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Managing a customer order can involve several steps, from creating a quote to shipping products and collecting payment. When those steps are handled in separate systems or tracked manually, it can become difficult to see where an order stands or how each transaction connects.
Acumatica brings the sales order process together in one workflow, allowing information to move from quoting through fulfillment, invoicing, and payment. Depending on your organization’s needs, some steps can also be automated or routed for approval.
Here’s how the sales order workflow can work from beginning to end.
For some businesses, the sales process begins with a quote. Acumatica allows users to create quotes directly through the sales order module. Organizations that use Acumatica CRM can also manage quoting there, with additional CRM functionality available as part of the process.
Once a quote is created, it can be emailed directly to the customer using a customizable email template. A PDF of the quote can automatically be attached to the message. If the customer requests changes, such as a different quantity, those updates can be made before the quote is converted into an order.
Quotes can also be routed through an approval process when needed. If approval rules are configured, the quote must move through the designated workflow before proceeding.
Once the customer accepts the quote, it can be copied directly into a sales order.
The information already entered on the quote carries into the sales order, helping reduce duplicate data entry. Businesses that don’t use quotes can also begin the process directly with a sales order.
Like quotes, sales orders can be routed for approval depending on the organization’s processes. Once the sales order has been created, additional functionality becomes available, including customer payments, shipping, and fulfillment.
Some businesses require customers to pay before an order is shipped. Acumatica allows a prepayment to be created directly from the sales order and associated with that specific transaction.
The user can select the payment method and apply the appropriate payment amount to the order. For credit card payments, an existing card associated with the customer can be selected. New card information can also be captured when needed.
Once the payment is processed, the prepayment remains linked to the sales order and can carry through to the final invoice. If your business doesn’t collect prepayments, this step can be skipped. Payment can instead be collected after the invoice has been issued.
Before creating the shipment, Acumatica can also be used to compare shipping rates.
Users can enter package information, such as weight, and connect with supported shipping carriers to retrieve available shipping options. Depending on the integrations configured, this can include carriers such as FedEx, UPS, and USPS.
Acumatica can then add the selected freight amount to the order. Package weights can be entered manually or, when configured, captured through connected scales.
This functionality allows sales and fulfillment teams to incorporate shipping costs into the order without moving between multiple systems.
Once the order is ready to be fulfilled, the shipment can be created from the sales order.
Warehouse teams can then use the shipment information to pick and pack the order. Acumatica supports barcode-enabled workflows, allowing businesses to manage fulfillment using either paper-based or paperless processes. Pick tickets can also be generated for warehouse staff.
After the items have been picked and packed, the shipment can be confirmed. At that point, additional shipping functions become available, including printing carrier labels through configured integrations.
Confirming the shipment can also trigger the inventory transaction that removes the shipped items from inventory.
After the shipment has been confirmed, the next step is creating the invoice. The invoice can be prepared directly from the shipment and includes the applicable order and freight amounts.
Depending on how your Acumatica environment is configured, invoices can also be routed through an approval process before being released. Once the invoice is released, it creates the associated accounting entries in the general ledger.
If the customer made a prepayment earlier in the process, Acumatica can automatically apply that payment to the invoice.
For example, if the customer prepaid the merchandise amount but freight was added later, the prepayment can be applied against the invoice while the remaining freight amount stays outstanding.
If the full order amount, including shipping, was prepaid, the invoice could instead be fully offset by the prepayment.
Users can also drill into the payment record to see its relationship to the sales order and invoice, including the payment method and associated transactions. For customers who pay after invoicing, payment can be collected and applied once the invoice has been released.
Although each step can be performed manually, Acumatica also allows businesses to automate parts of the workflow.
For example, a company may choose to automatically:
Organizations can determine which activities make sense to automate based on their volume, internal processes, and approval requirements.
One of the advantages of using Acumatica for sales order management is the connection between each stage of the transaction.
Rather than manually matching information from different systems, users can follow the transaction from the initial customer quote through final payment.
That connected workflow can give sales, warehouse, and accounting teams greater visibility into where each order stands while reducing repetitive data entry and making the overall sales process easier to manage.
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