How to find Pending Deliverables on Sales Orders

[ismail]

There is no report to find

1. the Pending Sales Orders ( Sales Orders not delivered) ?
2. the Pending Items to deliver from sales Orders?

And when a Sales Order is partially invoiced & delivery note made, the next time from same sales order, delivery note or invoice should automatically bring only those items / those quantity not delivered yet. Once all delivered the sales Order should have a flag “completed” and should not allow delivery or invoice. The same rule should apply for GR too.

[Tut]

Understand that sales orders are not accounting transactions. They are an optional convenience and can streamline issuance of a sales invoice with the Copy to... function. But they don't keep track of anything

Goods receipts only record movement of inventory items.

[ismail]

@Tut, i understand and knew this, but forgot that fact when a need raised as my question was very valid as any user who deliver goods on Customer Order, will in the midst of the business wants to know what he have to deliver from his commitment. OR the Management want to take action on pending orders seriously.

i clearly realize Manager is designed and work brilliantly. But what stops to add this feature.
Lets keep a simple method :
that (Sales Order table to have an additional field called 'sold_qty')
and when item move out by invoice/DO, the sold qty should get updated (0 or already delivered + current delivery qty) against the particular item.

So,
when a DO/ invoice to be made as copy method from Sales Order,
1) it will bring exactly the (qty - sold_qty), this is for partial(already)delivered qty of any item------solution (1)
And
2)it will not bring the items to DO/Invoice if (qty = sold_qty) --------solution(2)
3)by comparing these 2 fields (qty and sold_qty), there can be a report of pending sales order for Management action.------------solution(3)

This facility is purely without disturbing existing process, and only need a update statement in Sales order table (sold_qty). But this will make big value addition and fine_tuned operation to the Manager.

Please take this as in my fair knowledge only. i hope @lubos will not ignore this and can make better of this.

[ismail]

Hi @lubos
please did you check this, can we have this in the system

[ismail]

i

@lubos , hope you and all friend in forum are doing good,
i was not frequent in forum as i had holidays in between and well implemented Manager, 2 years data is in the system and live now.
i use server edition and 17.7.14. is there any big difference in the latest version should i upgrade it or let it go same.
And very importantly i refer to my earlier request on the sales order as above quote. is this considered please?

[ShaneAU]

i use server edition and 17.7.14. is there any big difference in the latest version should i upgrade it or let it go same.

Version 17.7.14 is a few months old now. There have been many changes.

You can check the change-log for the last few months here: https://www.manager.io/desktop/releases/

However, I think the August ones will disappear from that page once we move into next month, as I’ve only ever seen 1-2 months on there at any given time, so make sure you read that page before the end of September.

[sharpdrivetek]

However, I think the August ones will disappear from that page once we move into next month, as I’ve only ever seen 1-2 months on there at any given time

I believe the releases page was introduced only in August.
The website itself had undergone some changes in the past few months.
For example, a page for testimonials was introduced and later removed for reasons unknown except for @lubos

[ShaneAU]

Hmm, thank you for the clarification on that. It’s possible it will contain a full history from now onwards, we’ll have to wait and see.

[lubos]

My view is that customer sending you an order is not binding you to send them goods.

Perhaps customer didn’t pay for their last order yet or maybe fulfillment of the order will depend on them to meet some conditions (e.g. pay 50% deposit)

You could argue that such an order should not be entered into Manager in the first place but I’m of the view that everything should be entered as it creates history on the customer which can be useful one day.

I think this feature request relates to another idea already posted which is about managing statuses of quotes and orders in some more streamlined way.

As a workaround, you can create a custom field on order which can have multiple options - “pending, accepted, declined, fulfilled” and track the status that way for now.

[ismail]

My view is that customer sending you an order is not binding you to send them goods.

Perhaps customer didn’t pay for their last order yet or maybe fulfillment of the order will depend on them to meet some conditions (e.g. pay 50% deposit)

@lubos
It is the other way in fact, Any order from customer is binding to deliver as it happens after steps of technical and commercial approval. it is so much binding that there is a penalty for late delivery. yes some times we collect a deposit. , if at all it cancels then still we need system documents to avail cancelation charges. so it is important to enter in system always

As a workaround, you can create a custom field on order which can have multiple options - “pending, accepted, declined, fulfilled” and track the status that way for now.

This is Ok, but the issue is there is
(1) no report to find the Pending Sales Orders ( Sales Orders not delivered)
(2) no report to find the Pending Items ( partial Qty ) to deliver from sales Orders?
(3) a sales order can be copied to make sales invoice or DO any number of times by mistake or purposely which system is allowing now.
My suggestion is :
when a Sales Order is partially invoiced & delivery note made, the next time from same sales order, delivery note or invoice should automatically bring only those items or only those quantity not delivered yet. Once all delivered, the sales Order should have a flag “completed” and should not allow further delivery or invoice from that particular sales order.
This can be achieved by :
Let the Sales Order table to have an additional field called 'sold_qty’
and when item move out through issue of invoice/DO, the sold qty should get updated with ( already delivered qty + current delivery qty) against the particular item. (for the first time it is 0+current delivery qty)

So,
when a DO/ invoice be made as copy method from Sales Order,

1. it will bring exactly as (sales_order_qty - sold_qty), --------solution(1)
2. avoid duplication as it will not bring the items to DO/Invoice screen if (sales_order_qty = sold_qty) --------solution(2)
3. by comparing these 2 fields (sales_order_qty and sold_qty), there can be a report to find pending sales order for Management action.------------solution(3)

This need only an update statement in Sales order table (sold_qty) at time of invoice/DO.

[lubos]

It is the other way in fact, Any order from customer is binding to deliver as it happens after steps of technical and commercial approval.

If that’s the case, then order should be converted into invoice. Once you issue an invoice, you get inventory ledger per each customer/inventory item combination so you can track what has been delivered vs what needs to be delivered.

I just don’t know how to incorporate orders into this ledger. I mean I can but there things get even more complicated. No you will need a ledger for what was delivered/what hasn’t been delivered. Then another ledger for what was invoices/what hasn’t been invoiced… it just gets a lot more complicated.

So the question is, if order is binding, why not convert order into invoice?

[alasdair]

So, I only recently started using sales orders and copying to delivery notes and/or invoices is OK. But sometimes there is a delay between the order and the shipment to the customer and or the invoice. It would be nice to be able to look at the order and understand it’s ‘STATUS’, i.e. has is been shipped (delivery note created) and/or has it been invoiced when looking at the orders. Unless I am missing something I am not sure how to identify my ‘OPEN’ orders (i.e. unfulfilled and/or uninvoiced)?

[lubos]

sometimes there is a delay between the order and the shipment to the customer and or the invoice

That’s fine but there doesn’t have to be a delay between an order and the invoice as you control when to issue the invoice.

Report to give you list of invoices which have “undelivered” goods would be possible because Manager has all information to figure out such a report.

[alasdair]

So, I can’t legally invoice until I ship. I don’t ship until the date the customer wants shipped, or I may be back-ordered in stock and can’t ship. So again, “open orders” - those orders received and not yet shipped and those shipped and not yet invoiced. Those would both be very useful reports or ‘status’ on the order itself! Thank you for considering.

[lubos]

So, I can’t legally invoice until I ship.

This cannot be possibly true. Of course you can issue an invoice before you ship.

Right now, Manager already maintains an inventory ledger per each customer/item combination. This is to track what has been invoiced and what has been shipped.

If Manager would start maintaining another inventory ledger per each customer/item combination in relation to orders, how exactly would that work? For each delivery note, there would have to be a sales order in the system. I guess, if you enable “sales orders” tab, it’s probably what you want to do anyway?

What I worry about is an increase of complexity for already quite complex inventory management system. It’s not as simple as having some status and open orders. The system needs to handle when customer orders one thing and receives something entirely different (staff mistakes) or customer receives more than ordered. And Manager needs to tell you (or alert you) this is the case.

From programming point of view, I know how to implement this, I just don’t know how to present this to users in user interface so they are not lost in the sea of mini-ledgers.

One argument for tracking orders is that it’s actually needed for the other side when ordering from suppliers. You can’t control when supplier issues you an invoice but you need to track how many items you have ordered and waiting to be delivered so you don’t keep issuing more orders for the same item just because you are out of stock.

So I guess order tracking will have to be added for supplier-side, then it can be copied across customer-side too. The big question is how to present these features in the system in easily digestible way.

[alasdair]

Ok, Technically, yes I suppose I could invoice before I ship but I cannot recognize the revenue or book the COGS until shipment (Incoterms/FOB Shipment etc., accounting rules.) Certainly we don’t want to get in ton that complexity, so much cleaner just to invoice for the shipment.

This wouldn’t mean every delivery needed an order or vice versa. But once I book an order with inventory items on it, I’d like to see status of when I shipped it and invoiced it.

It could get complicated though in that I might ship most lines of an order but one gets backordered and shipped later, its kind of a line level status in reality. My Sales order mirrors my customers PO. I fulfilled that order in two shipments due to the back order and I invoice the two shipments separately when/once I ship.

So I follow the complexity, but right now I have to print a hard copy Sales Order and mark it up as I ship and bill to determine the fulfillment status of the order.

Anyway, even putting the line level tracking aside, some simple order status, would be most helpful. Its rather like billable expenses.

A more complete approach would be a bit like billable expenses - Here is the list of 'unshipped order lines for a customer, select those that you want/have in stock to be grouped into your delivery to ship then copy the delivery to an invoice to bill for that shipment. Anyway all just ideas/food for thought for future consideration.

Regards.

[ismail]

@lubos

we are talking of a sales industry where there IS SURELY a timegap (weeks to months) between Order and Delivery and ALSO there IS SURELY partial delivery depending on stock and incoming stock.
So it is mandatory to have an order tracking facility for many good reasons

i endorse @lubos and dont suggest to have the item ledger more complicated with addition of per customer/sales order. instead i suggested to handle in sales order level only, please refer what i had expressed earlier in same topic above about how to handle/update the delivery item/qty. i am sure lubos can make it in much better logic.

Now, to present it

[quote=“lubos, post:15, topic:10650”]
The big question is how to present these features in the system in easily digestible way.
[/quote].

when we incorporate and have the order status field, then by search filter we will get the desired selection. ( completed / not completed). The ‘completed’ should disable copy_to delivery/invoice.

As per sales Order items(column), the partial delivered line_items will have line item status as ‘partial’ and ‘open’ for the line_items where no delivery at all.

Then, when the ‘uncompleted’ status order is selected and copied to invoice/delivery, it will bring only those items with ‘open’ and ‘partial’ status.

For Management Reporting and action, There should be a screen or report which will show all pending Orders with is total sales order value, partial deliverd value, invoice value, Not delivered Value.

[ismail]

@alasdair

A more complete approach would be a bit like billable expenses - Here is the list of 'unshipped order lines for a customer, select those that you want/have in stock to be grouped into your delivery to ship then copy the delivery to an invoice to bill for that shipment. Anyway all just ideas/food for thought for future consideration.

you are talking about multiple order into 1 delivery/invoice, i think this is not advisable as each order have to fulfill its own order/billing cycle. In most of the cases either with supplier or your customer, their system will NOT allow to enter a combined value, it will not even allow to enter a qty fraction more than the order qty, it will need a change order. so better to forget option of involving multi order into 1 shipment.

hopefully you will get a solution and the task become easy and more professional when @lubus fix the item_status and order_status.

if i understand your problem is in having compliance/complication to shipment documents/terms in case of many DO’s & Invoices to single client in single shipment, then probable solution is export each DO and invoice to excel sheet and make a combined commercial invoice for the shipment.
Seperately you can courier to client all individual DOs’/Invoice for accepting in their system for your payment realization.

[alasdair]

As I read my earlier post I can see I could have given that impression of the need for ‘consolidated deliveries’ with lines from multiple orders. Didn’t really mean to suggest that as a requirement. I would be more than very happy with being able to track multiple deliveries for a single order (to accommodate back-ordered lines) and to create invoices for each of those deliveries. Hope that clarifies.

[ismail]

@lubos
Can you please look into this subject.