doml

OK, I've scratched away at the database and I have two proposed methods of distinguishing between a service that has never been paid for and one that is being allowed to lapse. [1]. One - if the date and duedate of an invoice are the same, then this is the first invoice for a particular service, and therefore it is a new service. Two - if there is a an entry in the orders table where invoiceid = this invoice, then this the first invoice for this service. Which do you recommend? [1] You may wonder why - accountancy reasons. If the customer neither cancels nor pays then service is provided for a few more days, to give them time to get back on board. But if they still don't pay, then a service has been provided for which no payment has been made.

Thanks for the quick reply John. I tried to post a follow-up yesterday but it seems to have not turned up. I am still trying to figure out how best to find out whether a service has ever been live and paid for. Any hints? If the order has never been paid for does tblhosting stay as "pending" or can it also end up as "cancelled" if the user cancels it? There seems to be a one-to-one relationship between invoices orders and hosting. How can I find a previous invoice for the same hosting service?

Thanks for the quick reply. Still trying to put all the different elements together. If there is a customer with hosting paid on a monthly basis, there is, I assume, one invoice per month, and also one order per month, and one entry in tblhosting per month. How could I find a previous invoice for the same service? If I could do that then I would know whether or not a particular unpaid invoice is for a service that has previously been paid for or not. As for the tblhosting status - I assume pending means an order that has been placed but not paid for yet. Is there anyway that this will change to anything else except through a payment being made?

Is there such a thing as a complete and detailed description of the precise definitions of the various order and hosting statuses? I am trying to distinguish between orders / invoice items that are for services that have *never* been paid for and ones where the customer has stopped paying. There are various statuses available: tblinvoices: paid, unpaid, cancelled, refunded tblorders: active, fraud, cancelled, pending tblhosting: pending, active, suspended, terminated, cancelled, fraud Any hints here?