Hi everyone,
I’ve just noticed the latest change to the sales order list which shows the invoicing status.
I use this list as a bit of a workflow sheet and don’t really want the invoicing status showing.
is there a way of turning this function off so all my sales order show in the list?
I noticed that once a sales order is invoiced it vanishes which is very frustrating as we often have to re-open projects at our clients request or its an ongoing job which doesn’t have a set fee (hourly rate services).
As some of our sales are invoiced upfront this makes it extremely difficult to see which jobs are completed verses which ones that have been invoiced. I have a custom field that i update the status of the project and this is where I indicate that the project is completed rather than relying on invoicing to show its completed.
I can understand that some people will love this feature but personally its not something that I need so having the option to turn it off would be better for us.
I don’t have a problem to make order status optional.
However, maybe there is another way to keep the status and just add the checkbox on sales orders which will allow you to mark it as Complete. This way Invoiced orders do not get moved to the bottom of the order list automatically.
But once they are completed, you can mark them as such and only then they will go to the bottom of the list.
In the latest version (21.9.34) I made it so Invoiced order does not get inactive. I will need to figure out different mechanism to close completed orders.
thanks lubos,
I’ve just seen the updated version and like how i can see the invoiced jobs without having them grey / inactive at the bottom of the list.
this is absolutely perfect for us and how our business operates.
Please can something similar be done with quotes I know this is off topic but I see a synergy here when it comes to workflow. Once Quote converted they end at bottom of list. Got gunned down for making the suggestion to not have them move to bottom….
I would also request that the Sales Quote colouring be changed to match that of Sales Orders and Sales invoices. When a Sales Quote is complete, it should go green as well. The grey should only be used for cancelled/inactive in Manager. Currently Sales quotes colour scheme is now inconsistent with the other two modules.
Sales Order Completion Status
With regards to progress of Sales Order. I think the key problem is defining what a completed sales order means. To me, that would be a: everything is purchased from supplier; b: everything is invoiced to client; c: everything is delivered from supplier and lastly d: everything is delivered to client.
@mbooth it would be helpful if you could define criteria that you use to determine when a order is complete that could be used to do this automatically. I don’t want to have to tick boxes to indicate an order is complete. I like the way when a client pays an invoice, the invoice is automatically updated with a paid status for example. This is how it should work.
Sales Order Bug?
@lubos I am not sure if there is a bug or I am doing something wrong. I just did a quick test of the Sales Order and I am not getting the Qty to deliver field. Unless I tick track qty to deliver in Sales Order. But the inventory item already has track qty to deliver?
Hi @dalacor
I agree that colours should be consistent within the whole system with green for accepted quotes and grey for inactive quotes.
As for my business, we are a service based business so nothing gets physcially delivered as part of our projects. We deal with housing approvals so a project (sales order) is only ever complete once someone has finished their house build and have moved in thus no longer require our services. Most of our services are charged at an hourly rate as required so we don’t have fixed fees where a job is invoiced and completed because people often come back multiple times for further assistance. Sometimes these projects can take many months so we have a lot of jobs that sit active in the system.
I’m very happy with the green “invoiced” tag and these orders not being marked inactive and moved to the bottom of the list as updated in 21.9.34. I don’t really need a tick box to say a job is completed as I already have a custom field where I indicate this and would probably never use this feature anyway.
@lubos please don’t add a tick box just for my benefit as I’m happy with the current version that shows the green “invoiced” in the status.
The problem I have with the current approach is that this is now inconsistent with quotes and invoices. Current (i.e open) should always be at top. At the moment, on my test system, I have one invoiced at top, one uninvoiced on 2nd line and one invoiced on third row. So this means you have to scroll down to see active orders if you have a lot of orders. This is actually part of the problem I had with Sales quotes in the past before the status came in. That closed quotes were showing at the top and open quotes were all over the place.
So the current approach as it stands right now fails on two points. It is inconsistent with how the quotes and invoices work and second and more important, active orders are no longer all listed first making it easier to keep on top of your sales funnel.
I think the problem is that you are using Sales Orders as project management. The purpose of the sales order is to track the progress of an order. If the client comes back with more work for you to do, that is the same project, but not the same order! I don’t know if the new project module would work better for you, although the project module is more about calculating profitability? You can have more than one sales order for one project.
@lubos could you advise whether the new project module would assist @mbooth in this context. I don’t think that there is a problem with the Sales Order, rather it is being used in a way that is not what the sales order is intended to be used for. I disagree with the suggestion of adding a checkbox to mark the order complete. This is what the delivery status and invoice status should be used for. The project module should be used to manage projects such as this housing build association.
I know there is inconsistency between tabs. It’s on purpose. I want to see which approach is the best.
I also accept that for some businesses, sales order is not necessarily closed when invoiced. This could be solved with a checkbox on sales order where you can force the sales order to remain open. By default, it would automatically close when fully invoiced and delivered.
@dalacor you do have the option to sort sales orders by the invoice status which might resolve your issue where you have invoiced orders mixed in with uninvoiced orders.
just to be clear we do not build houses, we only help with the relevant building approvals / paperwork. i know my business is probably a bit different to a product based business where orders are completed quickly so scrolling down to see all my orders doesn’t bother me. our orders don’t get closed off for long periods of time because thats just the nature of what we do.
I’ve tested the projects tab and it does not suit my business. The sales order has been the best option for tracking orders/ jobs /projects (whatever you want to call them) for how I operate because it generates a sales order number. we then allocated that number to each job for ease of filing regardless of how many times the project comes back. this means everything for that job is saved against the same sales order number and we aren’t searching through multiple folders for files that relate to one project. I’ve also added several custom fields that make it work better for my purpose. adding custom fields to the sales order is what made this package so attractive to me in the first place as I can do everything I need in one program without the need to double or triple handle things across multiple software packages.
despite what you may think we do use the sales order tab to track orders. ie. order comes in, we provide a service, order is then either closed of or put on hold until the next service is required. its just a bit different because we may quote for multiple services upfront but only do one service each month and it makes much more sense to have this all in one order rather than splitting it across several orders.
If the colours suit everyone else and there is a tick a box or a setting somewhere to force sales orders to remain open regardless on invoice status then this solves the problem i had. @lubos thank you for looking at this.
Lubos will decide how he wants to implement everything eventually. So I won’t debate at length on the matter, as I have no say in the eventual outcome.
Just a couple of points. Yes, I could sort the sales order by invoice status, but this should be the default! Even with yourself, you eventually want to close that Sales order, so you won’t want that at the top above your actual open orders!
I do feel that the sales order needs to have status of delivery (from supplier and to client), as well as purchase invoices (from suppliers) to better reflect the progress of the sales order. Perhaps something else could be added in addition to that for businesses that operate the way you do!
But ultimately, regardless of how it is done, I believe that sales orders should be automatically closed when delivery, invoice etc, etc status has been completed and that open sales orders should be at the top similar to quotes and invoices.
Your criticisms of the Project tab is premature. I believe that it will be including reference numbers (similar to sales order ref number. You could those same custom fields to projects as well, or once the module has been fully developed (as it has just been created this week).
I agree with Lubos that Sales orders and project management while similar in concept are actually two different things. Wait until the Project tab has matured, with all the bells and whistles and then review.
@dalacor, I’m not debating the issue, more trying to give you an understanding of how we operate so you can see that not all of your requirements would suit everyones business model.
As for the projects tab i will keep and eye on it as it develops however at this early stage it does not suit my business and suggesting this early in its development is not helpful.
I’m looking forward to Lubos solution to the issues we’ve both raised.