About the Standard Business Document

Each Standard Business Document (SBD) sent to Sovos consists of two parts: the Standard Business Document Header (SBDH) and the Sovos Document (SD).

The SBDH provides semantic information required for the routing, processing, and business domain context of the documents. The SD contains the actual invoice, which can be in one of these formats:

Sovos Canonical Invoice (SCI): A Sovos standard format created based on the Universal Business Language (UBL 2.1).
Sovos Local document: The Base64-encoded local format for a specific country or document. Optionally, it may include AdditionalData.

The following flowchart shows Sovos' SBD structure: Flowchart showing Sovos' SBD structure

In most cases, Sovos is responsible for mapping from the SCI Invoice layout (based on the UBL 2.1 schema) to other doc types such as credit note (CN), debit note (DN), and despatch advice (DEA). There are some exceptions that may require using other doc type schema structures (within the SovosCanonicalInvoice container) as input, as follows:

crn: CreditNote
dbn: DebitNote
dea: DespatchAdvice

Bundled and granular approaches

The business processes specified in the Standard Business Document Header (SBDH) determine the microservices that will be applied to the document and its routing. There are two distinct approaches based on the chosen business processes: a bundled approach and a granular approach.

The following diagram shows the available business processes and the difference between these approaches:

Flowchart showing the bundled and the granular approaches

Bundled approach

Use the bundled approach to specify "Default" as the business process in the SBDH. This causes the Sovos backend to apply a predefined set of microservices to the document. These microservices, necessary from a compliance perspective, vary by country and document.

Sample SBDH using the bundled approach:

<sbd:Scope>
	<sbd:Type>BusinessProcess</sbd:Type>
	<sbd:InstanceIdentifier/>
	<sbd:BusinessService>
			<sbd:BusinessServiceName>Default</sbd:BusinessServiceName>
	</sbd:BusinessService>
</sbd:Scope>

Note:

The default business process can be used when sending invoices in both the Sovos Canonical Invoice (SCI) and local formats.

Granular approach

When a customer specifies individual business processes, they're using the granular approach. In this scenario, the client application orchestrates the process, and Sovos applies only the microservices specified. For example, if a customer specifies "Mapping" or "Mapping" and "Signing", only those microservices will be applied. This is the opposite to the granular approach where, if a customer selects the "Default" business process for the same document, a broader set of microservices — including "Mapping", "Signing", and "Transmission" — will be applied.

Sample SBDH using the granular approach:

<sbd:Scope>
	<sbd:Type>BusinessProcess</sbd:Type>
	<sbd:InstanceIdentifier/>
	<sbd:BusinessService>
			<sbd:BusinessServiceName>Mapping</sbd:BusinessServiceName>
	</sbd:BusinessService>
</sbd:Scope>
<sbd:Scope>
	<sbd:Type>BusinessProcess</sbd:Type>
	<sbd:InstanceIdentifier/>
	<sbd:BusinessService>
			<sbd:BusinessServiceName>Signing</sbd:BusinessServiceName>
	</sbd:BusinessService>
</sbd:Scope>

Sovos Docs

About the Standard Business Document

Bundled and granular approaches

Bundled approach

Granular approach

sovos-footer