Manager can help you monitor status of your sales orders if you use some of the program’s available features. Status is monitored in the main Sales Orders tab under three columns:
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Qty to deliver: This number applies only to inventory items on sales orders on which theTrack quantity to deliveroption has been selected when creating or editing the sales order:
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Invoiced: This figure includes the total amount on all sales invoices linked to a particular sales order. Sales invoices can be linked to sales orders in two ways. One is by using the Copy to function to create the sales invoice while viewing the sales order. The other is by selecting theOrder numberafter choosing a customer on the sales invoice:
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Status: This column includes descriptive terms about sales order status. Status is determined automatically. Exact options depend on which features are in use by the business. Complete status progression is in the following order, as illustrated below:
Not delivered → Partially delivered → Uninvoiced → Partially invoiced → Invoiced
Not delivered and Partially delivered only show for businesses dealing with inventory items. So without inventory items, status progresses like this:
Uninvoiced → Partially invoiced → Invoiced
Example
Northwind Traders currently has two unfulfilled sales orders from a customer, Around the Horn. Its Sales Orders tab listing shows these two orders encompass 17 inventory items awaiting delivery and invoicing:
Northwind makes a partial delivery on sales order #15 and full delivery on sales order #22. It records the partial delivery on #15 with a delivery note and raises both a sales invoice and corresponding delivery note for #22. The status in the Sales Orders tab changes, showing that sales order #22 is fully delivered and invoiced, and sales order #15 is partially delivered, but not invoiced at all:
After receiving additional inventory, Northwind delivers the remaining quantity on sales order #15 and copies the full sales order to a sales invoice. Status is updated again:
Notes
In the preceding example, it is easy to see that both sales orders are completely fulfilled. All inventory quantities have been delivered. And the full amounts entered when the sales orders were taken have been invoiced. But these might be imperfect indicators of true order status.
The option to track quantities to deliver might not have been selected on a sales order. Non-inventory items are not counted at all by Manager, so their delivery status is never reflected. (See example below.) Invoiced prices might have changed since the sales order was entered. Or manually created sales invoices might not have been linked to sales orders. All these would spoil the perfect matches illustrated above.
Monitoring sales order status requires discipline. Intelligent use of Form Defaults can help. Consistent work practices are essential.
Example
Northwind has two other unfulfilled sales orders. Sales order #35 is for a standard coffee service, set up as a non-inventory item with the delivery tracking option selected. Nothing has yet been delivered against it. Sales order #17 is for catering services, entered manually, without use of any defined inventory or non-inventory item. Northwind’s accounting clerk forgot to check the delivery tracking option. Neither has been invoiced:
Note one crucial difference between the two listings. Because sales order #35 has the delivery tracking option selected, the Qty to deliver column shows a zero, even though there is nothing to count (because the coffee service is a non-inventory item). On the other hand, because sales order #17 does not have that option selected, it shows a hyphen in the same column. Also note the Not delivered and Partially delivered statuses have been bypassed because no inventory items are included on the sales order.