Enter a Sales Order

How Do I...

Sales orders let you enter items for a customer. Later, you can invoice and ship the items as they become available in your inventory, tracking the backorders in the system.

  1. From the Tasks menu, select Quotes/Sales Orders/Proposals; then select Sales Orders from the submenu.

    Note: This procedure assumes you are using the predefined Product template. To select a template, click the Layout toolbar button, and choose the template you want to use from the pull-down menu. If you choose a customized template, please adjust the instructions below accordingly. Learn more about templates.

  2. Enter or select the customer ID. To display a list of existing customers, type ? in this field, or select the Lookup button. To add a new customer, type + or double-click the field, which displays the Maintain Customers/Prospects window.

    When the customer is selected, Sage 50 supplies the customer default information, including billing and shipping addresses, sales account, shipping method, payment terms, and sales tax ID.

  3. Enter a sales order number if you want to change the one Sage 50 automatically enters.

    If you have not previously entered a sales order or proposal, this field is blank. Once you enter the first one, Sage 50 automatically increases the number by one.

  4. Enter the date of the sales order if it is different from the displayed date.
  5. Enter the date by which the order should be shipped.
  6. Use this date to help you remember to follow up on the order and manage the required inventory. Once entered, this date will show up in a number of sales order reports: Picklist report, Sales Backorder report, Sales Order Register, and Sales Order report.

    Tip: As a further reminder, you can create a "sales orders to ship" event in Action Items. Tell me more about this.

  7. If you have entered a default shipping address in the customer's record, the first shipping address will appear on the sales order. Change the customer's ship-to information, if necessary, by selecting an address from the choices in the Ship To drop-down list, or by manually entering another address in the Ship To fields.
  8. If you have entered a default P.O.# in the customer's record, it will appear on the sales order. If not, you can enter the customer's purchase order number now or change the default to any other piece of information that will identify this sales order to the customer.
  9. If you have entered a default shipping method in the customer's record, it will appear. You can select the Ship Via button if you want to select a different shipping method.
  10. Sage 50 uses the default terms you have entered for the customer, but you may want to select the Terms button to change the default discount dates or amounts for this sales order. When a receipt that qualifies for an early-payment discount is applied against the invoice, Sage 50 will calculate the discount.
  11. If you entered a default sales representative in the customer's record, it will appear. Otherwise, select the code of the sales representative, if applicable.
  12. Enter the information for each item included on the sales order on a separate line, including the item's quantity, item ID, U/M (displays if multi-packs enabled in Inventory Item Defaults),description, unit price (the number of decimal places is selected in Global Options), sales tax status, and job information (if applicable).

    Note: When you enter a quantity for a sales order, Sage 50 checks available inventory to fill the sales order. If the quantity on the sales order exceeds the quantity on hand, a warning is issued (only if the Warn if inventory item is out of stock box on the Maintain Global Options window is checked). This does not prevent you from selling the item.

  13. The default G/L sales account that appears for each line item is based on the customer sales account default or the item ID selected. To change the account ID, type ? in this field, or select the Lookup button. To add a new account, type + or double-click the field, which displays the Maintain Chart of Accounts window.

    Note: If you have the Hide General Ledger Accounts global option activated, Sage 50 will not display G/L Account fields in this window. To modify G/L accounts used for this transaction, you must select the Journal button.

  14. If yours is an accrual-based company, you can select the accounts receivable G/L account for this potential sale. On financial statements this will be your accounts receivable asset account. If yours is a cash-basis company, this field will display <Cash Basis>.

    Note: If you have the Hide General Ledger Accounts global option activated, Sage 50 will not display the A/R Account field in this window. To modify the A/R account used for this transaction, you must select the Journal button.

  15. Click Attach to add documents and pictures to the sales order. Learn More
  16. Select the sales tax ID for this sale.
  17. If you intend to charge freight for shipping this order, include an amount in the Freight field.
  18. At the bottom left corner of the window, the selected customer's balance, credit limit, and credit status is displayed. You can click the arrow button to the right of the customer balance to display the current Customer Ledgers report for this customer.
  19. Select the Print button if you want to print and save the order. Otherwise, click the Save button.

    Note: Sales orders are not posted to general ledger. When you apply this sales order to a customer invoice (after shipping the items ordered or performing services requested), the sales order data is transferred to the sales invoice. Then, the sale can be posted to the general ledger.

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