Basic Sales and PurchasesLesson 7

Processing Sales of Services

Back to D300: Order Management Basics

Lesson 7: Processing Sales of Services

Part 2: Basic Sales and Purchases

The topics of this lesson explain how to process a sale of services, and which documents are prepared during the processing of the sale.

Sales of Services: General Information

Non-stock items in Acumatica ERP, which are defined on the Non-Stock Items (IN202000) form during implementation, are used to represent the products that cannot be stocked in warehouses (such as services or charges) or physical entities whose quantities you do not need to track. The following sections describe the sales process of non-stock items that represent services.

Learning Objectives

In this lesson, you will do the following:

  • Create a sales order for a sale of services
  • Prepare an invoice that corresponds to the sales order

Applicable Scenario

You process a sales order with a service line or multiple service lines if you need to track this sale (and then bill the customer for the provided services), which does not involve a shipment being processed in the system.

Sales of Services

Although you could record the billing for a sale of services directly in the system by using an AR invoice, by entering sales orders for all sales, you implement a single entry point for the processing and tracking of sales. For a sale of services, you start with entering a sales order of the SO or IN type on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form and add to the order the non-stock item or items representing the needed services. Aer you have entered the sales order, you need to bill the customer for the sold services by preparing a sales invoice, which is a financial document in the system that contains links to the applicable 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, it 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 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 Sales of Services

If a sales order includes only services that do not involve shipping, the typical processing of the sales order involves the actions and generated documents shown in the following diagram.

Sales of Services: Process Activity

In the following activity, you will prepare and process a sales order that includes non-stock items.

Story

Suppose that the Prime Cafe manager contacted SweetLife Fruits & Jams to order a three-day training course on home canning for the restaurant's employees. The course is conducted online. Acting as the sales manager of SweetLife, you need to reflect these details in the system by entering and processing the appropriate documents.

Process Overview

In this activity, you will do the following:

  1. On the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, enter a sales order, add a service line to it, and create an invoice
  2. On the Invoices (SO303000) form, prepare a related invoice for the customer and release it

System Preparation

Before you start processing a sale of services, make sure that you have completed the following prerequisite activities:

  1. Order Management Basic Configuration: Implementation Activity
  2. Sales Order Types: Implementation Activity
  3. Customers: Implementation Activity
  4. Non-Stock Items: Implementation Activity

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

  1. On the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, add a new record.
  2. In the Summary area, specify the following settings:
  • Order Type: IN
  • Customer: PRIME
  • Description: Home canning training
  1. On the table toolbar of the Details tab, click Add Row.
  2. Specify the following settings in the added row:
  • Inventory ID: TRAINING
  • Quantity: 24
  • Unit Price: 36 (inserted automatically)
  1. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 2: Processing the Sales Invoice To prepare and release the sales invoice that is related to the sales order, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the sales order on the Sales Orders (SO301000) form, on the form toolbar, click Prepare Invoice. The system prepares a sales invoice and opens it on the Invoices (SO303000) form.
  2. On this form, review the details of the prepared invoice. The invoice has one line on the Details tab, as the initial sales order does. In the Order Nbr. column of this tab, the system has inserted the reference number of the related sales order; this number is also a link you can click to view the document on the Sales Orders form.
  3. On the form toolbar, click Release to release the invoice. The invoice is assigned the Open status. Also, the invoice becomes visible on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form.
  4. On the Details tab, in the only row, click the link in the Order Nbr. column to view the associated sales order.
  5. On the Sales Orders form, which opens, review the details of the sales order, as shown in the following screenshot. Notice that the sales order has the Completed status, which the system assigned on release of the sales invoice and which means that the processing of the sale is completed.
       Figure: Sales order completed on release of the invoice