I'd like to point out that this doesn't scale very well. ...

if ($po->status->name =~ /^(sent|pending|waiting|procratinating|delaye
+d)$/i) {
[download]

I'd rather write the above than call a bunch of methods, let alone write the methods in the first place. :-)

But you (well, I) wouldn't write individual accessor methods for all of those status names. Instead, write a predicate (a method that returns true or false) that describes what that combination of states means in terms of the behavior that a PurchaseOrder object exports, and in terms of the protocol that clients of PurchaseOrder expect to speak to it with. It's a lot easier to write unit tests that way, since you don't have to worry about arbitrary combinations of status bits. The valid combinations are hidden behind testable predicates. In fact, starting from predicates and working backwards to status values is one way to ensure that you don't have status values that you don't really need.

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