Sales orders

A sales order is what a client has bought from you that you still have to deliver. When a customer accepts a quote with hardware on it, Outpost raises the order, and from there you buy the goods, deliver them, and invoice them. This page covers setting up invoicing, deposits, buying and delivering, and the order’s margin.

Before you begin

• You are on the MSP plan.
• Reading sales orders needs crm:read, and changing them crm:write. Delivering from stock needs inventory:write, and raising purchase orders procurement:write.
• The products you sell from stock are marked Delivered from stock (creates a sales order line) in the billing catalog. See Billing catalog.

How a sales order is created

When a quote is accepted, Outpost converts it as described in What accepting a quote creates. If at least one accepted line’s product is delivered from stock, the conversion also raises a sales order. The order carries every accepted one-time line that is not billed on project milestones. Monthly lines go to the agreement as before.

A quote imported from a quoting tool becomes a sales order the same way. See Quoting tools. You can also create a sales order with no quote. See Create a sales order without a quote.

Sales > Orders lists every order with its Order number, Client, Status, Invoiced, Total, Owner, and Ordered date.

Create a sales order without a quote

1. Select Sales > Orders, then New sales order.
2. In Client, start typing the client’s name and pick it.
3. Check Invoice the order (On delivery or On order) and the Tax rate (%). Both start on the practice defaults.
4. Optionally, enter the Customer PO and Notes.
5. For each line, pick a product in From the catalog (optional) or type the Description, then choose the Kind (Goods, Service, or Subscription) and enter the Quantity, Unit price ($), and Unit cost ($). Select Taxable if tax applies, and Ships (delivered from stock or bought for the order) for goods you deliver. Select Add a line for the next one.
6. Select Create sales order.

A manual order carries no deposit. To take a deposit, quote the order instead.

Set up invoicing

Select Sales > Settings, and on the Orders and invoicing card set:

Setting	What it does
Sales order prefix	The front of every sales order number, SO- by default. Numbers already drawn keep theirs.
Invoice an order	On delivery, the default, invoices goods as they ship. On order invoices everything when the quote is accepted.
Default deposit	A percentage invoiced when the quote is accepted. 0 asks for none.

A quote can choose its own invoicing on its Invoicing card: Invoice the order (Practice default, On delivery, or On order) and Deposit (empty for the practice default). The choice is fixed on the order when the quote is accepted, so a later change to the settings never changes an order already raised.

On delivery and on order

	On delivery	On order
At acceptance	The deposit, if any, and one-time lines that do not ship	Every one-time line, goods included
At each delivery	A draft invoice for what shipped, less the deposit	No invoice: No invoice needed

Each invoice is a draft, which you review and send from Client billing > Invoices. See Invoice clients.

Deposits

A deposit applies when the order is invoiced on delivery. It is a percentage of the pre-tax subtotal of the order’s goods delivered from stock, invoiced with its own tax when the quote is accepted. Each delivery invoice then carries a Deposit applied line that takes it back off, until the deposit is used up. Across all its invoices, the client pays exactly the order’s total.

On the quote, the totals show the One-time total, the Deposit due on acceptance, and the Balance invoiced on delivery. The order shows Deposit of followed by the percentage and the amount before tax.

Example

A quote sells one laptop at $1,500.00, taxed at 8.25 percent, with a 20 percent deposit:

Invoice	Lines	Subtotal	Tax	Total
Deposit, at acceptance	Deposit on the sales order: $300.00	$300.00	$24.75	$324.75
Delivery	Laptop: $1,500.00. Deposit applied: minus $300.00	$1,200.00	$99.00	$1,299.00
Together		$1,500.00	$123.75	$1,623.75

The deposit is taken from the goods’ price before tax, and taxed once, so tax is never charged on tax.

When an order has both taxed and untaxed goods, the deposit is split between them, and each part is invoiced and applied at the right tax. A delivery of both kinds of goods raises up to two invoices for that reason.

Note

When an order is invoiced in parts, tax is rounded on the order’s running total rather than on each invoice by itself. A single invoice’s tax can be a cent above or below its own subtotal times the rate, but the tax across all of the order’s invoices always adds up to exactly the tax on the order and its quote. The deposit’s tax on the quote follows the same rule. Changing a draft invoice’s tax rate drops the adjustment, and that invoice is then taxed on its own.

Buy the goods

1. On the order, select Buy for this order.
2. Tick each line to buy, and check the Quantity and Supplier.
3. Select Raise purchase orders.

Lines for the same supplier go on one draft purchase order, priced at the cost on the quote and shipped to your default receiving location. Set the Default receiving location in Procurement > Settings first. The order’s Purchases card lists them. Approve and order them as usual. See Purchase orders.

To have a supplier ship straight to the client, raise the purchase order as a drop ship. When its delivery is received, it is delivered on the sales order and invoiced without a separate Deliver step. See Drop ship to a client.

Deliver the goods

1. On the order, select Deliver.
2. For each line, choose Deliver from, the stock location, and enter the Quantity to deliver.
3. For an item tracked by serial number, pick one unit for each item delivered. Use Find a unit by tag or serial to find it.
4. Select Deliver.

Delivering takes the units out of stock, moves their assets into the client’s register as Deployed with the sales order on them, and raises the invoice the order’s invoicing calls for. The Deliveries card shows each delivery with its invoice. If a delivery stops partway, it shows Failed with the reason. Fix the cause and select Try again. A delivery picks up where it stopped and never moves stock or invoices twice.

Change or cancel lines

Each line shows Ordered, Delivered, Invoiced, Cancelled, and On order. To drop part of a line the client no longer wants, select Cancel quantity, enter the Quantity to cancel, and select Cancel some. A line cannot drop below what has already been delivered.

On the This order card, enter the client’s Customer PO, which is printed on its invoices, and Notes for your practice.

Margin

The Margin card shows the order’s margin two ways:

Column	Revenue	Cost
Expected	Every line at its price, before tax	The best-known cost of every unit
So far	What has been delivered and invoiced, before tax	The cost of the units delivered or invoiced

Deposits and tax never count as revenue. Margin percent reads Not yet until there is revenue.

Each line’s cost is the best figure known, in this order:

1. Received, with freight and fees: the received cost plus landed cost from an approved supplier bill.
2. Received cost.
3. Ordered on a purchase order.
4. Average stock cost, for units delivered from stock.
5. Cost on the quote.

The card is worked out each time you open it, so it is right however the purchases, receipts, bills, and deliveries happened to arrive.

Close or cancel an order

• Close order closes an order once everything on it has been delivered or canceled.
• Cancel order stops an order that has had nothing delivered. Enter Why it is cancelled, select I understand this cannot be undone, and select Cancel the order. Purchase orders raised for it stay as they are.

Once anything is delivered, cancel the undelivered quantities line by line instead.

Sales order statuses

Status	Meaning
Open	Nothing delivered yet.
Partly delivered	Some of the goods are delivered.
Delivered	Every goods line is delivered or canceled.
Closed	Finished.
Cancelled	Canceled before anything was delivered.

Verify

• After a quote with hardware is accepted, the quote’s What it became card links to the sales order.
• After a delivery, the client’s Assets lists the units as Deployed, and Client billing > Invoices has the draft delivery invoice.

Next steps

• Purchase orders
• Receive deliveries
• Supplier bills and the 3-way match