Status of quotes, Sales Orders and Purchase Orders Idea

To @Lobos, @tut, @dalacor @itmoto,

Although a am relatively new to Manager but not new to any Sales process in both retail and wholesale from small to large business I would like to affirm that Filters are a must for at least the Sales Quote Module. Not to remove but to Hide.

Dalacors points are very valid although this was thrashed out a while ago. There seems to be great resistance to a simple filter. All major CRM and Quoting Programs are Built on this functionality. Manager is becoming a One Program for all environments but with out this functionality, Uses are being limited to the Power the Program can provide. An Additional Coloum to tag a Quote or more preferably a Drop Down Filter applied to the Quote Value coloum is all that is required to distinguish between Active, Inactive, and then us the Tag for marking Won and Lost Quotes.

For instance I am showing currently Sales Quote value of $151,489.70. Based on the current methodology they are all active and still to be followed up and converted. In this same list Half are not ever going to be converted same have been won and some lost. I need to keep all Quote as history for the instances where I deiced to Clone an exiting Quote or Know what I quoted to this same Client last time. Any part of a Quote sold means you have secured a client. The aim here is to work with this client to sell more to them so whether it is selling one item or ten with in a Quote you have converted an Enquire to a Customer.

Basic Sales Practise treats the Quote Process as a Funnel, the more I put in at the top of the funnel I can then calculate, knowing the market I am selling to, what percentage conversion rate I will achieve for the next period/month ( Budgeting Sales projection) coming though the narrow end of the funnel.

Manger is an Accounting Software but with these features you have now taken on the likes of Goldmine, Act, Maximiser, Epicor etc.

Can I humbly ask for a revisit of this topic.

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It is still in the Ideas category.

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I still want Status of Quotes, Sales Orders and purchases Orders Idea to be implemented. However, I would like to modify my original request and make the functionality work as such.

I would like the status functionality to work in the exact same way that it works for Sales and Purchase Invoices. This would make quotes, orders and invoices all work consistently in the same way.

Completed - Green, Active - Orange - overdue - Red (exactly like invoices) with current (orange and red) showing above completed (green).

I would also like when you convert a quote to an order or an invoice that the quote is marked as completed and goes green in exactly the same way an invoice goes green when it’s paid.

Same for converting an order to an invoice!

Perhaps closing a quote where you did not win the contract could just be another colour.

My original suggestion of hiding closed quotes etc is irrelevant as the reason I wanted it hidden was based on the current design flaw of quotes showing in order of date. However if quotes are moved to the concept of current and overdue showing at top in orange and red and completed in green showing underneath like invoices, then there is no need to hide closed quotes.

When an invoice turns green because its paid, it is effectively completed and no further action is required. The same process needs to apply to quotes and orders in that people want to know which quotes and orders to action.

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Consider Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

Just to revive this idea

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My updated idea of the Purchases and Sales workflows (Quotes and Orders Stage)

(Please there is no relationship between the two tables, everything is random)

The Progress bar will track the progress of the quantities of items delivered to customers in the sales workflow and received from suppliers in the purchases workflow. The progress bar would show the Net Quantities of items delivered divided by the total number of all items on the order (including untracked/non-inventory items)

The Invoiced Bar tracks the amount of quantity of Inventory/Non-inventory items that have been invoiced. The Invoiced Bar would show the Net quantity of invoiced items compared to the total number of all items on the linked order. (including untracked/non-inventory items)

Delivery Progress computation example

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Note, the “Net” here means the calculation considers adjustments made with credit or debit notes.

The system currently does not ask for a Delivery date for both Purchase and Sales orders and also Validity period for both Sales and Purchases Quotes. I suggest they are added to enable the system to determine when quotes are invalid and when orders have gone past due dates.

Quotes should automatically be closed when they are converted or referenced on an invoice or order

Status of orders (purchase and Sales orders) should automatically change to closed after Delivery is 100%. The User should also be able to mark an order as closed.

Status on sales and purchases need to work through ledger. This means if customer makes an order, then it can be served by multiple sales invoices and delivery notes (order is fulfilled once sales order is fully invoiced and goods delivered if applicable). @Abeiku is on the right track.

I’m thinking this through.

If we establish sales quote as a starting point, then sales quote can be either Lost or Won. If it’s won, then it should be attached to sales order.

Sales order is the blueprint for the workflow. We want to reach 100% status for invoiced and 100% status for delivered (if applicable). So sales invoice or delivery note would allow to select sales order which they are fulfilling.

Also, sales order could represent a project or job. This way, you could assign arbitrary expenses to sales order and track how much was spent on the job and then see whether the order was profitable or not. Some costs would be allocated automatically, for example cost of goods sold.

This would work for product-based businesses but also for service-based businesses.

The same can work for purchasing side where Purchase Order is starting point and it’s fulfilled once fully invoiced and goods delivered (if applicable).

Thoughts?

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we should also consider amendment to Sales Order

consider Sales Order as Project Name and enabling the order no across all the tab like Tracking Code and linking this to all reports will fulfil the idea for project or job card

there should be an option to link the sales order for cost allocation is great addition to the system and will close 3 to 5 topic in the ideas

Why not edit the sales order outright? If customer changes order, then I think editing original sales order is fine if you accept the changes.

Yes, this is what I’m thinking. For many, it would basically eliminate need for tracking codes.

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I cam a cross other software where it is capable to handle Sales Oder in line items for all the Voucher except Sales invoice which is valid point

it could be in voucher base also but having this will give big flexibility for cost allocation especially in Payments and Purchase Invoices

I think starting point can be Sales Order and also Purchase Order. Sales Quotes and Purchase Quotes should be optional, especially as it would only result in a yes/no situation to proceed which is implicit when one starts with SO and PO. We never use quotes but we use PO and SO.

Tracking Code has to be in the system could be consider as sub Sales Order should be allocated to Tracking Code.

this will fulfil the idea for Subgroup Tracking Code partially

@lubos very excited to see we are looking into addressing this issue.

Let’s break this down otherwise it becomes too complicated.

Quote

Sales Quotes - I like the idea of having either lost/won or open/closed as the status. There are arguments in favour of both options.

Open/Closed would mean more to marketing and sales people to know which quotes are current and which need to be chased up with clients.

Lost/Won on the other hand would help businesses to identify their quote success. However, I can only see the quote success feature being at all useful if there is somewhere to explain why the quote was not accepted and for a report to show the percentage outcomes of each status. I don’t know if this could be done programmatically. as there might be too many variables.

For example, I can think of price, speed of response, client staying with current provider or what we quoted was not what the client felt was best for them and they went with another provider. So that’s already four variables.

I like what @Abeiku shows in his graph there. He has open, closed, cancelled and past due and overdue.

This is possibly a better option than a yes/no option as I think that there is a clear difference between a cancelled quote where the client has just not got around to ordering anything as opposed to losing the business to a competitor.

Sales Orders

I think that @Abeiku is also on the right track with regards to sales orders. I think converting a sales order to an invoice is not enough as you may only be invoicing a part of the sales order. Fully agree with this. There needs to be a progress chart similar to the picture he posted. So we need to be able to part invoice from a sales order.

I don’t know if this logic could be or even should be applied to sales quotes. Technically the client could only order part of the quote. But I believe that recommended practice is for the business to cancel the first quote and issue a new quote with the client’s latest request?

I think that this progress bar is something that we didn’t even realise that we were missing in Manager. There is no way currently to keep track of what has been delivered and what is still to be ordered etc.

So I am in full agreement. Having the ability to track the progress of an order from company purchasing goods, to company delivering goods and then invoicing goods needs to be factored in. @lubos I did not fully understand what you were saying about projects until I reread abeiku’s post. - I think progress of an order is perhaps more relevant.

I will explain in an example that I currently have in real world use.

My client requests a quote for network cabling, installation of five projectors and five pull down screens.

I will order the screens from my cabling contractor and he will supply those pull down screens, plus do all the cabling. I will order the projectors from another supplier.

So my client pays me, I pay one supplier for the projectors and my cabling company for both the pull down screens and the network cabling. So talking about projects here is slightly different from the sales order process that I am talking about above. The above is more about tracking where I am with the sales process - what needs to be ordered, delivered etc. The Project management here would be more about me being able to see what profit I am making on that particular project.

So I am not seeing sales progress as being the same thing as project profit calculation?

Would it not make more sense to link certain purchase invoices to a sales order? In my example above of my cabling company, I would create a purchase invoice for him for the work done for that client.

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No the starting point needs to be sales Quotes. You may not use them, but many companies, myself included use Sales Quotes to er quote the client. This is the starting point as quotes need to be converted to sales orders. I don’t think that this represents a problem. The bulk of the complexity of this topic will come with the sales and purchase orders not the quotes. The quotes largely will not link with anything other than the sales order.

My understanding of tracking codes was that Lubos was intending to make tracking codes handle divisions such as New York and London and implement something separate for project management. I don’t think that tracking codes should be used for project management. Keep it for divisions such as Cabling or Computers or New York and London scenario not specific customer orders.

I would say when both delivery and invoices are 100% complete.

Would this topic tie in with this topic. Item Serial Number

I can see the point of including the serial numbers factor for inventory if there is going to be a link between ordering equipment from supplier to deliver to client. Serial Numbers would be particularly relevant here.

The first step is to adjust data entry forms so sales orders, sales quotes, sales invoices and delivery notes can be properly linked up. Right now it is controlled by free form fields which is not enough.

So the latest version (21.4.45) changes Order number field so instead of entering arbirtary text, there is dropdown to select an actual sales order which invoice relates to.

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Once you link sales order to sales invoice, under Sales Orders tab there will be new column called Invoiced

image

Invoiced represents total sales invoices linked to specific sales order. So you can see at glance which orders have been invoiced and how much.

This is just the first step but eventually this will lead to automatic Status column which can give definitive answer which orders are fulfilled and which have pending tasks (e.g. deliver goods to customer, make invoice etc.)

We can also add another column called Costs which can represent expenses incurred on sales order. This would allow to show profit etc. So sales orders could be good mechanism for job-costing as well.

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