erplain has a very flexible sales workflow. You can start the sales process by creating any of the following documents:
1. Estimate (or Quote)
2. Sales Order
3. Invoice
For more information about the Sales workflow, please refer to this article.
Creating a sales order
To create a Sales Order, go to the Menu 'Sales' > 'Sales Orders':
Then click on 'Create':
It is recommended to start by selecting the customer as erplain will display automatically the default values (price level, location, currency,...) from this customer:
If you need to create a new customer, click on the + button:
The document number will be automatically filled in. You can leave the default value or customize it: erplain will generate the next one using the same pattern. For example, if you enter "D00-ABC1", the next one will be "D00-ABC2".
Next: Fill in the information you need to create this transaction.
The External reference field is typically used for Purchase Order number but can be used for other purposes to identify this transaction.
Season is another way to categorize transactions, typically used to refer to time period.
Account representative can be used to track the sales of your sales team.
Generally used for B2C sales, check the option "Include taxes in unit price" if you want taxes to be included in the price of the product.
Adding products to the Sales order:
Next: Add the products to the transaction:
You can find detailed instructions to add products in this article.
Notes - Terms and Conditions - Attached files
You can then add Notes for your customers, update the Terms & Conditions, add Internal notes for you and your team or attach files for later reference.
Click on Save when you are done creating the estimate.
Next: add the products to the Sales Order. You can find detailed instructions to add products in this article.
You can then add Notes for your customers, update the Terms & Conditions, add Internal notes for you and your team or attach files for later reference.
PDF and email
Once you saved the Sales order, you can generate a PDF document by clicking on PDF.
You can then send it by email directly from erplain by clicking on the Action button then 'Send by email':
You can create email templates to avoid retyping the same information each time. You can find more information on this page: Email templates.
You can change your PDF Settings from the Setting Menu > Company Settings > PDF Settings. More information in this article: PDF settings.
Inventory
Creating a Sales Order will update your Available inventory. Your On-Hand inventory will only be updated when you create your Shipping Order(s). All the products included in Sales Orders but not yet in Shipping Orders will be Reserved.
For more information about the Sales workflow and the inventory update, please refer to this article.
Shipping Orders
All the products included in Shipping Orders will be removed from your On-Hand inventory, regardless of the status of the Shipping Order.
To create a Shipping Order, click on 'Create Shipping Order' directly from the Sales Order:
You can find more information about Shipping Orders in this article.
Remaining items
Once you have created your Sales Order, you can view the items not included in Shipping Orders (remaining items) directly in the Sales order itself:
Manage Invoicing
You can create one or multiple Invoices directly from your Sales Order. Simply click on 'Create invoice':
You can find more information about Invoices in this article.
Manage Backorders
The backorder feature allows you to create Purchase Orders automatically from the Sales Order. Either based on out-of-stock quantities to fulfill the order: Click on "Backorder", or simply by using the same quantities as the Sales Order: Click on "Create Purchase order".
You can find more information about Backorders in this article.
You can also transfer products from one stock location to another to fulfill the order, in this case, click on "Create stock movement".
The status of the Sales Order
The status of the Sales Order can be "Active", "Completed Manually", "Completed Automatically" or "Cancelled". Once created, the status of the Sales Order is set to "Active". It will be 'Completed' after these conditions are met:
- Include all the products from the Sales Order in one or multiple Shipping Orders. And set the status of the Shipping Order(s) to 'Delivered'
- Invoice all the products from the Sales Order
- Invoice(s) from the Sales Order are 'Paid'
The Sales Order status will then be 'Completed Automatically':
You can also set the status of the Sales Order to 'Completed Manually' by clicking on 'Order completed'. This can be used if you don't intend to ship all the products from the Sales Order but still want to complete the Sales Order manually. In this case, your Available inventory will increase by the number of products you are not including in Shipping Orders. You won't be able to create invoices or manage payments once the order has been completed.
Important: Once the sales order has been manually completed, it will no longer be possible to create shipping orders, invoices or add payments to the corresponding invoices.
To do so, just click on 'Order Completed' from the Actions button. You can always re-open the order by clicking on 'Re-Activate' from the Actions button as well.
To cancel a Sales Order, click on the 'Cancel sales order':
Cancelling a sale order will cancel all shipping orders and invoices created from this sales order and will cancel all inventory updates.
The Sales Order dashboard
Once you click on the Sales Order Menu, you will see the list of your Sales Orders:
For each sales order, you will find progress indicators based on shipping orders, invoices and payments created from this sales order. Put your mouse over each progress indicator to display the name of the indicator:
- Committed: Products included in shipping orders
- Shipped: Products included in shipping order with a Shipped status
- Delivered: Products included in shipping order with a Delivered status
- Invoiced: Products included in invoices
- Paid: Payment status
Of course, you can filter your Sales Order by status, customer, date, ...
For more information about filters, please refer to this article: Filters
Product returns, Credit notes and Refunds
You can create Product returns directly from the Sales Order and then create Credit Notes or Refunds from the Product returns. You will see the 'Create Product return' option as soon as at least one Shipping Order has the 'Delivered' status.
You can find more information about Returns, Credit notes and Refunds in this article.
Duplicate
You can duplicate your Sales Orders should you need to make the same Sales Order. Simply open any Sales Order, click on the Actions button and 'Duplicate':
