Booking an Order from the Office

Most orders arrive from the field: a salesman books them on his phone and they appear in your queue. Sometimes they cannot. The shop rings the office instead, or the salesman agreed the order in the shop but his phone would not submit it. Book order is for exactly those.

It books an order, not a sale. No money is taken, no stock moves and no invoice is raised. The order goes into the queue as Submitted, and somebody else confirms it.

Booking the orderCopy Anchor Link

1. In the sidebar, open Sales → Orders.
2. Click Book order (top right).
3. Under How this order reached you, pick one:
   • Back office — the salesman agreed the order in the shop, but could not submit it from his phone. You are keying what he agreed.
   • Phone — the shop rang the office and asked for the goods. Nobody visited. You are not being asked to justify anything, and there is no box to explain yourself. The choice is simply recorded so the business can see how many orders still arrive past the route.
4. Under Who this order is credited to, check the Credited salesman. It starts as you. If you are keying the order for a salesman whose phone died, change it to his name — commission is paid on this name, and your own name is kept separately as the person who typed it.
5. Under Who is ordering, pick the Shop. Optionally pick the Supplying store, set the Order date (today by default) and the date the shop wants Delivery wanted by.
6. Add anything the shop said that the lines do not show under Notes for whoever confirms it.
7. Under What is being ordered, click Add item and pick the products. Each item comes in at its own price at quantity 1.
8. Change the Qty, the Unit Price or the Discount on any row. Change a price only when the shop was genuinely quoted something else — the person confirming the order will see what you entered.
9. Remove a row with the × at the end of it.
10. When the order is right, click Book order in the amber bar at the top of the screen. There are no Save or Cancel buttons anywhere on this screen — the amber bar does both.
11. The order opens on its own page with its order number, sitting at Submitted.

What happens nextCopy Anchor Link

The order is now in the queue like any other. Someone — not you, and that is deliberate — opens it, checks the prices and confirms it. Only after that can an invoice be generated from it. See Confirming and Cancelling an Order.

You cannot book an order and approve it yourself in the same minute. An order keyed in the office always lands at Submitted, whatever you do.

If something is missingCopy Anchor Link

The amber bar will not book an order that is incomplete. You will see the message against the field:

• "Pick the shop this order is for" — no shop was chosen.
• "Choose the salesman this order is credited to" — the credited salesman was cleared.
• "Add at least one item to the order" — the order has no lines.
• "Delivery cannot be asked for before the order was taken" — the delivery date is earlier than the order date.

To throw the whole thing away, click Discard in the amber bar.

The Source badge on the queueCopy Anchor Link

Every order in Sales → Orders now carries a Source badge showing how it arrived:

To see only one kind, click Filter and use How it was booked. Picking Phone, for example, answers "how much of my book still comes in by telephone rather than off the route" — which is a question about route coverage, not about anyone doing something wrong.

Next: Correcting an Order.