Back to D100: Inventory Order Management Basics

Lesson 11: Processing Sales of Stock Items

Part 2: Basic Sales and Purchase Processes

In this lesson, you will process a sale of stock items with shipping.

Sales of Stock Items: General Information

In a typical distribution organization, a customer order may be taken over the phone or received by email. In Acumatica ERP, you can process a sale of stock items by creating and processing a corresponding sales order. A sales order represents a customer request to buy particular goods in a specified quantity on a specified date.

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, you will do the following:

Create a sales order with stock items
Create the shipment for the sales order
Confirm the shipment
Create the invoice for the sales order
Process the sales invoice and the related inventory and accounts receivable documents

Applicable Scenario

You process a sales order with a stock item if you need to record the sale of goods with shipping the items to customer, updating item quantities in inventory, and preparing an invoice to the customer for the sold goods.

Sale of Stock Items with Automatic or Manual Allocation

The standard sales process typically includes entering a sales order, processing a shipment of the items with items being issued from inventory, and preparing the related invoice to a customer. In Acumatica ERP, to process a sale that requires the items to be shipped before an invoice can be prepared, you can use a sales order of the SO or SA type on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form. Consider the following points as you decide which of the order types to use:

For a new order of the SO type, the items are not reserved in inventory automatically. You can manually allocate (reserve) the requested quantity for a specific stock item or multiple items if this is required by your company policies or was requested by the customer. Also, you may want to reserve a line item if the item is available but the quantity required for the order line is distributed between diﬀerent warehouses and any transfers are required.
When you save a new order of the SA type, the system automatically reserves the requested quantities of stock items for this order (or the available part, if only part of requested quantity is available for any item). If the ordered quantity cannot be fully allocated at the specified location or warehouse, you can manually allocate the unavailable quantity in other warehouses or locations. If you prepare a shipment for an SA order that has an unallocated quantity, the order will be shipped partially even if the ordered quantities are available for shipping at another warehouse or warehouse location but were not allocated for this particular order. On the Details tab of the Sales Orders form, you can view the allocation for each sales order line and change it, if needed, by clicking a line and clicking Line Details on the table toolbar. The quantities of the items that have been allocated for the order (automatically or manually) cannot be shipped for another order. The way the order will be fulfilled depends on the item availability and on the shipping rules specified for the order and for the sales order lines on the Sales Orders form. These shipping rules determine whether the goods in the sales order should be shipped only in full, partial shipments for the available quantities are allowed with the remainder canceled, or partial shipments are allowed with the remainder on back order. For detailed information, see Shipping Rule Combinations. On the Shipments (SO302000) form, you can review the details of a shipment document prepared for an order; then you can confirm the shipment of items.
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        You can create a shipment only if each item listed on the Details tab of the Sales Orders form has
        a location for which sales are allowed—that is, the Sales Allowed check box is selected on the
        Locations tab of the Warehouses (IN204000) form.
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Aer you have prepared and confirmed the shipment or shipments related to the sales order, you need to bill the customer for the shipped items by preparing a sales invoice, which is a financial document in the system that contains links to the applicable shipments and sales orders. You can review the prepared sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form; then you can release it. When the sales invoice is released, the system automatically generates a corresponding inventory issue for the shipped items with the date and posting period of the invoice. Also, the sales invoice becomes visible on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form as an AR invoice. An AR invoice on the Invoices and Memos form is a financial document that does not contain links to the applicable shipments and sales orders, as the sales invoice does. The AR invoice and sales invoice have the same reference number, which the system prints in the customer statement. On both the Invoices form and the Invoices and Memos form, you can view the link to the batch of the general ledger transactions that was generated when the invoice was released. For more information on processing AR invoices, see Processing AR Invoices.

Workflow of a Sale of Stock Items

For a sales order of the SO or SA type that includes stock items, the typical processing involves the actions and generated documents shown in the following diagram.

Sales of Stock Items: Process Activity

The following activity demonstrates how to prepare and process to completion a sales order with manual allocation of stock items.

Story

Suppose that you are Grace Norman, a sales manager of the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company. On January 30, 2025, the GoodFood One Restaurant wholesale customer has ordered a large amount of orange and apple jams in 96-ounce jars from the main oﬀice of SweetLife, where you are employed, for the café's baking needs. The ordered jams are stored in the warehouse of the SweetLife’s main oﬀice. You, as a sales manager, need to enter and process the appropriate documents.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, for the purposes of this activity, the following tasks have been performed:

On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the following features have been enabled:
Inventory and Order Management, which provides the standard functionality of inventory and order management
Inventory, which gives you the ability to maintain stock items by using forms related to the inventory functionality and to create and process sales and purchase documents that include stock items
On the Order Types (SO201000) form, the SO order type has been configured and activated.
On the Customers (AR303000) form, the GOODFOOD (GoodFood One Restaurant) customer has been configured.
On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, the APJAM96 and ORJAM96 stock items have been configured.
On the Warehouses (IN204000) form, in the WHOLESALE warehouse, which has been configured, suﬀicient quantities of the APJAM96 and ORJAM96 items are on hand.

Process Overview

To perform a sale of stock items with manual allocation, you create a sales order on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, select the customer to which the items are being sold, add items to the order, and reserve the items in inventory. Then you create a shipment document on the Shipments (SO302000) form. On this form, you confirm the settings that the system has inserted automatically based on the sales order, and then confirm the shipment. Aer shipment confirmation, you use the Invoices (SO303000) form to prepare a corresponding invoice to the customer and release it.

System Preparation

Before you start performing a sale of stock items with manual allocation, you should do the following:

Launch the Acumatica ERP website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and sign in to the system as sales manager Grace Norman by using the norman username and the 123 password.
In the info area, in the upper-right corner of the top pane of the Acumatica ERP screen, make sure that the business date in your system is set to 1/30/2025. If a diﬀerent date is displayed, click the Business Date menu button and select 1/30/2025 on the calendar. For simplicity, in this activity, you will create and process all documents in the system on this business date.
On the Company and Branch Selection menu, in the top pane of the Acumatica ERP screen, make sure the SweetLife Head Oﬀice and Wholesale Center branch is selected.

Step 1: Creating a Sales Order To create a sales order, do the following:

On the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, create a sales order, and specify the following settings:

Order Type: SO
Customer: GOODFOOD
Date: 1/30/2025
Requested On: 1/30/2025

Description: Orange and apple jams

               To open the form for creating a new record, type the form ID in the Search box, and on the
               Search form, point at the form title and click New right of the title.

On the table toolbar of the Details tab, click Add Row.
Specify the following settings in the added row:

Inventory ID: APJAM96
Warehouse: WHOLESALE
Quantity: 20
Unit Price: 45.15

On the table toolbar, click Add Row.
Specify the following settings in the added row:

Inventory ID: ORJAM96
Warehouse: WHOLESALE
Quantity: 20
Unit Price: 35.99

On the form toolbar, click Save.
The sales order is saved with the Open status.

Step 2: Allocating Inventory Items To manually allocate the inventory items for the sales order you have created, while you are still viewing the sales order on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, do the following:

On the Details tab, click the APJAM96 line, and review the Allocated quantity for the APJAM96 inventory item in the table footer (which is currently equal to 0 because the system does not automatically allocate stock items for SO orders).
On the table toolbar, click Line Details.
In the Line Details dialog box, which opens, make sure that WHOLESALE is selected in the Alloc. Warehouse column of the only row.
Select the Allocated check box for the allocation line.
Click OK to save the created allocation and close the dialog box.
In the table footer, review the Allocated quantity, and notice that it is now equal to the quantity specified in the line, which means that the item has been allocated in inventory.
On the form toolbar, click Save.
Click the ORJAM96 line, and review the Allocated quantity for the ORJAM96 stock item in the table footer (which is currently equal to 0 because the system does not automatically allocate stock items for SO orders).
On the table toolbar, click Line Details. 10.In the Line Details dialog box, which opens, make sure that WHOLESALE is selected in the Alloc. Warehouse column of the only row. 11.Select the Allocated check box for the allocation line. 12.Click OK to save the created allocation and close the dialog box. 13.In the table footer, review the Allocated quantity, and notice that it is now equal to the quantity specified in the line, which means that the item has been allocated in inventory. 14.On the form toolbar, click Save.
You have manually allocated the inventory items for the sales order. Now you need to create a shipment document for the sales order.

Step 3: Creating a Shipment To create a shipment, do the following:

While you are still viewing the sales order you have created on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, on the form toolbar, click Create Shipment.
In the Specify Shipment Parameters dialog box, which opens, make sure that the 1/30/2025 date and the WHOLESALE warehouse are selected, and click OK. The system closes the dialog box, creates a shipment, and opens it on the Shipments (SO302000) form.

Step 4: Confirming the Shipment To confirm the shipment, do the following:

While you are still viewing the shipment on the Shipments (SO302000) form, review the lines on the Details tab. Make sure that both order lines have been included in the shipment and that the shipped quantity in both lines is equal to the ordered quantity.
In both lines, specify Main in the Location column.
On the form toolbar, click Confirm Shipment.
The shipment is assigned the Confirmed status. Now you can prepare the invoice to bill the customer and increase the customer's debt in the system.

Step 5: Processing the Invoice To prepare and release the invoice, do the following:

While you are still viewing the shipment on the Shipments (SO302000) form, on the form toolbar, click Prepare Invoice. The system prepares the invoice and opens it on the Invoices (SO303000) form.
On this form, review the details of the prepared invoice. The invoice has two lines, as the initial sales order does. In the Shipment Nbr. and Order Nbr. columns of the Details tab, notice that the system has inserted the reference number links to the related shipment and sales order.
On the form toolbar, click Release to release the invoice. Wait for the system to complete the operation.
Return to the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, and open the sales order that you have processed.
On the Shipments tab, in the only row, click the link in the Inventory Ref. Nbr. column to view the inventory issue that was generated when you released the invoice.
On the Issues (IN302000) form, which opens in a pop-up window, review the details of the inventory issue, shown in the following screenshot. Make sure that the issue has the Released status, which means that the issue has been released and the quantities of items in inventory have been decreased appropriately.
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   Figure: Inventory issue generated on release of the invoice
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The sales order processing is now complete. Part 2: Basic Sales and Purchase Processes | 62