About Orders, Shipments, and Invoices

Order processing in Order Entry supports and enhances your workflow in several important ways:

• Individual Order Entry, Shipment Entry, and Invoice Entry screens have separate authorizations, allowing tight control of the order processing, shipping, and invoicing functions. If security is turned on for your system, managers can separate the processing of orders, shipments, and invoices by supervisor or administrative unit.
• If security is not turned on, or if you have sufficient authorization, you are not restricted to using separate screens for these functions.

  You can enter quotes, orders, shipments, and backorders on the Order Entry screen, and then automatically create invoices for the shipped quantities.

  You can enter shipments and print invoices from the Order Entry screen or the Shipment Entry screen—without entering orders first.

  You can add prepayments to an Accounts Receivable batch using the Order Entry, Shipment Entry, and Invoice Entry screens.

• Because the entry screens and the information used in orders, shipments, and invoices are similar (with a few exceptions), the workflow is efficient. Information you enter on an order is reused on the shipment, and shipment information is passed to the invoice. More...
  • When you select an order for shipment on the Shipment Entry screen, the details from the order are copied to the shipment document you are entering.

    When you select a shipment for invoicing on the Invoice Entry screen, the details from the shipment are copied to the invoice you are entering.

  • Payment details appear on invoices, so if you specify a multiple payment schedule, you confirm all the payment details (such as the due dates) when you invoice the customer.
  • If you use Payment Processing, you can process and void credit card prepayments from the Order Entry, Shipment Entry, and Invoice Entry screens. However, you can pre-authorize credit card transactions (and void pre-authorized credit card transactions) only from the Order Entry screen.

  Shipments and invoices contain only the shipped items and miscellaneous charges for the orders that you are shipping or invoicing.

Processing Orders and Quotes

You use the Order Entry screen to enter orders and quotes. To save time, you can also use the Copy Orders screen to copy the details of existing orders for a selected customer to a new order.

You can also enter quotes, orders, shipments, and backorders on the Order Entry screen, and then automatically create invoices for the shipped quantities.

To process a shipment while entering an order, you enter the shipped quantities directly on the order.

To create an invoice for the shipped goods automatically when you post the order, you select the Create Invoice option on the Order Entry screen.

For step-by-step instructions on entering orders, see Entering an Order .

You can also enter prepayments with orders. For step-by-step instructions, see Entering a Prepayment.

If you use Payment Processing, you can pre-authorize or process a credit card prepayment for an order. For more information and step-by-step instructions, see Pre-authorizing a Credit Card Payment and Capturing a Pre-authorized Credit Card Payment.

Processing Shipments

To process a shipment after entering the order, use the Shipment Entry screen.

You can enter any number of shipments for a single order until the order is fully shipped.

You can also process a single shipment for multiple orders. However, details that are fully shipped are not available for future shipments.

You can edit a shipment document until the order is fully shipped. You can delete details, and you can edit most of the detail information for a shipment, except the item numbers and the quantities committed to the order. You can also enter a negative quantity on a shipment transaction. However, you cannot enter new detail lines for a posted shipment.

To create an invoice automatically when you post a shipment, you select the Create Invoice option on the Shipment Entry screen.

For step-by-step instructions on creating shipments, see Shipping Orders and Items .

Allowing Negative Inventory Levels

Unless the Allow Negative Inventory Levels option is selected in Inventory Control, the program ships only quantities that are on hand in Inventory Control.

If negative inventory is allowed, the program warns you when you enter shipped quantities that will result in negative inventory levels.

For more information about this option, see the Inventory Control help.

Processing Credit Card Payments for Shipments

If you use Payment Processing, you can process a credit card prepayment for a shipment, and you can capture a pre-authorized credit card payment for an order.

Note: If you use Payment Processing, you must capture or void all outstanding credit card pre-authorizations for any orders that are included in the shipment before you can post the shipment.

For more information, see Capturing a Pre-authorized Credit Card Payment and Voiding a Credit Card Pre-authorization.

Processing Invoices

You can create invoices automatically when you ship goods using the Order Entry screen or the Shipment Entry screen.

If you don't create an invoice when you ship goods, you use the Invoice Entry screen to process invoices for shipped items and miscellaneous charges.

You can process a single invoice for one shipment or for multiple shipments, but only until the shipment is fully invoiced. (Details that are fully invoiced are not available for future invoices.)

If you use Payment Processing, you can process a credit card prepayment for an invoice.

You can print the invoice when you post the shipment.

For step-by-step instructions on creating invoices, see Invoicing Shipments .

Creating Partial Invoices

You create a partial invoice when you ship and invoice only part of an order. You can post as many invoices from a single order as you require, until all the quantities are shipped.

When you post a partial invoice:

• All the miscellaneous charges currently entered for the order and not marked Completed are invoiced.
• The program deducts the quantities shipped from the quantities on order. The next time you recall the order, the quantities on order will be the reduced amounts, showing the quantities outstanding.

To check the original quantity ordered for the item, select the item line and review the amount in the Original Order field.

Entering Credits on Invoices

You can enter credit amounts on invoice detail lines for returned items or to reverse miscellaneous charges, providing the order is incomplete.

For more information, see About Credits on Invoices .

Overriding Customer Credit Limits

Job-Related Orders, Shipments, and Invoices

If you use Project and Job Costing (PJC), you can create and process job-related orders that allocate inventory items, labor costs, and miscellaneous charges to particular contracts, projects, and categories that are tracked in PJC.

Quotes and New Contracts

You can create a new contract in PJC when you enter a quote in Order Entry.

New contracts can be based on existing contracts, so you can create template contracts that contain standard items and costs.

Amounts entered on quote detail lines appear as original estimates in the Contract Maintenance screen in PJC.

When you change the order from Quote to Active, Order Entry updates the PJC contract line-by-line to change the status of each referenced project from Estimate to Open.

Service Orders for Existing Contracts

You can process orders and invoices in Order Entry for existing long-term contracts, and let PJC track the costs and revenues.

For example, you could have a year-long service contract, but invoice the client for each service call. For each service call, you could activate a standing order with standard call details, change it as required, and then issue the invoice.

Project Invoicing

The Project Invoicing option determines whether you invoice job-related orders in Order Entry or from Project and Job Costing.

If you select Project Invoicing:

• Project and Job Costing handles all billing for the order.
• Order Entry debits the Work in Progress account when you ship the order and passes all billing information to Project and Job Costing.
• You can post a negative shipment. Although you cannot post a credit note for project-invoiced jobs, negative shipments provide credit note functionality.

If you do not select Project Invoicing:

• Order Entry creates invoices for Accounts Receivable, where the cost of sales and revenues are posted together. Typically, service companies invoice from Order Entry, and close the jobs when they post the invoices.

Project Invoicing in Order Entry

Project Type / Accounting Method	Project Invoicing	Notes
Time And Materials projects with Billings And Costs or Accrual-Basis accounting method. Fixed Price projects with Billings And Costs or Accrual-Basis accounting method.	Project Invoicing is optional. You can invoice in Order Entry or in PJC	If invoicing in Order Entry, all costs (allocated and expensed) and revenue are sent to PJC from Accounts Receivable when the invoice is posted in Accounts Receivable. Revenue is also recognized during posting in Accounts Receivable. If invoicing in PJC, Order Entry sends costs to PJC with allocated and expensed tax amounts, and sends revenue net of tax amounts. Revenue is recognized in PJC.
Time And Materials projects with Completed Project accounting method. Fixed Price projects with Project Percent Complete or Completed Project accounting method. Cost Plus projects with Total Costs Percentage Complete, Completed Project, Labor Hours Percentage Complete, Billings And Costs, Category Percentage Complete, or Accrual-Basis accounting method.	Project Invoicing is mandatory. PJC handles all billing.	The order is completed at shipment posting and sent to PJC for invoicing. Only costs (including allocated and expensed tax) are sent to PJC. For Time And Materials projects, the billing type, billing rate, and extended billing amount are also sent to PJC.

Item Details

You cannot mix job-related and non-job-related order details on the same order.

For job-related orders, you must specify the quantity purchased, as well as the contract, project, and category to which each item applies. The contract, project, category and resource (for standard projects) must exist in PJC. More...

Miscellaneous Charges

Miscellaneous charges perform two functions on job-related orders:

• They allow you to invoice external charges, such as freight.
• They record internal, non-material transactions, such as equipment use, subcontractors, or labor.

You must select the Allow For Jobs option on the Miscellaneous Charges setup screen to use a miscellaneous charge on a job-related order. More...

Multicurrency

If you are invoicing in Order Entry, Order Entry sends functional cost amounts and functional and source revenue amounts to Accounts Receivable.

If you selected Project Invoicing, Order Entry sends both functional and source cost amounts and source revenue amounts to PJC. (Order Entry calculates the source cost by using the document currency and date for exchange.)

Taxes

Project and Job Costing allows tax groups to be specified by project on an invoice. When Project and Job Costing creates an invoice, it uses each project's tax group to calculate tax. Therefore, you can enter details for contracts and projects that use different tax groups on the same document, provided Project and Job Costing handles the invoicing. (This is the case if you select Project Invoicing for a document.)

However, if you will produce the invoice in Order Entry, you must use separate orders for contracts and projects that use different tax groups. This is because the tax group specified for an Order Entry invoice applies to all the document details.

Note: If you create an order or shipment for a "non-existent" customer (a customer for which no record exists in Accounts Receivable) and select Project Invoicing, you will not be able to add order or shipment details unless the default template includes a tax group. (The tax group is not editable if you select Project Invoicing, and it will be blank unless it is specified in the template.)