Extended Sales and Purchase ScenariosLesson 11

Processing Direct Sales

Back to D200: Inventory Order Management Extended Scenarios

Lesson 11: Processing Direct Sales

Part 3: Extended Sales and Purchase Scenarios

This lesson explains how you can process a direct sale of stock items.

Direct Sales: General Information

A point-of-sale (POS) system is an electronic system that is used to record the sales, payment, and return transactions of a retail store. The POS system can be operated by a cashier or can be a self-service terminal where customers perform all operations. Your organization can integrate Acumatica ERP with an external POS system for simplified processing of direct sales if the Advanced SO Invoices feature is enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form. With a direct sale, a customer purchases and immediately procures goods and services in the retail store. These purchased items may or may not be linked to a sales order that the customer has placed previously. In the POS system, a direct sale is processed through the creation of a sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form. The processing of the sales invoice records the sale and updates inventory without a sales order and a shipment being processed.

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, you will do the following:

  • Create a sales invoice for a direct sale
  • Add to the sales invoice a sale line not linked to a previously prepared sales order
  • Add to the sales invoice a line with a link to a previously prepared sales order
  • Process the direct sale to completion

Applicable Scenarios

You may need to create and process a direct sale in the following cases:

  • A customer comes to the retail store, purchases goods, and directly procures the items, so that you need to process a direct sale through the POS system. In this case, you create and process only the sales invoice; there is no need to process a related shipment or sales order.
  • A customer picks up all or a part of items included in a sales order that has been added to the system based on a phone or online sale. In this case, you need to process a direct sale through the POS system by linking the sales invoice you create to the related sales order.

Direct Sale Process

To process a direct sale, you create a sales invoice of the Invoice type on the Invoices (SO303000) form. To the sales invoice, you add a line for each item included in the sale, and specify the quantity of items to be sold. For serialized items, you should add a separate invoice line with this item and a quantity of 1 for each serial number. To release the sales invoice, you click Release on the More menu. The system does the following:

  • Automatically generates a batch of general ledger transactions.
  • Automatically generates and releases an inventory issue for the stock items, which causes the system to decrease the on-hand item quantity. For the lines in the sales invoice, the system adds to the inventory issue lines with the Invoice transaction type.
  • Makes the invoice 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 Direct Sale

For a sales invoice created for processing a direct sale, the typical processing involves the actions and generated documents shown in the following diagram.

Direct Sales: Direct Sale with a Link to the Related Sales Order

The customer may want to pick up in the retail store all or a part of items included in a sales order that has been added to the system based on a phone or online sale. In this case, you need to process a direct sale through the POS system with a link to the related sales order to record in the system that some of the items from the order have been taken by the customer. To process a direct sale, you create a sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form. If the customer is picking up items as recorded in a sales order that has already been added to the system, you can add a sales line in a direct sale document that you create on the Invoices form with a link to this sales order.

Linking a Direct Sale Line to a Sales Order

To add a line (or multiple lines) linked to a sales order, you click the Add SO Line button on the table toolbar of
the Details tab of the Invoices (SO303000) form. In the dialog box that opens, you select the line or lines of one
or multiple open sales orders to be added to the sales invoice. The details of the added line or lines are filled in
automatically by the system and are not available for editing. The reference number of the sales order to which a
line is linked is shown in the Order Nbr. column of the line.
If a line of the sales invoice is linked to an open line of a sales order, on release of the sales invoice, on the Sales
Orders (SO301000) form, the system updates the shipped quantity of the sales order line by the quantity specified
in the invoice line. (Thus, the released sales invoice functions as a shipment does for the linked sales order line.)
Also, on the Shipments tab of this form, the system inserts the reference number of the sales invoice in the
Shipment Nbr. box.

Direct Sales: Process Activity

In this activity, you will learn how to process a direct sale through a point-of-sale (POS) terminal, and how to link an
existing sales order to the direct sale.

Story

Suppose that on January 29, 2025, an individual customer (that is, a customer purchasing items for personal
use rather than for a company) ordered five small jars of apple jam and 15 pounds of oranges on the company’s
website, and selected the option to pick up the jars and pay for them in the SweetLife retail store. When the
customer submitted the order on the website, a sales order was created in Acumatica ERP.
Then on January 30, 2025, the customer comes to SweetLife store and picks up ordered apple jam (five small jars)
from the store shelves; the customer also picks up one small jar of orange jam (which was not in the online sales
order). For the remainder of the website order, the customer asks to have the items shipped to the customer's
address. The sales manager of the SweetLife store needs to scan the goods that the customer has picked up, enter
them by using the POS terminal, and collect a payment from the customer. Aer the customer pays for the picked
goods, sales manager Regina Wiley needs to give him a receipt. You will act as the sales manager in performing the
needed actions in the system.

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
  • Advanced SO invoices, which provides support for direct sales and returns and integration with POS systems
  • In the SweetLife store, the integration between the store’s POS system and Acumatica ERP has been configured to work as follows:
  • When a sales manager processes a sale through the POS system, the POS system creates two documents in Acumatica ERP by using the API: a sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form with all the lines from the receipt given to the customer, and a released payment on the Payments and Applications (AR302000) form that is linked to the sales invoice.
  • If any lines of a direct sale relate to an existing sales order, the POS operator selects the needed lines directly via the POS terminal when processing a sale.
                       In this activity, to simulate the POS functionality that occurs in a production system, you
                   will link lines of an existing sales order to lines of the sales invoice.
  • When the sales manager releases the sales invoice, Acumatica ERP creates an inventory issue that decreases the quantities of items in inventory by the quantity of the sold items.
  • On the Customers (AR303000) form, the RETSALE (Individual Retail Customer) customer has been defined. This is the customer account used to represent any individual customer making a retail purchase in the store.
  • On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, the APJAM08 and ORJAM08 stock items have been created.

Process Overview

In this activity, to process a direct sale with a link to a sales order, you will create a payment on the Payments and Applications (AR302000) form that will later be applied to a sales invoice used to record the direct sale. Then you will create this sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form. You will add the appropriate lines to the sales invoice. Then you will apply the payment to the sales invoice and release the sales invoice.

System Preparation

Before you start processing a direct sale with a link to a sales order, you should do the following:

  1. 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.
  2. On the Company and Branch Selection menu in the top pane of the Acumatica ERP screen, select the SweetLife Store branch.

Step 1: Preparing a Payment To prepare a payment document that represents the customer's payment for the direct sale, do the following:

  1. On the Payments and Applications (AR302000) form, add a new record.
  2. In the Summary area, specify the following settings:
  • Type: Payment
  • Customer: RETSALE
  • Payment Method: CASH
  • Cash Account: 10100ST
  • Application Date: 1/30/2025 (inserted by default)
  • Application Period: 01-2025 (inserted by default)
  • Description: Payment for retail sale
  • Payment Amount: 26.34
  1. On the form toolbar, click Remove Hold.
  2. Click Release. As an alternative to the workflow described in this activity, you can enter a sales invoice prior to entering a payment.
    You have created and released the payment.

Step 2: Entering a Sales Invoice To enter a sales invoice to record the direct sale, do the following:

  1. On the Invoices (SO303000) form, add a new record.
  2. In the Summary area specify the following settings:
  • Type: Invoice
  • Customer: RETSALE
  • Date: 1/30/2025 (inserted by default)
  • Post Period: 01-2025 (inserted by default)
  • Description: Retail sale, website order #00687 partial
  1. On the Details tab, add a row for the jar of orange jam the customer picks up in the retail store, and specify the following settings:
  • Branch: RETAIL
  • Inventory ID: ORJAM08
  • Warehouse: RETAIL
  • Quantity: 1
  • Unit Price: 3.44
  1. To add a line for the jars of apple jam in the already-entered sales order, on the table toolbar of the Details tab, click Add SO Line.
  2. In the Add SO Line dialog box, which opens, select the unlabeled check box in the line with APJAM08 item, and click Add & Close. The system adds the line to the sales invoice with a link to the sales order on which the item was added. Notice that in the Order Type and Order Nbr. columns in this line, the system has inserted the type of the related sales order and the link to the order. In the sales invoice line that you have added, these columns are empty thus indicating that this line is not related to a sales order.
  3. On the form toolbar, click Remove Hold; the invoice now has the Balanced status.
  4. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 3: Applying the Payment to the Sales Invoice To apply the payment to the sales invoice, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form, on the table toolbar of the Applications tab, click Load Documents. The system adds a line with the payment that you have created in Step 1 of this activity.
  2. In the Amount Paid column, specify 26.34 (which is the payment amount to be applied to the invoice).
  3. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 4: Releasing the Sales Invoice To release the sales invoice, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the sales invoice on the Invoices (SO303000) form, click Release on the form toolbar. Notice that the invoice now has the Closed status.
  2. On the Details tab, in either of the invoice lines, click the link in the Inventory Ref. Nbr. column. The system opens the Issues (IN302000) form in a pop-up window with the inventory issue that was generated on release of the sales invoice.
  3. On this form, review the details of the inventory issue, and make sure that it includes both invoice lines, and it has a status of Released.
  4. Return to the Invoices (SO303000) form with the sales invoice that you have processed, and on the Details tab, click the Order Nbr. link in the APJAM08 line to open the related sales order.
  5. On the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, which opens in a pop-up window, review its details. On the Details tab, in the APJAM08 line, notice that Qty. on Shipments is 5 and the Open Qty. is 0, which means that the line was shipped in full.
  6. Review the Shipments tab. The processed sales invoice acts as a shipment for the related SO line with APJAM08 item (see the following screenshot): On release of the sales invoice, the inventory issue that records the issuing of the items from inventory has been generated and released. The sales order retains a status of Open; the sales manager can process a shipment for the rest of the items to the customer's location.
       Figure: Partial shipment of the sales order via the sales invoice