Workflow Process: Sales Orders Click on the Sales Order icon on the Home Page or go to Customers => Create Sales Orders. Sales orders are used for tracking a customer s order prior to shipping. The information on this form tracks the recipient, where the goods will be shipped, what items the customer has purchased and any sales tax information. Important: check the Collections report under Reports => Customers before entering a sales order to see if the customer is delinquent on prior invoices! Click on the Sales Order icon. The left-hand corner of the form is for the internal customer name. After selecting the customer name, use the tab key to arrive at the Template. There are several to choose from depending upon what you have created: o [Company] Sales Order is for normal, daily sales shipped from the warehouse. o Sales Confirmation once a sales order is complete, change the document to this template to send a copy to the customer via email. o Work Order this template is only used when an item has been returned and is in the process of being repaired. o Custom Sales Order is the default, Intuit sales order.
The Date of the SO should default to today s date. Change it if necessary to the date the customer placed the order. The S.O. Number will fill in automatically. There is no need to change this number. The Bill To address is linked to the Customer name field. This address can be edited, but any changes only apply to this order. Use the tab key to move to the Ship To address. These addresses are created in the customer edit screen. Select one from the drop down. You can edit the address here if there is a change, but the change only applies to this order. If a ship to address has changed permanently, notify management. The P.O. No. is the customer s purchase order number, if one was given. This is useful information for tracing back to the customer s documentation. Include it whenever possible. The Dock Date or due date (optional) is the date the customer expects to receive the merchandise. Select the sales representative under the Rep field to identify who sold the order. Three more optional fields refer to shipment of the goods once the sales order is complete. Enter the UPS or other account number in Shipper # if the customer is paying for the shipping. Enter the expected Ship Date and the method of shipping in the Ship Via field.
Entering items into the body of a Sales Order The Item is a service or inventory item that is chargeable to a customer. Use the drop down to locate the item by group or spelling (just type in the first few letters). There are several types of items: o Service these are usually charges for services or labor. o Inventory Item an item that is purchased, tracked in inventory and sold. o Inventory Assembly an inventory item made up of several components to make a finished good. This involves a process of building the item before it is put into inventory. o Non-inventory Parts are items that are purchased and possibly sold, but their value is not worth tracking in inventory, or they are generic items used in the building of assemblies. o Other Charge billable items that don t fit the other categories such as freight or NSF charges. o Sub-total this is not an item, but simply a summation of the items above it (until it encounters another sub-total item). This is useful for grouping services versus products, or to group items for a combined discount. o Group this is used for selling several items as one entity or group. This does not require building it, like an assembly, and shows on the invoice as one item.
Always select the ITEM in the list, and not the parent or group header in the list. The fulfillment department will not know which item to pick and management cannot run reports on those groups! o Discount these items will automatically take off a pre-set dollar amount or percentage off of the item above it which can be a single item or a subtotal. o Payment is used to record a partial payment at the time of the sale. It reduces the amount owed on an invoice. The items in the drop down will appear in this item-type order. The Description field will automatically be entered based on the item selected. This field can be changed, and there is no limit to the number of characters. It can also be used as an alert to the customer to convey information without being attached to an item. Enter how many items the customer is purchasing in the Order field. There is a small icon in the upper right corner of this field which displays the current availability. The window shows the quantity in the warehouse, less how many are allocated on other sales orders and assemblies. Look at the quantity available amount to determine if and when the item(s) are available. If the available amount is less than the customer s request, inform them there will be a delay in shipping. On the above screen, there is also an area for pending purchase orders to show how many of the products are expected to be arriving.
The Amount field will automatically be filled in, and cannot be changed. A pre-set discount can be added to the item below it. Contact your manager about discounts that are available. The Tax line item should conform to whether the customer is taxable, and if not, then what category the customer falls into. If the customer is taxable, then select Tax. If the customer is non-taxable, specify if the item is labor, resale or for outof-state sales. If this sales order has already been partially fulfilled, then two columns will appear on the sales order Invoiced and Backordered. Invoiced is the number that was previously shipped, and backordered is the number remaining from the original order. Use the last amount for determining if enough is now on hand to finish the order. For orders of more than $2,000, have a customer service associate or manager double-check the numbers to make sure they are accurate! When an item is fully invoiced, a check mark appears in the far right column of the sales order under Clsd for closed. The item can also be manually closed if items remain, and the customer no longer wants to wait on that item, or the shipper is unable to fulfill the order. Add the Freight other-charge item, if you charge based upon a separate shipping schedule. If you use FedEx, UPS, or USPS, see instructions below. Deposits Required when deposits are required, add two other-charge line items after the product items are listed. These are: Deposit Deposit Applied The deposit amount is how much is required. The deposit applied is a negative of the amount required. When you are done with the sales order, save it, but do not close it. Go to Create Invoice at the top of the form, then choose Invoice, and
Create invoice for selected items. Here, you will choose the deposit and invoice it. Clicking OK will open an invoice to be sent to the customer. When all items have been shipped, return to the Sales Order and invoice all remaining items, including the Deposit Applied, which will reduce the amount of the invoice by the amount paid for in the previous invoice. (Accountant s Note: both the Deposit and Deposit Applied items are Other Charge items and should point to the same Other Current Liability account for tracking). Entering and checking data in the footer of the sales order Select a Customer Message from the drop down relevant to this transaction. The Memo field is for internal notes that will appear on reports. It does not print on the sales order. The Customer Tax Code will be listed and should be verified against the shipping address. For example, if the code is Out for out-of-state, check to see if the address for shipping is also outside of your state. Also on the footer of the sales order is the Tax location field. This should be the customer s designated Ship To location taxing district. This is always a location, such as San Francisco, San Diego, etc. It can also be OutSt for out-of-state (which is a location, just not a specific one). Do not confuse this with sales tax line items which are just taxable and non-taxable items.
The Total of the sales order should equal the customer s purchase order plus the estimated freight and any other unique charges. Verify the order is correct before saving the document. On the Main tab of the Sales Order are options for saving, printing, emailing and others. Check off the Print Later box to send the document to the print queue, and/or the Email Later box if that is the customer s preferred send method. If you are sending a confirmation to the customer, change the Template to Sales Confirmation so the customer will understand this is verification of the order. Checking the Mark As Closed box will close out the entire order, and is usually only used when a customer decides against getting the open items after placing the order, or if a vendor is unable to fulfill the request. Workflow Processes: once the Sales Order is saved, you can create two other documents from the Sales Order (in the right of the top tool bar). You can, Create Purchase Order, and copy over the items on the SO to a supplier PO automatically. You can also, Create Invoice. This triggers two choices: The first option brings over all of the items on the sales order to the invoice. The second option allows you to choose which items are being fulfilled:
You just need to choose which items to invoice and how many. Refer to the Invoicing Workflow documents for the next steps in documentation. Tip: when partially filling a Sales Order, always select the second option, and choose which items to bring into the invoice. Do not select the first option, as this will bring all of the items over. Items with zero quantities on the invoice cause extra data space to be used up, and clutter the invoice with unused items. Processing Payments Deposits: enter the two line items in the body of the sales order after the products. Upon saving, create an invoice for just the deposit required (go to Create Invoice button in the SO, and select specify items to invoice). See the Invoicing workflow process for issuing the invoice. Checks: all customers paying by check must be pre-approved by management. Customer service representatives are not authorized to approve customers for check payments.
When the bookkeeper is not available, you will need to post the receipt of checks in QuickBooks. On the Home page within the program, click Receive Payments under the Customer section. Enter the customer:job name in the Received From field. Enter the Amount of the check. Enter the Date the check was received (not the check date). Select Check under Payment Method. Use the Check # field for the printed check number. The body of the Receive Payments window will show open invoices for this customer. Use the boxes to the left of each to check off which invoices are being paid with this payment. The payment field to the right (not shown) should match either the Amt. Due field or the amount the customer is paying against it as noted on the voucher that came with the customer s check. In the lower right of this window, ensure the Amount Applied is equal to the amount of the check.
Click Save & Close to finish this payment, or Save & New to finish and process another payment. Credit Card Orders: (for users with Intuit Payment Solutions merchant processing) authorize the funds on the credit card by going to Customers Credit Card Purchasing Activities Authorize Capture payments Enter the customer payment details o Received From should be the bill to customer information (if the information is not held in the customer setup then you will need to enter the following information) o Amount to be held should be the total order amount (inclusive of Shipping, applicable Taxes) o Payment Method o Date (Sales Order Date) (Automatic) o Card Number o Reference # should be the Sales Order Number