V8 - Sales workflow (including fulfillment)

The sales workflow varies from company to company, and even from one order to the next. To get an idea of what this process can look like using SOS Inventory, see the sales workflow examples below.

Although picking and shipping are part of the sales process, these topics are addressed in the Fulfillment section of the user guide.

Sales workflow examples

Below are a variety of examples that illustrate SOS Inventory's flexibility in executing sales workflows. For information on how to create a transaction, refer to Add new and Quick add methods for creating new data records. See Generating a new transaction from a parent transaction for an explanation of how to create a new transaction from another (related) transaction (e.g., create a shipment from a sales order).

Example 1

The most common sales workflow is:

1. Create a sales order.
2. Create a shipment from a sales order. 
3. Create an invoice from a sales order.

Example 2

1. Create an estimate.
2. Create a sales order from the estimate.
3. If stock is needed to fulfill the order:
   1. Create a purchase order from the sales order.
   2. When the items have been received from the vendor, create an item receipt from the purchase order.
4. If the goods must be produced, manufacture the items.
5. Optional: Create a pick ticket from the sales order.
6. Create a shipment from the sales order.
7. Create an invoice from the sales order.
8. If the order was partially shipped, repeat steps 6 and 7 until the entire order is fulfilled.

Example 3

1. Create an estimate. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
2. Create a sales order from the estimate.
3. Optional: Create pick ticket from sales order.
4. Create shipment from sales order.
5. Create an invoice from sales order.

Example 4

1. Create a sales order.
2. Optional: Create a pick ticket.
3. Create a shipment from a sales order.
4. Create an invoice from a sales order.

Example 5

1. Create an invoice. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
2. Create a sales order from the invoice.
3. Optional: Create a pick ticket from the sales order.
4. Create a shipment from the sales order.

Example 6

1. Create a shipment.
2. Create an invoice from the shipment.

Example 7

1. Create an invoice. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
2. Create a shipment from an invoice.

Example 8

1. Create an estimate. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
2. Create an invoice. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
3. Create a shipment from the invoice.

Example 9

1. Create a sales receipt.
2. Optional: Create a pick ticket from the sales receipt.
3. Create a shipment from the sales receipt.

Example 10

1. Create an estimate. It may originate in SOS Inventory or in QuickBooks Online and then sync to SOS Inventory.
2. Create a sales receipt from the estimate.
3. Optional: Create a pick ticket from the sales receipt.
4. Create a shipment from the sales receipt.

How sales forms in a basic three-stage sales workflow are processed in SOS Inventory and QuickBooks Online