Your Order to Cash - Billing & Invoicing Data Template

The Activity Name describes a specific step or task within the billing process, such as 'Invoice Generated', 'Invoice Sent to Customer', or 'Payment Applied To Invoice'. Each event in the process log is associated with an activity, forming the sequence of steps that make up the process flow.

Analyzing the sequence of activities is the core of process mining. It reveals the actual paths invoices take, highlighting standard procedures, deviations, rework loops, and bottlenecks. Understanding which activities occur, in what order, and how frequently is fundamental to process discovery, conformance checking, and identifying opportunities for improvement.

It defines the steps in the process, enabling the visualization and analysis of the invoice journey from creation to closure.

Often derived from document status changes, transaction codes, or specific event logs within the source system.

Event Time, or timestamp, records the exact date and time that an activity was executed or a status change occurred. This temporal data is critical for understanding the timing and duration of process steps.

In analysis, Event Time is used to order activities chronologically, calculating the time spent between steps, the duration of activities, and the total end-to-end cycle time of each case. It is the basis for identifying bottlenecks, measuring performance against service level agreements, and analyzing trends over time. Without accurate timestamps, performance and duration analysis is impossible.

This timestamp is crucial for calculating all time-based metrics, such as cycle times and durations, which are essential for identifying bottlenecks.

Usually found alongside activity or status fields in transaction logs, change documents, or document header and item tables.

The Invoice ID is a unique alphanumeric code assigned to each invoice generated. It acts as the central key that links all related activities, from creation and approval to payment and closure, into a single process instance or case.

In process mining analysis, the Invoice ID is essential for reconstructing the end-to-end journey of every invoice. It allows analysts to visualize process flows, identify variations, and calculate case-level metrics like cycle time. Filtering by specific Invoice IDs can also help in deep-diving into problematic cases to understand root causes of delays or errors.

This is the unique key for tracking an invoice's entire lifecycle, making it the essential foundation for any billing process analysis.

Typically found in the header table of billing or invoice documents in the source ERP or financial system.

This attribute records the date and time of the most recent data extraction or refresh. It reflects the freshness of the data being analyzed.

In any process mining project, knowing the recency of the data is crucial for reporting and analysis. This attribute helps users understand the time period covered by the analysis and ensures that decisions are based on up-to-date information. It is also vital for monitoring data pipelines and ensuring that the data extraction processes are running as expected.

It indicates the freshness of the data, ensuring that analysis and decisions are based on the most current information available.

This timestamp is typically generated and added to the dataset during the data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) process.

This attribute identifies the originating business application or system where the event data was generated, such as an ERP, CRM, or a custom billing platform. In environments with multiple integrated systems, this field helps distinguish between data sources.

Understanding the source system is important for data validation, governance, and troubleshooting. When data from multiple systems is combined, this attribute provides context and helps explain potential differences in data granularity or terminology. It also supports a more detailed analysis of process variations that may be driven by the system used for a particular transaction.

It provides crucial context for data origin, which is important for data validation and for analyzing processes that span multiple systems.

This information may be stored as a field in the source tables or added during the data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) process.

The Currency attribute specifies the unit of money for the Invoice Amount. It provides the necessary context for interpreting financial values, especially in global organizations that transact in multiple currencies.

In analysis, the Currency field is essential for correctly aggregating and comparing financial data. Before calculating total values or comparing invoice amounts across different regions, all values must be converted to a common currency. This attribute is critical for accurate financial reporting and for segmenting process performance by currency or region.

It provides essential context for all financial values, ensuring accurate monetary analysis and reporting, especially in multi-national operations.

Located in the header of the invoice or billing document table, usually alongside the amount fields.

This attribute contains the legal or trading name of the customer being billed. It provides a human-readable identifier for the business partner involved in the transaction.

Analyzing the process by Customer Name helps identify if certain customers are associated with process deviations, payment delays, or disputes. This can inform customer relationship management strategies and lead to tailored communication or process adjustments for specific accounts. It also allows for performance benchmarking across different customer segments.

It allows for customer-centric analysis, helping to identify patterns, delays, or issues specific to certain customers or customer groups.

Sourced from the customer master data and linked to the invoice document via a customer ID.

The Invoice Amount represents the total financial value that a customer is expected to pay. This is a key financial metric associated with each invoice case.

This attribute is fundamental for financial analysis within process mining. It allows for the segmentation of invoices into value-based categories, such as high-value versus low-value, to see if they follow different process paths or have different cycle times. It is also used to calculate key performance indicators like Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and to analyze the financial impact of process inefficiencies, such as delays in collecting payments on large invoices.

It enables financial impact analysis, allowing you to prioritize issues based on monetary value and understand how different invoice values affect the process.

Typically located in the header of the invoice or billing document table in the source financial system.

The Invoice Status indicates the current state of an invoice within the overall process. It provides a snapshot of where the invoice is at any given time, for example, if it's pending approval, awaiting payment, paid in full, or cancelled.

This attribute is useful for creating a high-level overview of the current workload and financial position. Dashboards often use this field to show the distribution of invoices by status, such as the total value of open or overdue invoices. In process mining, analyzing the transitions between statuses can provide a simplified, high-level view of the process flow.

It provides a quick snapshot of an invoice's position in the process, which is useful for operational dashboards and high-level status tracking.

This is a standard field in the header of most invoice or billing document tables.

The Payment Due Date is a critical date calculated based on the invoice date and the agreed-upon payment terms. It sets the deadline for receiving payment without the invoice becoming overdue.

This attribute is essential for monitoring collections performance and managing cash flow. It is used to calculate key metrics like Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and On-Time Payment Rate. By comparing the actual payment date to the due date, businesses can identify late payments, analyze payment behavior of different customers, and assess the effectiveness of their collections strategies.

This date is the baseline for measuring payment performance, calculating DSO, and identifying overdue invoices, which directly impacts cash flow.

Found in the invoice header data. It may be entered directly or calculated from the invoice date and payment terms.

This attribute identifies the person or automated system agent who performed a given task in the process. This could be the creator of the invoice, the approver, or the person who applied the payment.

Analyzing activities by user helps in understanding workload distribution, individual performance, and training needs. It can highlight which users or teams are highly efficient and which may require additional support. Furthermore, it is crucial for compliance and audit purposes to trace who performed critical actions within the process.

It provides visibility into resource performance and workload, enabling analysis of team efficiency and identification of training opportunities.

Typically found in change logs or document history tables, associated with each recorded event or transaction.

Customer Region specifies the geographical location of the customer. This can be defined at various levels, such as country, state, or a custom-defined sales region.

This is a powerful attribute for segmentation. Analyzing the billing process by region can highlight geographical variations in performance, such as differences in payment times, dispute rates, or process compliance. These insights can inform region-specific strategies for collections and customer service, and help identify best practices in high-performing regions that can be replicated elsewhere.

It enables geographical analysis, revealing regional differences in payment behavior, process efficiency, and compliance.

Derived from the customer master data, often based on the customer's address.

IsRework is a boolean flag that is true if an invoice has undergone one or more rework loops. Rework includes activities that correct errors or repeat a step that should ideally only be done once, such as re-submitting an invoice for approval after it was rejected.

This attribute directly measures process inefficiency. By filtering for cases where IsRework is true, analysts can immediately isolate problematic invoices and investigate the root causes of the rework. Calculating the rework rate, which is the percentage of cases with rework, is a key KPI for measuring process quality and identifying opportunities to streamline operations and reduce wasted effort.

It directly flags process inefficiency, allowing for easy identification and analysis of cases that required extra, non-value-added work.

This attribute is typically not available in source systems and must be derived during data transformation by identifying sequences of activities that indicate rework.

This attribute identifies the specific internal entity within the company that issued the invoice or is responsible for the transaction. Examples include a company code, business unit, or sales organization.

Analyzing the process by Organizational Unit allows for internal benchmarking and performance comparison across different parts of the business. It helps to identify which business units are most efficient, which have the highest rework rates, or which struggle most with late payments. This is essential for holding units accountable and for standardizing processes across the enterprise.

It enables internal performance comparison between different business units, helping to identify best practices and areas for improvement.

This is a fundamental organizational data field found in the header of nearly all financial documents in an ERP system.

Payment Terms define the rules agreed upon between the seller and the buyer for the payment of an invoice. This includes the period of time allowed for payment and any discounts for early payment.

Analyzing the process by payment terms can reveal whether certain terms are associated with longer payment cycles or higher rates of late payments. This information can help businesses optimize their payment term strategy to improve cash flow. It also provides important context when investigating why certain invoices become overdue.

This attribute influences the payment due date and customer payment behavior, making it key to understanding and improving on-time payment rates.

Typically stored in both customer master data and on the individual invoice document header.

The Sales Order Number is a reference to the preceding document in the Order-to-Cash chain that triggered the creation of the invoice. It links the billing process back to the sales process.

This attribute is crucial for achieving a true end-to-end view of the Order-to-Cash process. By linking invoices back to sales orders, organizations can analyze the full lifecycle from customer order to final payment. This enables a more holistic analysis, helping to identify how issues in the sales or fulfillment process might impact billing and collections.

It links the billing process to the upstream sales process, enabling a complete end-to-end Order-to-Cash analysis.

This reference is typically stored in the invoice document header or line items, linking it to the sales document table.