Confusing Contract Status

The Contract Status field can be a bit confusing. We have the situation where for a current billing period for a sub it shows $0.00 approved this period when nothing has been submitted. On another project the status displays the declined amount from the prior month. It would be ideal if all of the status fields showed "pending submission" if a sub has not yet submitted an in invoice. If an invoice was declined in a prior month, that should not still show in the Contract Status for the current month.