You can use Express Accounts to generate sales orders for your customers, then later turn the order into an invoice.

Create a New Sales Order

From the Sales menu select New Sales Order, or from the Sales tab click the Create new Sales Order link in the explorer bar, and the New Order dialog will open.

Create a sales order from an existing quote - select the quote number from the Quote Number drop-menu. The details of the quote will appear on the sales order form. You can make edits to the information or items, and then save the sales order.

Create a new sales order - Begin filling out the order by selecting the customer's name from the Order Customer drop-down box, and their billing and shipping address will be filled out for you. If you are creating an order for a new customer, simply type their name into the Order Customer field, and fill in their address.

Enter items or services into the order by clicking anywhere inside the items list to create a new item entry. Click within the Item or Description cell and use the drop-menu to quickly locate an item by its code or description. For new items, enter the details into the order, and the details will be added to your items list for you, and will be available the next time you want to create a quote, order, or invoice. Enter the quantity, and the totals will update automatically.

Save the order by clicking Record at the bottom of the screen. For more saving options, including Record and Email, click the triangle on the right side of the Record button.

For more detail about all the fields on the New Order dialog, view the New Order topic in the Screen References section of this manual.

Create a Recurring Order Schedule

If a sales order needs to be fulfilled on a regular basis, Express Accounts allows you to automate part of the process by creating recurring order schedules.

To create a recurring order schedule, fill out the order as usual, then select Save as Recurring from the drop-menu at the bottom. This brings up the Recurring Order Schedule dialog. Fill out when the first order should be scheduled, how often the order should be sent, what action to take to save, print, or send the order, and then click OK to save the schedule.

When a recurring order is due to be sent, a Run Recurring Orders link will appear in the ToDo list in the Explorer bar. Click this link to have Express Accounts run all recurring orders that are scheduled to go out.

You can view a list of all recurring orders by selecting Recurring Orders from the View menu. From the Recurring Orders list, you can select a recurring order and edit the details of the order, or edit the recurring schedule.

For more details about filling out a recurring order schedule, see the Recurring Order Schedule topic in the Screen References section of this manual.

View Existing Sales Orders

To view a list of all sales orders, click the View icon in the toolbar and select Sales Orders. By default, the list displays recorded orders only. To view all orders, or just draft orders, use the drop-menu labeled Display Orders to select.

For more details about the orders list, see the Orders List topic in the Screen References section of this manual.

Turn a Sales Order into an Invoice

When a sales order has been fulfilled, you can easily turn the sales order into an invoice for billing your customers. First, open the Sales Order List by selecting Open Sales Order List from the Sales menu. Select the order from the list, then click the Invoice icon in the toolbar. This will open a New Invoice dialog containing all the details from the sales order. You can edit any information on the invoice, then save.

Once a sales order has been converted into an invoice, its status in the Orders List will change to Invoiced.

More information about invoices can be found in the Invoices topic in the Common Tasks section of this manual.

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