Sales Orders

A sales order records what a client ordered: the goods or services, when the client wants them and which warehouse they leave from. It commits you to deliver after you confirm it. Use this page if you take orders or follow them through to delivery.

You can write a sales order yourself for a routine or repeat order, or you can convert an accepted sales quotation. After you confirm an order, it leads to picking in the warehouse, to delivery and to the invoice.

Creating a Sales Order

To create a new sales order:

1. Go to Sales > Orders in the sidebar.
2. Click New. A new order page opens.
3. Fill in the order’s details:
   • Order number opens on the next number of the series, such as SO-2026-000055. You can type your own, but you cannot change it after you save.
   • Client is who is buying. The list offers active clients only.
   • Billing address is where the bill goes. It opens on the client’s usual billing address, and invoices made from the order copy it.
   • Shipping address is where the goods go. It opens on the client’s usual shipping address, and delivery notes made from the order copy it.
   • Warehouse is where the goods are picked from and shipped.
   • Order date is the day that the client placed the order. It opens on today.
   • Requested delivery date is the day that the client asked for. It is optional, and it cannot come before the order date.
   • Currency is the currency of every amount on the order. It opens on your organization’s currency, and it changes to the client’s own currency if the client has one.
   • Price list is optional. If you pick one and leave a product’s Unit price at 0, Beelocity takes the price from the list. If the list has no price for the product, Beelocity uses the product’s base price. If you pick no list, the line stays at 0 until you type a price. A price above zero that you type always wins. To give a product away, type a Discount % of 100.
   • Payment terms say when the client has to pay. This field is optional, and it opens on the client’s own terms.
   • Payment method says how the client pays. It opens on the client’s Usual payment method, and the invoice you make from the order takes it. If it is Cash, the invoice adds the stamp duty.
   • Customer reference is the client’s own order number, if they gave you one. It holds up to 100 characters.
   • Contact is who to deal with at the client about this order. It is optional.
   • Notes hold instructions or comments about the order. No paper prints them, because an order does not print, and the delivery note and the invoice do not copy them.
   • Internal notes are for your team only.
4. Press Add above the Lines, beside the form. Beelocity saves the order as Draft with its number, and its first line opens (Adding lines before you save). To add the lines later, click Save instead. Beelocity saves the order as Draft, and you land on its page.

Customer reference matters more than it looks. It prints on the client’s invoice as “Your order”, and it prints on the delivery note too. Their accounts department usually matches the bill against it. An invoice without it can stay unpaid while somebody works out which order it belongs to.

Two clients can use the same reference, because it is their number and not yours. The Sales orders list shows it in its own column, and the search box finds it. So if a client reads you their number on the phone, one search finds the order.

Promised delivery date also appears on the order’s page, and you cannot type it. It stays empty unless another program connected to Beelocity fills it in. The Sales home marks the order late after that date.

Creating an Order from a Quotation

The most common way to create a sales order is to convert an accepted quotation:

1. Go to Sales > Quotations and open the accepted quotation.
2. Open More actions and choose Convert to sales order.
3. Check the Order number, and pick the Warehouse that the goods will leave from. Then click Convert.
4. Beelocity creates a new sales order as Draft. It copies all the quotation’s lines, its prices, its payment terms and its notes.
5. The quotation moves to Converted, and you can no longer change it.

The order names the quotation under Source quotation, so the link between the two stays visible. Beelocity does not fill in the order’s addresses or its Requested delivery date. So add them on the draft if you need them.

Managing Order Lines

Add or review the items on the order:

1. The order’s details are on the left of the page, and its Lines are beside them on the right. This is the layout from the moment you click New. A saved order opens the same way when you click its number in the list.
2. Click Add for each item, then double-click a cell to edit it:
   • Product is an item from your catalogue. Leave it empty for a free-text line, such as a service or a one-off charge.
   • Description says what the line is, in your own words. Every line needs one. If you leave it empty on a line with a product, Beelocity fills in the product’s name in the client’s language.
   • Quantity is how much the client ordered, counted in the line’s unit.
   • Unit is one of the product’s active units, such as piece or kg, as its Units tab lists them. A product with no active unit takes any unit (Units of Measure).
   • Unit price is the price of one unit.
   • Tax % is the tax rate of the line. It is optional.
   • Discount % is the discount on the line. It is optional.
3. Beelocity works out each line’s discount, tax and total. It uses the quantity, the unit price, the tax rate and the discount. It rounds each one to the centime, and the order’s total is the sum of its lines.
4. You can add, edit or remove lines while the order is Draft. After you submit the order for approval, the lines are fixed.

The delivery note and the invoice copy their wording from Description. So renaming a product never changes a document that you already issued.

Each line follows its own progress. Shipped shows how much has left the warehouse, across all the line’s delivery notes. Status reads Open, Partial, Completed, Closed or Cancelled.

On a Confirmed, Processing or Partial order, a line that is Open or Partial also offers Close short. A Sales manager or the owner of your organization can use it. It ends the line with less delivered than ordered:

• The rest of the quantity will not ship.
• Any stock still reserved for the line becomes available again.
• The other lines carry on as usual.

After you close the last open line, the order moves to Completed if anything shipped. If nothing shipped, it moves to Cancelled, or to Closed if it was Partial.

Sales Order Lifecycle

A sales order moves through these statuses, from the first draft to the end of its deliveries:

An order can also move back. If you cancel a delivery note or receive a return, it can leave Processing, Partial or Completed while a line is left to ship.

A Sales clerk can write an order, change it while it is Draft and submit it for approval. A Sales clerk can also create its delivery notes and its invoices. Moving an order along the road needs a Sales manager or the owner of your organization, and so does closing a line short. A Sales clerk sees the road with no button, so ask one of them to make the move.

Submitting for Approval

Every order that moves forward goes through this step, because Draft leads forward only to Pending approval. Your organization’s approval rules decide who must approve an order. A rule can check the order’s total or the client’s credit limit. Beelocity picks the approvers, so you do not choose them.

1. While the order is Draft, click Pending approval, the next step on the road. You can also open More actions and choose Submit for approval. Click Submit to confirm.
2. If the order needs a decision, it moves to Pending approval. You can no longer edit it.
3. The decision reaches the approver’s Inbox. The approver can approve it, reject it with a reason, or delegate it.
4. To follow the request, filter your Inbox by the kind My submissions.

After the last approver approves, the order moves to Approved, and you can confirm it. If an approver rejects it, the order goes back to Draft. Read the reason, correct the order and submit it again (My Submissions).

If no approval rule covers the order, Beelocity approves it as soon as you submit it. The order moves straight to Approved, and the road shows Pending approval greyed. An approved order cannot go back to Draft, so check it before you submit it. A rule with no steps does the same only if Auto-approve when no steps is on. If it is off, or if Beelocity finds no approver, Beelocity refuses the submit, and the order stays Draft.

Approval is optional. To make it mandatory, the owner of your organization can add a workflow for sales orders whose condition is empty (Configuring Approval Workflows).

Confirming an Order

After the order reaches Approved:

1. Click Confirmed, the next step on the road at the top of the order’s page, and confirm.
2. Beelocity reserves the available stock at the order’s warehouse for each product line. The Reserved column shows how much, and other orders can no longer use that stock.
3. If the warehouse cannot cover a line, the order still confirms. A message says how many lines are short, and the Reserved column shows which ones.
4. You can ship the rest after the warehouse receives more. Nothing ships by itself, so create the delivery note when the goods are there.
5. When the warehouse starts work on the order, click Processing, the next step on the road. This step is optional.

If a delivery note ships straight from Confirmed, the order skips Processing. The road then shows that step greyed, with the reason.

Beelocity refuses to confirm an order if the client is no longer an active client. Check the client’s status on their page, then confirm the order again.

The reservation follows the order from then on. Each shipment uses up its share. If you cancel or close the order, Beelocity makes whatever is still reserved available again.

The road runs Draft → Pending approval → Approved → Confirmed → Processing → Completed → Closed. The steps already passed are ticked, and the step that the order is at is in bold. The next step is a button if you make that move yourself. If the screen is too narrow for seven steps, the road folds, as Working with Records explains.

Rest on a step to see when the order reached it and who moved it there. An approval shows the approver, and a shipment shows the person who shipped it.

Click the step that the order is at, and the list of moves opens instead. It lists each status that the order can move to from here. Pending approval, Approved, Partial and Completed are never yours to pick. The approvals and the shipments set them for you, so they are not in the list.

Note: Confirming the order only records it in Beelocity. Beelocity tells the client nothing, and an order has no printed form. So tell the client yourself, in your usual way.

Creating a Delivery Note from an Order

While a sales order is Confirmed, Processing or Partial, you can create a delivery note from it:

1. Open the order’s page, and its Deliveries tab. Click New. You can also open More actions and choose Create delivery note.
2. Check the Delivery number. It opens on the next number of your delivery series, such as DN-2026-000042.
3. You can type your own number. If you leave the field empty, Beelocity gives the note the next number.
4. Click Create. You land on the new delivery note.

Beelocity writes one line for each order line that still has something left to ship, for what the warehouse can ship now. A line opens on what is reserved for it, plus what is free in the warehouse, up to what is left. So a line of 10 with 2 reserved and nothing else in stock opens on 2. The order keeps the other 8 for a later note. A line with nothing to ship yet is left off the note, and the message after Create says how many lines are short. If nothing on the order is in stock, Beelocity creates no note and says so: receive the goods first. A line with no product cannot ship, so remove it from the draft note and press Close short on the order. The note ships from the order’s warehouse, and it starts as Draft, so your warehouse team can begin picking. While the note is Draft, you can change its lines, their locations and the carrier.

If you closed a line short, check the new note. Beelocity can list that line again if its full quantity did not ship. Remove it from the draft note.

Creating an Invoice from an Order

While a sales order is Confirmed, Processing, Partial or Completed, you can create an invoice from it:

1. Open the order’s page, and its Invoices tab. Click New. You can also open More actions and choose Create invoice.
2. Check the Invoice number. It opens on the next number of your invoice series, such as INV-2026-000100.
3. You can type your own number. If you leave the field empty, Beelocity gives the invoice the next number.
4. Click Create. You land on the new invoice.

Beelocity writes one line for each order line that still has something left to bill. It bills what the client ordered, even if the goods have not shipped. It does not look at returns either, so it also bills goods that came back before you billed them. To bill only what a delivery note shipped, less what came back, open that note and choose Create invoice in its More actions.

If you closed a line short, check the new invoice. Beelocity can list that line again, so remove it from the draft invoice.

Beelocity works out the line totals, the tax and the discounts from the order’s prices, and it dates the invoice today. The invoice falls due on the order’s payment terms, else on the client’s own terms, else 30 days later. It takes the order’s Payment method. If one delivery note of the order still has goods to bill, the invoice names it as its Delivery note. It starts as Draft. Check its dates and its lines, then move it to Sent.

Cancelling an Order

You can cancel a sales order while it is Draft, Confirmed, Processing or Partial:

1. First cancel each delivery note that has not shipped and each draft invoice of the order. Beelocity refuses to cancel the order while they exist, so that nothing keeps shipping or billing against it.
2. Click the step that the order is at, at the top of its page, to open the list of moves. Pick Cancelled and confirm.
3. Beelocity cancels each line that is Open or Partial, and it releases the stock that they still hold.
4. The order moves to Cancelled, and you can do nothing more with it.

Use this if a client cancels their order or if somebody wrote it by mistake. Cancelling does not bring back what already shipped.

You cannot cancel an order at Pending approval, so wait for the decision. You cannot cancel an order at Approved either, so confirm it first.

Closing an Order

You can close an order when it is Completed, or when it is Partial and the client will not take the rest:

1. As for cancelling, first cancel each delivery note that has not shipped and each draft invoice of the order.
2. If the order is Completed, click Closed, the next step on the road, and confirm.
3. If the order is Partial, click the step that it is at to open the list of moves. Pick Closed and confirm.
4. Beelocity closes every line that is not cancelled, and it releases any stock that they still hold.
5. The order moves to Closed, which is its final status.

If the order was Partial, the road then shows greyed each step that it never reached, such as Completed. Rest on one, and it says that the order went from Partial straight to Closed.

Use this to end an order for good, for example when the client accepts a partial delivery as final. Closing ships nothing and moves no money.

Finding an Order

The Sales orders list searches by number or by the client’s reference. Its filter button narrows the list by Status, Client, Warehouse, an Order date or Requested delivery date range, a Total amount range or Currency. For example, the confirmed orders for one client that are due this month take three picks (see Working with lists).

Deleting an Order

You can delete a sales order only while it is Draft. Open More actions and choose Delete. A Sales clerk does not see Delete.

At any other status, the order is part of your records and nobody can delete it. If the order can still be cancelled, cancel it instead.

Viewing Order Details

Click an order’s number in the list to open its page:

• Overview holds the order’s details, its totals, its delivery dates and its notes. The order’s lines sit beside them, with what each line has shipped. If the order came from a quotation, Source quotation links back to it.
• Deliveries lists every delivery note of the order, and Invoices lists every invoice. Each row links to its page.
• Approvals shows the history of decisions. The tab appears once a workflow handles the order.

Tips

• Let Beelocity number your orders. Each new order opens on the next number of your organization’s series for the year, SO-YYYY-NNNNNN. You can type your own number if you have your own scheme, and each number must stay unique.
• Choose the right warehouse. Pick the warehouse that is best placed to fill the order. Look at the stock that it holds and at how close it is to the client.
• Fill in the requested delivery date early. It helps your warehouse team to plan the work.
• Use internal notes. Record what your team should know, such as a special arrangement, delivery instructions or what the client prefers.
• Check the lines before you submit the order. After that, you cannot change them unless an approver rejects the order. Check the quantities, the prices and the terms first.