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Understanding the Lifecycle of a Sales Order
Here we'll cover:
Sales Order Management Overview
When thinking about the growth of your business, it’s important to consider where your Sales Orders might come from in the future - eCommerce channel, the marketplace, point of sale system, consignment, or tradeshow - the options are many.
QuickBooks Commerce's Sales Order management functionality is extremely flexible, giving you the ability to receive and manage Sales Orders from a variety of sources; both today and as you grow.
Best of all, the flow of orders throughout your commerce ecosystem can be completely automated (with the exception of creating manual Sales Orders for B2B clients if you so choose)!
Throughout this section, we’ll walk you through the following Sales Order sources and their respective workflows within QuickBooks Commerce:
- B2C eCommerce Channel (i.e. Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, SquareSpace, etc.)
- Online Marketplace (i.e. Amazon, eBay, Lazada, Etsy, The Iconic, etc.)
- Point of Sale System (i.e. Shopify POS, Vend, LightSpeed, etc.)
- B2B eCommerce Channel (via QuickBooks Commerce’s B2B eCommerce Platform)
- B2B Manual Sales Order (via QuickBooks Commerce)
- Consignment Sales
- Tradeshow Sales (via QuickBooks Commerce Mobile)
Managing Sales Orders from Various Sources
B2C eCommerce Channel
Acting as the central hub for your business operations, once you integrate your eCommerce channels with QuickBooks Commerce, Sales Orders will automatically start flowing into QuickBooks Commerce.
You can review and action your Sales Orders at any time by clicking into the Sales Orders section and then clicking on the Orders section.
Within the Channel column, you’ll be able to see the source of each Sales Order.
Within the Orders table, you can easily add or remove columns by clicking on the gear menu 
, checking or unchecking the boxes respectively. Columns can also be dragged to the left or right.
To review, edit, or action a Sales Order, simply click on a Sales Order.
To review the current sync settings between your eCommerce channel and QuickBooks Commerce.
Go to the Integrated Apps section and click on the appropriate sales channel.
From the Dashboard tab, you’ll be able to review the current sync settings and edit them if you so desire.
Online Marketplace
Acting as the central hub for your business operations, once you integrate your online marketplace with QuickBooks Commerce, Sales Orders will automatically start flowing into QuickBooks Commerce.
You can review and action them at any time by clicking into the Sales Orders section and then clicking on the Orders section.
Within the Channel column, you’ll be able to see the source of each Sales Order.
Within the Orders table, you can easily add or remove columns by clicking on the gear menu , checking or unchecking the boxes respectively. Columns can also be dragged to the left or right.
To review, edit, or action a Sales Order, simply click on a Sales Order.
To review the current sync settings between your marketplace channel and QuickBooks Commerce.
Go to the Integrated Apps section and click on the appropriate sales channel.
From the Dashboard tab, you’ll be able to review the current sync settings and edit them if you so desire.
Point of Sale System
Acting as the central hub for your business operations, once you integrate your Point of Sale system with QuickBooks Commerce, Sales Orders will automatically start flowing in.
You can review and action them at any time by clicking into the Sales Orders section and then clicking on the Orders section.
As Point of Sale sales is all made on-site, Sales Orders will be marked as “Finalized” by default and then automatically marked as “Fulfilled.”
Within the "Channel" column, you’ll be able to see the source of each Sales Order.
Within the Orders table, you can easily add or remove columns by clicking on the gear menu , checking or unchecking the boxes respectively. Columns can also be dragged to the left or right.
To review, edit, or action a Sales Order, simply click on a Sales Order.
To review the current sync settings between your Point of Sales system and QuickBooks Commerce.
Go to the Integrated Apps section and click on the appropriate sales channel.
From the Dashboard tab, you’ll be able to review the current sync settings and edit them if you so desire.
B2B eCommerce Channel (QuickBooks Commerce B2B eCommerce Platform)
Acting as the central hub for your business operations, Sales Orders will automatically flow in from the QuickBooks Commerce B2B eCommerce Platform.
You can review and action your Sales Orders at any time by clicking into the Sales Orders section and then clicking on the Orders section.
Within the Channel column, you’ll be able to see the source of each Sales Order.
Within the Orders table, you can easily add or remove columns by clicking on the gear menu , checking or unchecking the boxes respectively. Columns can also be dragged to the left or right.
To review, edit, or action a Sales Order, simply click on a Sales Order.
B2B Manual Sales Order
To manually create a Sales Order go to the Sales Order section.
Click the Orders section and then click the “New Sales Order” button located near the top right-hand side of the screen.
You’ll be taken to the New Sales Order page where you can begin to populate the fields.
Select the customer from the dropdown box. If the customer is not listed, you can create a new customer now.
Once the customer has been selected, their default information will pre-populate the fields below. Review them to ensure they’re accurate.
At this point, a few things will happen:
- An order number will automatically generate (in the image above it’s SO0007), but you can change it if you so desire
- Within the reference field, you can enter the Customer’s Purchase Order Number
- Adjust the shipment date to the date when you’ll need to have the stock delivered
- State whether prices on the Sales Order will be tax inclusive or not
Once you’ve confirmed and filled out the fields at the top of the Sales Order, you can begin to add product variants to the order.
Type them into the Item Name field and select them from the dropdown list. Adjust the quantity, price and discount as required.
If needed, you can add additional charges to each Sales Order by clicking “Add a custom line item.” For example, you may want to add a charge for shipping, labels, setup, etc.
You can also add a note to the Sales Order at this time.
When your Sales Order is complete, you have two options:
- You can “save it as a quote” and send to your customer for review. This will change the status of the Sales Order to Draft. Associated stock will not be committed to the Sales Order at this time.
- Or “create the Sales Order.” This will change the status of the Sales Order to Active. Associated stock will be committed to the Sales Order at this time ensuring that you do not sell the variants to another customer.
Tradeshow Sales (via QuickBooks Commerce Mobile)
If you haven’t done so already, download the QuickBooks Commerce Mobile app to your mobile device from Apple’s App Store (click here).
Sign in using your unique QuickBooks Commerce login.
To create a Sales Order on QuickBooks Commerce Mobile, open the application and then go to the Inventory tab.
You can filter your products by Product Type, Supplier, Brand, and Tags. Tap on the Filter button on the top left-hand corner of the Products page to view your filters.
You can also search for your variants by SKU, Product Name, Product Type, and Tags.
If you’d like, you can view your products in Grid View.
While you’re with your customer at various tradeshows, navigate through your products, and add the corresponding variants.
Select the product variant that they’d like to purchase and click “Add to cart.”
Enter the quantity they’d like to purchase along with any discount.
If they would like to purchase more product variants, continue to browse the Inventory tab and add more variants to the cart.
Once you’ve added everything they’d like to buy, click on the Cart tab.
The current order in progress will appear - at this point, click “select a customer” from the left sidebar. If the customer does not exist in the system, create a new customer now
Select the customer, then click the “Save as Draft Order” button.
At this point, no stock has been committed to the sales order as it’s still a Draft.
To commit the stock, you’ll need to go to the Orders tab and select the corresponding draft Sales Order.
Once within the draft Sales Order, click the “Approve” button if you’re ready to proceed with the order.
This will change the status of the Sales Order to Active. Associated stock will be committed to the Sales Order at this time ensuring that you do not sell the variants to another customer.
At this stage, you have the option to modify other order attributes via the “edit” button or change the Sales Order status to Finalized so that it can be picked, packed, and fulfilled.
Consignment Sales
Once you’ve created your consignment location(s) and transferred the respective stock to it, sales from your consignees must be processed manually.
Go to the Sales Order section.
Click Orders and create a new Sales Order by clicking the “Create New Sales Order” button.
From within the new Sales Order, enter the consignment location as the “Ship from” location.
Enter the items that have been sold at the consignment location into the Sales Order.
Click the “Create” button and you're done!
Managing Backorders
Enabling backordering functionality is extremely useful if you take pre-orders or sell past zero on your digital sales channels.
It works by allowing you to create a Purchase Order from a Sales Order, then track the order’s shipping status with minimal effort.
Before you start backordering, make sure the following product and supplier details are set up within QuickBooks Commerce:
- Ensure all products have a supplier added to their product details
- Ensure all suppliers have a default price list assigned
You can create backorders individually, or in bulk.
Creating Backorders Individually
To create a backorder individually, go to the particular Sales Order. If the order requires a backorder you will see a warning at the top of the sales order:
Click the “Create Purchase Order” button and the following form will pop-up on your screen.
You will then see all the products that need to be backordered.
You can also assign a tag to these backorders. These tags will be saved under both your Purchase Orders and your Sales Order so you can use them to filter through your orders later on.
Preview your Backorder:
You will be able to check the information on the Supplier and Shipping location. You can now save the order and email your supplier to notify them.
Create Backorders in Bulk
If you wish to create multiple backorders at the same time, go to the Sales Orders section, then the Orders section.
Click on the Orders to be Backordered tab. Check the boxes beside the Sales Orders that you’d like to create backorders for.
Click on Backorder.
Only the product variants that require backordering will populate into the backorder form.
Click on "Preview" to review the Purchase Orders that will be created.
Once reviewed, click “Confirm Backorder.”
Once again you can save the orders and directly email them to the relevant suppliers.
Alternatively, you can use a filter to bring up the Sales Orders that require backordering.
Click on the filter tab on at the top of your Sales Order.
Click on Backordering Status. You will be able to create filters for orders that are either already to be backordered or partially backordered.
Once you have saved this filter, you can then create the backorders in bulk as we went through before.
Now that you have created your backorders you can track the shipping status of those orders.
What's next?
Now let’s walk through Sales Order Automation with QuickBooks Commerce Automation.