Create sales orders

Sales orders are a contractual agreement between you and the customer for the provision of goods and services for a price. The sales order defines the terms (prices, quantities and times) by which you will deliver products or provide services.

Sales order process

The key stages in the sales order process are:

1. Create a new order, or convert a quotation or pro forma to an order.

2. Despatch the order, to record that you've sent out the goods, and to remove them from stock.

3. Print invoices that include any despatched items on the sales order.

4. Post the invoice to create the sales invoice transaction and update the customer account and nominal accounts.

For a more detailed overview, see The sales order process.

What's in a sales order?

Sales orders are created using customer details and the goods and services you supply.

You can produce an invoice for the sales order. The invoice only includes items from the sales order that have been despatched, which means you can have more than invoice per order.

Customer details

Goods, services and charges

The details section of the sales order consists of lines that itemise the goods and services requested, including any additional charges.

You can add the following line types in an order:

Standard item	Standard items are: Stock items which are managed in the Stock Control module. Invoice and order items, which are managed in the Sales Orders module. You typically use these instead of creating stock items. They are not subject to any stock control and cannot be ordered using purchase orders.
Free text item	Free text items are one-off items that have a value but don't have stock record. Use free text items for: Anything that requires a value and is not covered by a standard item. To add descriptive text to an order. You can choose to process a free text item in the same way as a standard item.
Additional charges	Additional charges are added to an order to cover costs such as delivery, or insurance. You can add these as a one-off charge, or create records for charges you use regularly.
Comment lines	Use a comment line to add information to an order. The comment is generally printed on the order documentation. You can choose to prevent the comment printing, if you want to keep it private.

Location

For each item in the order, you can choose the warehouse the stock is to be supplied from.

Create sales orders

You can create orders in the following ways:

• As a single new order.

  Goods ordered in this way are despatched from the warehouse with a despatch note. An invoice for payment is generated separately.

• Trade counter order entry (in the Sage 200 desktop).

  Use this to enter over-the-counter sales. For this type of order the customer collects the goods and pays immediately.

• Copy an existing (not archived) order and amend the details. This does not copy payment details, order number or dates.

• Convert a quotation to an order (in the Sage 200 desktop).
• Convert a pro forma invoice to an order (in the Sage 200 desktop).
• Use a repeat order template (in the Sage 200 desktop).

You can also create purchase orders on the back of sales orders, known as back-to-back orders (in the Sage 200 desktop).

Note: You can't create sales orders for customer accounts that are on hold.

Sales order status

Once created, sales orders have one of these statuses:

• Live: The order has been generated and is in the process of being fulfilled.
• On hold: The order has been placed on hold to stop any further processing of the order. For example, the order has been queried because the customer has exceeded their credit limit.
• Completed: The order has been fully despatched and invoiced, or has been cancelled.

Settlement discounts and payments

• In the UK, VAT on an invoice is only discounted when it is paid within the settlement discount period.

  On each invoice, VAT is calculated by default on the full invoice value. If the invoice is paid within the settlement discount period, a VAT adjustment is required, to account for the discounted VAT.

• In Ireland, VAT is calculated on the full value of the invoice regardless of any settlement discount.

When you produce invoices from sales orders, each invoice states the amount of discount (net and VAT) that can be claimed if the invoice is paid early, as well as the full amount (net and VAT) due after the settlement discount period. This means that there is no need to issue an additional VAT only invoice, if the customer pays within the discount period. However, internal VAT adjustments will be required.

When creating sales orders, you enter the amount of settlement discount on the Invoice Details tab of the order. When the invoice is printed, Sage 200 calculates the VAT for the full amount before settlement discount is applied, and adds the required text to the invoice.