANCEADVICE -- Buyer (Buyer pays and Supplier gets a remittanceadivce)

openTRANS© 2.0 Structure

openTRANS© 2.0-documents consists of three logical areas - header, item-list and summary. This structure is tried and trusted since version 1.0 and is shortly present here.

HEADER (Bsp.: INVOICE_HEADER)

The header describes all general information which is related to the whole document. This includes e.g. addresses of the parties and contract-informations. The header is quite similar for all openTRANS© 2.0 documents.

ITEM_LIST (Bsp.: INVOICE_ITEM_LIST)

The openTRANS© 2.0 item-level shows the relevant information for products, order-contents, position for supply or invoices in an invoice-list-document. Additionally values which are set on default on header-level often can be overwritten on item-level.

SUMMARY (Bsp.: INVOICE_SUMMARY)

The summary is the closing of each document. Here you can find redundant information which is aggregated of the values on item-level. With the help of the summary you can do rechecks and sometimes (like for invoices) this area is required by law.

Changes in openTRANS© 2.0

Beside numerous detail-improvements we implemented many new general requirements in openTRANS© 2.0. Here you can find the most significant changes and extensions:

• revision of invoice for new requirements by law
• support of processes with electronic signature
• extension of picemodels, especially mulitlevel surcharges and discounts
• better support for scenariosincluding intermediates, e.g. on marketplaces or with central regulators
• extend of the productmodel to better represent features and components (product configurations)
• two new business documents, INVOICELIST and REMITTANCEADVICE
• basic compatibility to BMEcat© 2005 (same definition for fields in both standards)

Downward compatibility zu openTRANS© 1.0

openTRANS© 2.0 is not downward compatible to openTRANS© 1.0 but similar in the structure. Most elements of version 1.0 are reused in version 2.0. Some of them now have new sub-elements or new definitions. It should not be too complex to adapt software-systems or to create converters for 1.0-2.0 conversion.

Compatibility to BMEcat©

openTRANS© 2.0 business documents are compatible to BMEcat© 2005 catalogs meaning identical element(-definitions), rules and structures.This simlifies the usage of the data and software-systems using both standards.Due to the asynchronious development-cycles of both standards we have some exceptions of differences of element-structures (like in PARTY). In this case we anticipated some future changes coming in the next BMEcat© version.

Authors: Volker Schmitz, Nico Weiner