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Sales orders

A customer's confirmed order for goods or service, which you then ship and invoice from the same page.

A sales order is a customer's confirmed order for something other than a bulk delivery: a tank set, a batch of cylinders, an appliance, parts or a service call. You confirm it, ship what it lists and invoice it, and the order keeps count of how much has gone out and how much has been billed. A bulk propane delivery never needs a sales order; its ticket is written straight onto an invoice (see Deliveries).

How to enter an order when a customer calls one in

  1. Go to Sales → Orders and click Add Sales Order. An order also appears on its own when a customer accepts a quote.
  2. Choose the Customer and the Customer Location the order is for, and enter their reference under Customer PO Number if they gave one.
  3. Set the Requested Date the customer asked for and, once you know it, the Promised Date. Choose the Sales Person and the Currency, and the Shipping Location, the yard or warehouse the goods leave from.
  4. Save, then add a line for each item: choose the item, a Short Description, the Quantity and the Method:
    • Pull from Inventory takes it from stock you hold.
    • Purchase to Order means you buy it from a supplier for this order.
    • Make to Order belongs to manufacturing and has no use in a propane office.
  5. Check the Unit Price. It comes from the customer's price list and your pricing rules. Under Tax & Additional Costs you can set a Tax Percent, an Add-On Cost, a Non-Taxable Add-On Cost, a Shipping Cost and a Promised Date for the one line.

A line can also be a Service (labor such as a leak check or an appliance hookup, which is never shipped), a Comment (text only) or a Fixed Asset.

If a sales rule matches a line, AimRack either refuses the line or warns you and asks you to acknowledge before it saves.

How to set billing and delivery details when they differ from the customer's defaults

  • The order's payment section holds the Invoice Customer, Invoice Location, Invoice Contact and Payment Term, filled from the customer's record.
  • The shipment section holds the Shipment Location, Shipping Method, Shipping Cost, Requested Date, Promised Date, Shipment Date and Tracking Number. Turn on Drop Shipment when the supplier sends the goods straight to the customer, and choose the Customer and Location they go to.

How to confirm an order when the details are right

  1. Click Confirm. It is available while the order is a Draft and has at least one line.
  2. Under Send Via, choose Email to send the customer the order document, picking the contact and anyone to copy under CC, or None to confirm without sending.
  3. Confirm. AimRack checks every line against your sales rules once more, attaches the order document, records today as the order date if none was set, and moves the order on from Draft.

A confirmed order's status says what is left to do: To Ship and Invoice, To Ship (billed but not yet sent), To Invoice (sent but not yet billed) or Completed. Service and comment lines never hold an order in To Ship.

How to ship and invoice an order when the goods go out

  1. Click Ship to create a shipment that lists the order's lines; post the shipment when the goods leave. Once an order has shipments, the button becomes a Shipments menu listing each one, with New Shipment for the next.
  2. Click Invoice to open a new sales invoice filled from the order; post it to bill the customer. The Invoices menu lists the invoices already made, with New Invoice for the next.
  3. As each shipment and invoice is posted, the lines record the quantity sent and the quantity invoiced, and the order moves to To Invoice, To Ship or Completed on its own.

Any returns raised against the order are listed under the RMAs menu; see Returns.

How to change or stop an order when plans change

  • Reopen puts a confirmed order back to Draft so you can edit it.
  • Cancel stops an order that is not yet cancelled, closed or completed. The window lists any jobs linked to the order; with none, choose Cancel SO.
  • Delete Sales Order, in the menu beside the order number, removes an order that is still editable.
  • Preview then PDF opens the order document; Export Lines to CSV downloads its lines.

Where this fits