Two facts: the promise and the invoice

Order to cash is one flow wearing three document types. This star keeps two facts, the promise and the invoice, joins them through deliveries, and shares its material dimension with the materials module so the 601 row ties.

RuleModel the flow as two facts, the promise and the invoice, with deliveries as the join between them and conditions landed beside the billing lines.

Nevermodel every document type as its own star. Orders, deliveries, and billing are one flow; separate them and every question becomes a reconciliation.

Two red facts, five teal dimensions, the material dimension shared with the materials module. Deliveries join the two facts through the document flow.

◆ The two factsthe promise and the money.

Fact	Grain	Carries
fct_order_line	one row per order line	Customer, material, quantities ordered and delivered, promise dates, rejection reason, the open flag.
fct_billing_line	one row per billing line	Billing type, all three dates, net value, the delivery and order references, cancellation pairing.

The backlog is the first fact filtered open; the register is the second grouped by type; the due list is deliveries joined to billing and found wanting; the conditions land beside the billing lines.

◆ One flow, one grain disciplinethe reconciliation that never starts.

Order-to-cash questions are joins, not reconciliations, when the facts share keys: cycle times, unbilled gaps, and backlog burn-down all read straight. The materials star shares the material dimension, which is how the 601 row ties across modules.

Use case

Problem

Each document type grows its own extract, questions spanning the flow become reconciliation projects, and the material master exists three times.

What we build

Two facts on shared dimensions with deliveries as the join: the whole flow queryable at line grain, conditions beside the money.

What you get

Order-to-cash as one model: backlog, shipping, billing, and pricing answering from the same keys, tied to the materials module.

Want the whole flow on one set of keys?

We build the two-fact star and the delivery join.

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Terms on this page

SAP: The vendor. Systems, Applications, and Products in data processing.
HANA: SAP’s in-memory database, the platform S/4 runs on.
SD: Sales and Distribution, the order-to-cash module.
VBAP: The order line table behind the first fact.
VBRP: The billing line table behind the second.
document flow: The chain joining the facts through deliveries.
shared dimension: One material master, used by both modules.