This chapter contains the following topics:
Upgrading from Earlier Versions
Order Entry Product Description
Passport Business Solutions Order Entry provides the flexibility you need in an omni-channel world. Phone orders, WEB order import, email and catalog orders and good old-fashioned FAX orders all flow easily into PBS Order Entry.
With PBS Order Entry you can eliminate shipping errors and process customer orders quickly and accurately. This module includes inventory availability check and commitment when entering or importing orders, provides customer information and calculates their discount levels and credit status.
| • | Supports multiple profit centers, and multiple warehouses and vehicles. |
| • | Allows invoicing of items, services and special order miscellaneous items. Allows entry of notes for each line item. |
| • | You may enter line items by item number, description, bar code, or a keyword. Services and notes may be entered. Customer product numbers may also be entered. (There is one line item on an order for every item being ordered. A line item includes the full description of an item being ordered, the quantity ordered, quantity to ship, the price, the extended amount and when it is supposed to be delivered.) |
| • | You may drop ship specific line items directly to the customer without having to put such items in your inventory, and without having to run them through Inventory Control. |
| • | Purchase orders can be automatically created from order lines that have insufficient quantity or are drop-shipped. |
| • | Tracks, processes and bills serial numbers and lot control items. |
| • | Assign pre-entered standard bills for reduced data entry of lines. |
| • | Provides item pricing for multiple units of measure and backorder control. |
| • | Orders may be invoiced when entered (one-step billing) or held as open orders for later billing (two-step process). |
| • | At order entry time, you may enter cash received with one-step orders (typical of a online business), rather than entering it through a separate cash receipts function in Accounts Receivable. If integrated with the optional Multi-payment processing, you may also enter more than one payment type and process credit cards as well. |
| • | O/E includes on-line credit checking during order entry. If a customer’s credit limit is exceeded, you see a warning message. |
| • | Provides entry of quotes that can be converted to orders or invoices. |
| • | You may rent items with the billing being daily, weekly, or monthly or quarterly. |
| • | Prints invoices for all orders billed and invoices may be selectively reprinted. |
| • | Invoice printing form is conveniently customizable. |
| • | PDF invoices may be immediately e-mailed to customers. |
| • | Orders and billings automatically adjust inventory in Inventory Control and automatically feeds billing information to Accounts Receivable and sales history reporting. |
| • | Comments may be entered and printed with each order. Unlimited notes may be entered with orders as well. They are not printed on invoices and may be used internally to assist in processing orders. |
| • | Picking tickets may be printed for open orders or PBS Mobility will drive the warehouse picking. |
| • | Links order lines to purchase orders for easy vendor ordering. |
| • | Recurring orders may be entered and selected to be invoiced at any time. They may also be used as blanket orders. Automatic selection of recurring orders is provided based on schedule. |
| • | Provides for entry of quotations and RMAs (Return Merchandise Authorization), loans and rentals with simple conversion to orders or credit memos. |
| • | Provides ability to sell and return items in alternate units. |
An order is a request from a customer for goods. An invoice, also called a bill, is a detailed list of goods that have been sold to a customer along with the amount due.
In Order Entry, you have the option of using two-step or one-step billing.
In one-step billing, an invoice can be prepared as soon as the order is entered. There is no select-for-billing step.
In two-step billing, orders are first entered into O/E. Later, they are selected for billing and an invoice is issued.
A picking ticket is a list of items ordered, showing the item’s location in the warehouse or stockroom, the quantity ordered, and a blank line for you to write the actual quantity of the item that will be shipped. It also optionally shows company name and order comments. Picking tickets are used for physically gathering items for shipment. They may be printed for a specific range of order numbers. Picking tickets can be printed for open orders. These tickets show ordered line items in sequence by location in inventory.
To post means to take transactions from a temporary file/table and move them to a permanent file/table (where other entries already exist). For example, in A/R, sales are initially entered into a temporary entry file from where they are edited or otherwise verified as needed before being posted to the more permanent A/R Open Items.
Often, during entry posting, information in other data files is also updated. For example, when sales are posted, the account balance and historical sales figures in Customers are also updated.
You can easily select any one of more than two dozen of the most popular printers.
If you use PDF Forms Design formats your choices of printers do not depend on the printer PCL 5 codes.
A quote is similar to an order. The main difference is that the sale of goods has not been finalized. The quote is a proposed agreement for which items will be sold and for what price.
RMA means Return Merchandise Authorization, and is similar to a credit memo. The main difference is that authorization has been given to the customer to return the goods, but credit is not issued until the goods are actually received.
Order Entry also allows you to enter both quotes and RMAs.
A quote can be easily converted to an order when a sale is finalized, and an RMA can be easily converted to a credit memo when returned goods are actually received.
A recurring order is a set of goods that are billed over and over again at regular intervals to the same customer. You can use this feature to enter blanket orders for a customer and then release shipments to the customer periodically.
You designate a serial number for an item when selecting items for billing. Refer to the Serial Inventory chapter in the Inventory Control user documentation.
O/E and Inventory Control together generate sales history information that is available to Sales Analysis (S/A). S/A includes analysis reports such as Sales Analysis by Item Sales Volume. S/A also generates other reports that use Accounts Receivable information.
If you use two-step order processing, you can bill for selected orders on request. You can partially bill and adjust quantities that are shipped or back ordered.
You can print a billing edit list before invoice printing, showing all orders selected to be billed.
View order status
A PBS software feature that allows you to look at open orders for a specified customer.
Works with Accounts Receivable and Inventory Control
Order Entry integrates with Accounts Receivable and Inventory Control, both of which are necessary to run this module. O/E uses the Customers , Services and Standard bills from A/R, and checks Items and quantities from I/C.
We have included the necessary functions and instructions to allow you to upgrade from earlier versions of this module. Refer to the EZ Convert documentation for more information.
Following the upgrade, please review all the fields in O/E Control information. Depending on the version you are upgrading from, it is possible there are new fields that require a value.
Order Entry is designed for use by independent businesses. It includes those features most asked for by thousands of users whose experiences with previous order entry modules have helped refine Order Entry to its current mature level.
| • | Requires Inventory Control and Accounts Receivable in order to run. |
| • | Supports multiple companies, multiple profit centers, and multiple warehouses. |
| • | Allows order (and credit memo) entry and editing, with an order edit list. |
| • | Provides for entry of quotations and RMAs (Return Merchandise Authorization), with simple conversion to orders or credit memos. |
| • | Unlimited notes may be stored with orders. They are not printed on invoices and may be used internally to assist in processing orders. Line item notes (text) can also be entered and will print on invoices. |
| • | Orders may be invoiced when entered (one-step billing) or held as open orders for later billing (two-step billing). |
| • | Automatically adjusts inventory (in Inventory Control) as a result of orders and billings. |
| • | Provides ability to sell and return items in alternate units. |
| • | Supports special pricing structures in Inventory Control, including alternate, sale, contract, and multi-warehouse prices. |
| • | Allows entry of serial-numbered and lot-controlled items. |
| • | Allows adding of new customers during order entry with automatic assignment of customer numbers. |
| • | Invoices may be user-defined. Invoice format design provides the flexiblity for how you want your invoices to look. |
| • | Prints invoices for all orders billed. Invoices may be selectively reprinted. |
| • | Invoices printed as PDF files may be emailed directly to customers from within PBS. |
| • | Payments may be entered on transactions and the payments may be posted to open items. |
| • | Pre-payments may also be entered in Accounts Receivable cash receipts and posted to open items. Later, the pre-payment may be assigned to the customer's open order or invoice. |
| • | The PBS Multi-payment processing features integrate credit card processing. checks and cash payments; any of which may be applied to an order or invoice. Multiple payment types are allowed per order or invoice, including terms with multiple payment types. To implement this feature, see the PBS Multi-payment/Credit Card Setup appendix in the Accounts Receivable documentation. |
| • | Picking tickets may be printed for open orders. |
| • | Automatically feeds billing information to Accounts Receivable. |
| • | Includes back order processing, with back order reports and ability to automatically fill back orders when items become available. |
| • | Recurring orders may be entered and activated at any time. They may also be used as blanket orders. Automatic selection of recurring orders is provided. |
| • | Profit centers for line items may be assigned either from the order header, line item, or I/C item record. |
| • | User-defined shipping and COD labels may be printed. Both individual order and group printing modes are provided. |
| • | User-configurable defaults allow skipping virtually any data field, for high speed entry of orders. |
| • | Day of the following month (proximo) terms are supported. |
| • | May be interfaced directly to Sales Analysis and to General Ledger through Accounts Receivable and Inventory Control. |
| • | Allows reports to be stored on disk to save computer time, so they can be printed later at your convenience. |
| • | Vision data files may be accessed via ODBC - Open Database Connectivity. This option requires a separate purchase. |
| • | Data may be kept in COBOL Vision data files or SQL database tables. |
| • | Allows use of multiple printers, including printing reports to PDF files. |
| • | Includes password protection. |
| • | Has field level Help (highlights of functions) built into the software. |
| • | Supports E.D.I. Import, Export and Status Report options. |
To understand how to use Order Entry, you should understand some key concepts and words that are used in this module.
Many of these words have alternative definitions and derivations. To fully understand a word, use your favorite online or printed dictionary to look it up.
Accounts Receivable (A/R) records customer sales and anticipated revenue. It tracks all customers, purchases, payments, and outstanding balances.
A back order (B/O) occurs if a customer orders an item that is not currently in stock. This means that you record the order and ship it only when it becomes available in inventory. Order Entry (O/E) contains all the necessary features to keep track of all back ordered items and to fill these orders when stock is available.
All orders which contain back ordered items remain as open orders until the back orders have either been filled or canceled. To assist in back order control, you may print reports showing back orders by item and by customer.
All orders that contain back ordered items remain as open orders until the back orders have either been filled or canceled. You may print reports showing back orders by item and back orders by customer, to help in back order control. You can automatically fill back orders when the items become available, and print picking tickets for filled orders.
A blanket order occurs when a customer wants to purchase a large quantity of an item (or items), but wants delivery over a specified interval (week. month, or year, etc.) rather than all at once.
A COD label is a label placed on a box containing items that are being shipped COD (cash on delivery). The label shows the amount to be collected at the time of delivery.
A shipping label is a label placed on a box containing items, indicating the sender’s name and address, as well as the destination to which the items are to be delivered.
COD and shipping labels can be printed for open orders. The format for these labels can be customized to fit your company’s business needs.
The COD label shows the amount the customer must pay at the time the goods are delivered. For example, you can set up a COD label to print in the format required by your shipping company.
Commissions can be calculated based on billings. For each item, you can define four commission percentages and designate whether the commission is to be taken on the net sale price or the gross margin.
A Cost Center is a distinct area within your company for which sales and/or expenses (and sometimes profits) can be calculated separately from the total sales and expenses of the whole company.
Refer to the System User documentation for more information on Cost Centers.
You can enter credit memos at any time and print them separately or together with invoices. When you issue credit memos for goods returned to stock, inventory quantities on hand are automatically adjusted.
The information you enter into your computer is stored on your disk. In order for computer programs to be able to locate specific pieces of data (within large masses of data) and to be able to process it logically, data must be organized in some predictable way.
Passport software organizes your data for you automatically as it stores it on your disk.
There are four terms associated with data is organization.
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a character is any letter, number, or other symbol you can type on your computer keyboard. |
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a field (sometimes called a data field) is one or more characters representing a single piece of data. For example, a name, a date, or a dollar amount are all fields. |
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a record is a group of one or more related fields. For example, the fields representing a customer’s name, address, d account balance might be grouped together into a record called the customer record. A record in a data file is often referred to an an entry. In SQL it may also be referred to as a row. |
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a data file is a group of one or more related records. A data file is often referred to simply as a file. An SQL table contains the same data as a data file. |
Customers in Accounts Receivable is an example of a data file. Such a file is made up of many records, each of which contains the name, address, etc., for one customer. Each file is kept separate from the other files on the disk.
There are other types of files in addition to data files. For example, programs are stored on the disk as program files. However, file in this User documentation means data file, unless specifically stated otherwise.
A drop-shipped item is an item which is shipped directly from your supplier to your customer. It does not come directly from your inventory. You bill the customer for the item, but your own inventory is not affected.
A Short for Electronic Data Interchange, the transfer of data between different companies using networks, such as VANs (Value Added Network) or the Internet. As more and more companies get connected to the Internet, EDI is becoming increasingly important as an easy mechanism for companies to buy, sell, and trade information.
This function provides the capacity to recover corrupted data. You can also use it to convert important data to a text format that can be easily interfaced to common data base and word processing modules.
When your company makes sales and receives payments, this activity affects not only accounts receivable, but also the area of accounting called general ledger.
General ledger is the area of accounting where all accounting records are brought together to be classified and summarized. Financial statements are printed based on this data.
As used here, general means pertaining to many areas. Ledger means a book where accounting records are kept. (This term evolved from pre-computer times when accounting records were kept exclusively by hand in large books called ledgers.) General ledger is often abbreviated G/L or GL.
A general ledger account is a specific category under which all financial activity of a certain kind is classified. For example, you might have a general ledger account called telephone expenses, under which you categorized your telephone bills.
General ledger account is often abbreviated "G/L account”. Accountants are experts at defining the various G/L accounts (financial activity categories) needed by a business. Part of this definition process involves assigning an account number to each G/L account.
Independent businesses usually use a 3- or 4-digit account number. For example, you may have a G/L account called 100 - Cash in the Bank, and one called 200 - Sales of Product Line A, and one called 210 - Sales of Product Line B.
Typically, an independent business will have a hundred or more G/L accounts. In accounting modules, each time any financial activity occurs in any area of accounting, the dollar amount of the activity is recorded under the appropriate G/L account numbers.
Graphical Mode
Select <Ctrl+F1> to access help from graphical screens and fields. From there you may access an entire chapter of information.
Character Mode
At any time while running a PBS module, you can press the Help key <F8>. A brief explanation of the particular function you are using then appears on your screen.
When a set of accounting modules is integrated, any information generated in one area that is needed in another area is automatically supplied to that other area. You don’t have to enter it twice.
Order Entry is integrated with Accounts Receivable (A/R) and Inventory Control (I/C). Customer account information from A/R and inventory item information from I/C are used by O/E. Item quantities in I/C and customer accounts in A/R are also automatically updated for all orders processed.
Information entered in one area is automatically available to other users with no need to re-enter the data. Passport Accounting Software is fully integrated.
O/E generates the appropriate G/L distributions for all orders billed and all credit memos processed. These are posted to A/R and I/C distributions. If G/L is being used, distribution can then be made to the proper accounts in G/L from A/R and I/C.
Inventory control records the kinds of items you stock; how many of each is available at any given time (the quantity on-hand); what items you're running low on and should restock; and what items are used or sold faster than others.
You may perform various I/C functions through the O/E interface to I/C. Inventory is automatically committed (reserved for a customer) when you enter orders. Inventory is automatically relieved (decreased) when invoices are printed and posted. Available inventory is verified for each line item as it is entered, and any back order or out-of-stock condition can be handled at that time.
O/E optionally retains detailed history of each line item sold, its description, price, and other order information. For each invoice, the customer bill-to, ship-to, purchase order number, etc. are retained. A number of inquiries and reports are provided to access this information.
Invoices are printed for all specified orders, using preprinted forms or plain paper. To recover from a forms jam, you can restart invoice printing from any specified invoice number. Billing information, including all associated G/L distributions, is automatically posted to Accounts Receivable.
Item pricing is controlled through Items and Prices in the Inventory Control system. For example, sale prices (for specific items sold during a designated period) and contract prices (for specific items sold to specific A/R customers) can be established in Inventory Control. However, manual price overrides may be made during order entry, and prices may be discounted.
Open orders may be edited (checked, added to, modified, or deleted) at any time before billing. Changes to line items or cancellations cause automatic adjustments to inventory. You may print an order edit list to verify order changes. The Orders Report may also be printed to review outstanding orders in various sequences.
Order entry is the area of business operation concerned with processing customer orders and issuing invoices (a bill listing the goods sold and the amount of payment due). Order Entry is often abbreviated as O/E.
The Passport Business Solutions Order Entry does not stand alone and must be used with Inventory Control and Accounts Receivable.
O/E includes powerful and flexible functions that allow you to enter orders for either immediate billing (one-step order processing) or for later partial or whole billing (two-step order processing). It also allows you to enter quotes and RMAs. Extensive defaults that you define are available to speed accurate data input during order entry.
There are two kinds of lookups: Data Lookup and Date Lookups.
Data Lookup
Look-ups refer to a list of available entries for a particular field. Many fields allow you to press a designated key <F8> to show all available data. For instance, when entering an invoice you may press this key at the Account number field to bring up a list of all G/L accounts. Selecting an entry from this list is often easier and faster than remembering the account number or stepping through all possible entries until the right one is reached.
Date Lookup
The date lookup provides a point and click window for finding and entering date fields.
In Graphical mode the date lookup is available via the <F4> key. In Character mode (Windows only) you may access the date lookup via the <F7> key.
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In character mode, depending on where you press <F8>, this function will return a Lookup window or context sensitive Help. If a Lookup window is returned, pressing <F8> a second time will display Help for the field if available. |
Short for Portable Document Format, a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF printing captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended. To view a file in PDF format, you need Adobe™ Reader™ or Adobe Acrobat™.
Order Entry reports and invoices and other forms may be written to the PDF file type. PDF invoices may be emailed to customers. Sending checks to PDF files is not supported in PBS.
Return Merchandise Authorization
A Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) is a transaction whereby the recipient of a product arranges to return goods to the supplier to have the product repaired or replaced or in order to receive a refund or credit for another product from the same retailer or corporation within the product's warranty period.
An RMA is also known as a "Goods Return Authorization" or GRA (depending on the country).
Multi-company refers to the capability to do accounting functions for multiple companies with the same set of software.
A user wanting to perform accounting functions for more than one company on Passport modules can select the Multi-company option.
SPOOL is a computer term meaning Save Printer Output Off Line. Spooling is a technique that allows a report to be printed at a later time. Instead of reports going directly to a printer, they are saved as a disk file (which is usually a lot faster). When a printer is available, all or some saved reports can be printed in one long run (for example, overnight).
As used in accounting, transaction means a business event involving money and/or goods and/or services. For example, a transaction occurs each time you gas up your car: you pay money in exchange for gasoline (goods). Or another example: you give a television set (goods) to your neighbor in exchange for the use of his lake cottage (services).
Computer software deals primarily with business events that have already taken place. Therefore, in the Passport Business Solutions software, transaction means the record of a completed business event involving money and/or goods and/or services.
The records of sales made and payments received are examples of transactions from the area of accounting called accounts receivable. The records of your purchases and the payments you make for such purchases are transactions from the accounting area called accounts payable. The records of quantities of goods received or sold are transactions from the area of accounting called inventory control.