Create sales order, fulfill order, split orders, handle return and cancel. Full cycle of quote to order and order to invoice is supported.
An order management system is a computer software system which basically drives a business process or flow which requires creation of quotation, sales order, invoice and receipt of the payment. Orders can be received from businesses, consumers, or a mix of both, depending on the products. An integrated order management system should at least include following modules:
Customer and Vendor Information Management
Inventory Management
Order entry and approval
Fulfillment of the order
Payment processing.
In general, order management systems are divided in two categories: sales order management which basically focuses on selling side of the business and purchase order management which focuses on purchasing. Businesses are normally involved in both buying and selling and so some order management system provides an integrated order management system which included both sales and purchasing.
Datamoto’s cloud based order management system provides an integrated order management system where one can choose to use either both sales and purchase order modules or just one depending on the requirements. Datamoto’s cloud applications are very easy to use and fit for small businesses as well as large organizations.
Sales Order Management
Sales order (also known as SO) document is an order issued by a business to a customer. It is an internal document for the business. Normally a sales order is created once buyer’s purchase order is received. It reflects the buyer’s purchase order and it helps to fulfill the order.
Typically sales order management consists of quote (or estimate) creation (i.e., customer has asked for a quote), converting a quote in to a sales order (i.e., customer approves your quote and sends you purchase order), booking a sales order (i.e., you follow your process to book a sales order – for small business you may choose to book an order without any process), fulfilling a sales order (i.e., you have the items in the inventory and you are going to ship the items or you have completed the services), generating invoice and receiving payment.
The processes involves in sales order management in Datamoto are described below:
1. Quotations (or Estimates)
In Datamoto you can create a quote or estimate for goods and services. You can use Quote module to create a new quote. When you create a quote, you can add line items directly from Inventory. If you plan to convert a quote to sales order make sure you have the item catalog in the inventory. This is because sales order module is tightly integrated with the inventory which helps you to audit of your inventory very easily.
You can view your quote in PDF format and send email attaching the PDF file directly to the customer from the application.
2. Sales orders
You create sales order once you receive a confirmation from customer – this confirmation is also referred as purchase order (a.k.a. PO). In general once customer receives the Quote from you they will go through their internal approval process. Once approved customer sends you the purchase order.
In Datamoto, you can add a sales order directly in the system or can convert from an existing quote. We recommend you to convert it from the original quote – this minimizes the data entry. A sales order can be created in any currency. Once you create the sales order you must book the order before you can fulfill it. A sales order can be deleted or edited when it is in draft state. Once it is booked then you cannot delete or edit a sales order. If needed you can cancel a booked sales order.
Once you book a sales order, the item’s sales order status in the inventory is updated and it shows the current quantity in the sales orders which are not yet shipped.
3. Fulfillment
Fulfillment is a process where you ship or fulfill (for services) the items ordered. Datamoto provides a very sophisticated but simple fulfillment tool to fulfill orders such as: partially, splitting quantity per line item, combining multiple orders and fulfill complete order.
When you fulfill an order, Datamoto sales order management module searches the database and provides you list of other sales orders from the same customer which are booked (or not completely shipped yet) and has the same shipping address. You can choose to complete fulfillment for all these sales order in one fulfillment which will create only one shipment and generate one invoice.
Once you select items to fulfill there are four steps you should follow to complete the fulfillment.
a. Print Packing List
Many times you are required to print a packing list to include in the package. You can print a packing list at any time.
b. Pick
Before Pack and Ship, you must pick items from inventory. Clicking pick automatically deducts item quantities from the inventory. You can unpick to readjust the inventory if you have not yet shipped the item.
c. Pack
Pack is basically packing items for shipment. If you have tracking id number for shipment from the carriers (such FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL etc.) then you can enter the tracking id here.
d. Shipment
Shipment means items are picked up by the carriers and on the way to delivery. Once shipped an invoice is automatically generated and cannot unship a shipped order. To unship you must follow the customer return process.
4. Customer returns
Customer returns are handled in Datamoto through sales order module. This means you must know sales order number for a return (if sales order number is not available then you can find out sales order number if you know either shipping id or invoice number or quote number). From the sales order find out the invoice number that customer is returning. You can select the items from the invoice for return (items can be partially returned). This return process will automatically generate a negative invoice for the customer.
5. Cancel the order
In Datamoto, you can cancel order only if an order is booked or partially shipped state. This means an order can be cancelled fully if no items are shipped yet or can be cancelled partially for unshipped items.
If an order is in draft state then you can edit the order or delete the order.
6. Invoice
In Datamoto when you fulfill an order, invoice for the shipment is always generated automatically. Generated invoices are not sent to customer automatically.
Invoice is always generated in the sales order currency even if sales order currency is different than the base currency.
7. Receive payment
Once an invoice is generated, you can send the invoice to your customer for payment. Payments are always received against an invoice. must enter payment methods at the time of receiving payments. You can only receive payment in the same currency that you created the invoice. If your base currency and the invoice currency are different then you must enter the actual exchange rate and date. This will keep track your foreign currency transactions. You can also generate exchange rate gain and lose report to reconcile exchange rate difference.