Sales Orders

A sales order (SO) is a confirmed commitment to deliver goods or services to a client. Sales orders are the core transactional documents of the sales process — they track what was promised, when it should be delivered, and from which warehouse the goods will be fulfilled.

Sales orders can be created directly for routine or repeat orders, or they can originate from an accepted sales quotation through the conversion process. Once confirmed, a sales order drives the fulfillment workflow: warehouse picking, delivery, and eventually invoicing.

Creating a Sales Order

To create a new sales order:

1. Navigate to Sales > Orders in the sidebar.
2. Click New. This opens a new order page.
3. Fill in the order details:
   • Order Number — A unique identifier for this order (e.g., SO-2026-0055).
   • Client — Select the client from your business partners.
   • Warehouse — The warehouse from which goods will be picked and shipped.
   • Order Date — The date the order was placed (defaults to today).
   • Requested Delivery Date — The client’s requested delivery date (optional).
   • Currency — The currency for all amounts on this order.
   • Price List — An optional price list. When set, new lines whose Unit Price is left at 0 are priced automatically from it (falling back to the product’s base price); a price you type always wins.
   • Payment Terms — The payment terms for this order (optional).
   • Contact Person — The client’s contact person for this order (optional).
   • Customer Reference — The client’s own order or purchase-order number, if they gave you one. It prints on their invoice as “Your order”, and it is usually what their accounts department matches the bill against — an invoice without it can sit unpaid while somebody works out which order it belongs to. Two different clients can use the same reference; Beelocity does not treat it as unique, because it is their number, not yours. Up to 100 characters. The Sales Orders list shows it in its own column and finds it through the search box, so a client quoting their PO number on the phone is one search away.
   • Notes — Any instructions or comments visible to the client.
   • Internal Notes — Notes visible only to your team.
4. Click Save. The order is stored in Draft status and you land on its page.

Creating an Order from a Quotation

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

1. Navigate to Sales > Quotations and open the accepted quotation.
2. Use the Convert to Sales Order section on its Overview tab.
3. Provide the order number and select the warehouse for fulfillment.
4. The system creates a new sales order in Draft status with all the quotation’s line items, pricing, and terms carried over automatically.
5. The original quotation is marked as Converted and becomes read-only.

This ensures a seamless handoff from the negotiation phase to the fulfillment phase, with a clear link between the quotation and the resulting order.

Managing Order Lines

Add or review the items on the order:

1. Open the order by clicking its number in the list. The order’s details are on the left of the page and its Lines are beside them on the right.
2. Click Add Line for each item, then double-click a cell to edit it:
   • Product — Select a product from your catalog (optional — you can also enter custom items).
   • Description — What the line is, in your own words. Required: it is the wording the delivery note and the invoice will carry for this line.
   • Quantity — How many units the client ordered.
   • Unit — The unit of measure (e.g., piece, kg, box).
   • Unit Price — Price per unit.
   • Tax Rate — The applicable tax percentage (optional).
   • Discount — A line-level discount percentage (optional).
   • Notes — Any line-specific notes or specifications (optional).
3. The system automatically calculates line totals, tax amounts, and discount amounts based on the quantity, unit price, tax rate, and discount percentage.
4. Lines can be added, edited, or removed while the order is in Draft status.

On a confirmed order, each open line also offers a Close short action: the remaining quantity will not be shipped, any stock still reserved for the line returns to availability, and the rest of the order keeps fulfilling. When the last open line is closed, the order completes (or is cancelled when nothing ever shipped).

Each line tracks its own fulfillment progress — the Shipped quantity shows how much has been delivered so far, and the Status reflects whether the line is open, partially shipped, or fully completed.

Sales Order Lifecycle

Sales orders follow a structured lifecycle that tracks progress from preparation through fulfillment:

Submitting for Approval

Sales orders go through your organization’s approval workflow before they can be confirmed with the client. Approvers are picked automatically — typical rules check the order total against credit-limit and value thresholds — so you do not select them by hand.

1. While the order is in Draft, click Submit for approval. The order moves to Pending approval.
2. The decision lands in the assigned approver’s Inbox, where they can approve, reject (with a required reason), or delegate it.
3. While pending, you can monitor progress under the My Submissions tab of your Inbox.

When the chain completes, the order moves to Approved and is ready to confirm. If your organization has no approval workflow covering the order, submitting approves it immediately — approval is opt-in, and your administrator can add a catch-all Sales Order workflow to make it mandatory.

Confirming an Order

Once an order has been approved through the internal approval process:

1. Click Confirmed, the next step on the road at the bottom of the order’s page, and confirm. The road runs Draft → Pending approval → Approved → Confirmed → Processing → Completed → Closed: the steps already passed are ticked, the one the order is at is filled, and the next one is a button when it is a move you make yourself. Rest on a step to see when it was reached and by whom — an approval shows the approver, a shipment the person who shipped it. Clicking the step you are at opens the map instead: every status with an arrow for each move; the ones you can move to from here are clickable. Pending approval, Approved, Partial and Completed are never yours to pick: the approval engine and shipping progress set them for you, and the map marks such a status Automatic.
2. The order is now communicated to the client as a binding commitment (the order acknowledgment).
3. Confirming also reserves available stock at the order’s warehouse for each product line. The reserved amount appears in the Reserved column of the order’s lines, and that stock stops being available to other orders. If the warehouse can’t fully cover a line, the order still confirms — a notification tells you which lines are short, and the missing quantity ships once the warehouse is replenished.
4. After confirmation, the order moves into the fulfillment phase — click Processing, the next step on the road, when the warehouse starts working the order. An order whose delivery ships straight from Confirmed skips that step, and the road shows it greyed with the reason.

Reservations follow the order automatically from there: each shipment consumes its share, and cancelling or closing the order releases whatever is still reserved back to available stock.

Note: Confirming the order within the system records it for tracking purposes. You should also send the order acknowledgment to the client through your usual communication channels.

Creating a Delivery Note from an Order

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

1. Open the order’s detail page and click the Create Delivery Note button in the header.
2. Enter a Delivery Number — the next number in your organization’s delivery series (e.g., DN-2026-000042) is pre-filled. You can override it, or leave the field empty and Beelocity assigns the number automatically when the note is created.
3. Click Create. You land on the new delivery note.

The system automatically creates delivery note lines from all order lines that have remaining unshipped quantities, shipping from the order’s warehouse. The delivery note is created in Draft status, ready for your warehouse team to begin picking — you can adjust lines, locations, and the carrier there before shipping.

Creating an Invoice from an Order

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

1. Open the order’s detail page and click the Create Invoice button in the header.
2. Enter an Invoice Number — the next number in your organization’s invoice series (e.g., INV-2026-000100) is pre-filled. You can override it, or leave the field empty and Beelocity assigns the number automatically when the invoice is created.
3. Click Create. You land on the new invoice.

The system automatically creates invoice lines from all order lines that have remaining uninvoiced quantities. Line totals, taxes, and discounts are calculated automatically based on the order pricing, and the invoice and due dates default to today. The invoice is created in Draft status — review the dates and lines, then send it.

Cancelling an Order

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

1. Cancel any open delivery notes and draft invoices that reference the order first — cancelling is refused while they exist, so nothing keeps shipping or billing against a dead order.
2. Click the step the order is at, at the bottom of its page, to open the map, and pick Cancelled.
3. All open and partially shipped lines are automatically cancelled.
4. The order moves to Cancelled status and no further actions can be taken.

Use this when a client cancels their order or when an order was created in error.

Closing an Order

Once an order is Completed (all items shipped) or Partial (some items shipped with the remainder no longer needed):

1. As with cancelling, any open delivery notes or draft invoices must be cancelled first.
2. Click Close on the order.
3. All non-terminal lines are automatically closed.
4. The order moves to Closed status, which is its final state.

Closing is an administrative action — use it to formally conclude an order, especially when a partial delivery has been accepted by the client as final.

Finding an Order

The Sales Orders list searches by number or the client’s reference, and its filter button narrows it by Status, Client, Warehouse, an Order Date or Requested Delivery range, a Total band, or Currency — “the confirmed orders for one client due this month” is three picks (see Working with lists).

Deleting an Order

Sales orders can only be deleted while they are in Draft status. Once an order has been submitted for approval or has moved to any other status, it is part of your records and cannot be deleted — use Cancel instead.

Viewing Order Details

Click an order’s number in the list to open its page — the Overview tab carries all header information (including a link back to the source quotation when the order was converted from one), pricing totals, fulfillment progress, delivery dates, and notes, with the order’s lines beside them tracking per-line shipped and invoiced quantities; the Deliveries and Invoices tabs list every delivery note and invoice raised against the order, linked to their pages; and the Approvals tab shows the decision history.

Tips

• Numbering is handled for you — new documents pre-fill with the next number in your organization’s per-year series (SO-YYYY-NNNNNN). You can override the suggestion when you have your own scheme; numbers just have to stay unique.
• Choose the right warehouse — Select the warehouse that is best positioned to fulfill the order efficiently, considering stock availability and proximity to the client.
• Set delivery expectations early — Fill in the requested and promised delivery dates to help your warehouse team plan fulfillment.
• Use internal notes — Record context about special arrangements, delivery instructions, or client preferences that your team should know.
• Review lines before confirming — Once confirmed, the order becomes a binding commitment. Double-check quantities, prices, and terms before confirming.