There are many ways to continue processing your sales orders and carry out manual editing steps in Xentral after they have been created. Among them are actions such as canceling sales orders, the creation of receipts such as invoices and delivery notes, transfer to auto-shipping and much more.
In the Sell > Sales Orders menu, you can access the different options for sales order processing. The action menu at the top right of an opened sales order also allows you to carry out numerous steps for sales order processing.
There are two methods for canceling a sales order in Xentral:
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Method 1: Go to Sell > Sales Orders. Click on the X symbol at the right of the row of the sales order that you wish to cancel.
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Method 2: Go to Sell > Sales Orders and open the sales order that you wish to cancel. Open the Action menu at the top right and click on Cancel sales order.
Important
The cancellation of a sales order does not affect documents such as delivery notes and invoices that have previously been created from this sales order.
In certain cases, you will be asked by the system whether you wish to send an email containing the cancellation confirmation to the customer. This is only possible if the following conditions apply:
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In the Business letter template module, a business letter template of the type Stornierung (Cancellation) has been created.
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In the Projects module, go to Tab: Settings > Tab: Basic settings > Section: Accounting and make sure that the option Cancellation email is activated.
Note
When cancelling sales orders that are still in draft mode, they will be automatically deleted upon cancellation.
Sales orders that have already been released cannot be deleted, but will be marked as canceled. Once a sales order has been released, it cannot be deleted. It is marked as canceled, You can use the Action menu at the top right of the sales order to undo the cancellation, if needed.
Just like with cancellations, two different methods are available for copying sales orders.
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Method 1: Go to Sell > Sales Orders. Click on the copy symbol at the right of the row of the sales order that you wish to copy.
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Method 2: Go to Sell > Sales Orders and open the sales order that you wish to copy. Open the Action menu at the top right and click on Copy sales order.
Note
The copy of the sales order is created as a draft by default and is only saved after you release it.
You can submit, or send a sales order by clicking on the option Submit sales order in the action menu. As soon as you submit a sales order in this way, an order confirmation is sent to the customer. After clicking on Submit sales order, a new window opens. Here, you can select how the order confirmation should be sent, optionally print it out or adjust the text and the subject line of the order confirmation, if needed.
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by printer: Select a printer that should be used to print the order confirmation.
Tip
Only printers that you have already set up in Xentral are available for selection. More information on setting up printers is available in this article.
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via email: The email address of the customer is preselected. You can also select other addresses. Activate the option including Xentral CSV to send the order confirmation both in PDF and CSV format.
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Phone call: Activate this option if you are contacting the costumer via phone call to confirm the order. In this case, no email is sent, but the sales order will be marked as sent in the Protocol tab of the sales order.
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Miscellaneous: This option is designed for additional methods of confirming an order and marks the sales order as sent in the protocol.
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Attachment: If additional files are saved in the Files tab of the sales order, you can activate the Attachment option to send these files to the customer along with the order confirmation.
You can create a purchase order for a sales order by selecting the option Continue as a purchase order in the action menu. This way, you can reorder the exact item quantity that you have just sold to the customer with your supplier.
Proceed as described below to create a purchase order from a sales order.
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Open the sales order that you wish to continue as a purchase order.
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In the Selection column, place a check mark for the items that you wish to reorder. All items contained in the sales order are listed here.
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Open the drop-down menu Action at the top right.
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Click on Continue as a purchase order.
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Confirm your selection.
A new view opens. It contains all items contained in the sales order. The column In purchase order to the right shows you the item quantity that is currently part of the purchase order. In the column In stock, you can see the current stock level for the item.
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Select the items that should be included in the purchase order from the item list. To do so, activate the respective check box in the column Selection.
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In the Price search field, select the supplier.
Tip
You can also enter a new supplier and price manually. In case of a new supplier, an order number needs to be entered for this supplier.
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Optional: Activate the option Apply free fields to display any free fields that you have added in the item master data to the purchase order. Optionally, you can also Transfer item description to receipts.
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Optional: You can save the purchase order as a PDF file in the Files tab of the original sales order by activating the option Purchase order PDF as an attachment to the order.
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Finish by clicking on Generate purchase order(s).
The purchase order is created.
In the drop-down menu Action, select the option Continue as production to create a production from a sales order. Productions in Xentral are relevant for you if your business produces individual products or certain components of bill of materials itself.
Tip
More information on productions is available in this article.
You can create a delivery note from a sales order by clicking on the option Continue as a delivery note in the action menu. If you create a delivery note this way, you need to take the items from the warehouse manually. It is also possible to create a delivery note for specific items contained in the sales order. This can be useful if the sales order contains service items that should not appear on the delivery note.
Proceed as described below to create a delivery note for specific items.
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Go to Sell > Sales Orders and open the desired sales order.
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Open the Positions tab.
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In the Pos. column, select the items that should be included in the delivery note.
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Click on Continue as a delivery note in the drop-down menu on the left below the table.
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Click on Ok.
The newly created delivery note is displayed. In case you want to access the delivery note once again later on, you can find it in the Stock > Delivery note menu.
Tip
More information on processing delivery notes is available in this article.
You can create an invoice from a sales order by clicking on the option Continue as an invoice in the action menu. Afterwards, you can find the invoice you have created in the Invoice module.
Tip
More information on invoices is available in this article.
A pro forma invoice is not a legally binding document and is not relevant to accounting. Rather, it resembles an order confirmation and states the value of the delivery. A pro forma invoice is sometimes needed for tax purposes, for example if a delivery needs to be processed by customs.
Proceed as described below to create a pro forma invoice for a sales order.
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Go to Sell > Sales Orders and open the desired sales order.
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Open the drop-down menuAction at the top right.
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Click on Continue as a pro forma invoice.
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Optional: Activate the option Only transfer stock items. This way, only items marked as stock items will be included in the pro forma invoice, while other items such as services or postage will not be displayed.
Note
You can also activate this option globally. To do so, go to Settings > Administration > System settings > Section: Miscellaneous. Activate the option Auto. pro forma invoice for export “stock items only” to only display stock items in pro forma invoices by default.
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Click on OK.
The pro forma invoice is created. This document has a unique invoice number that is separate from the sales order. You can find the pro forma invoice in the Pro forma invoice module.
Tip
More information on pro forma invoices is available in this article.
A sales order is marked as completed as soon as you have created a delivery note, an invoice or both receipts for the sales order. You can also complete a sales order manually by selecting the option Mark as completed in the Action drop-down menu.
In Xentral, you can divide a sales order into several deliveries. This way, you can ship products that are currently not in stock at a later point in time. To do so, proceed as follows.
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Go to Sell > Sales Orders and open the desired sales order.
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Open the drop-down menuAction at the top right.
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Click on Create partial delivery.
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Enter the item quantity that you already want to ship in the Ship column on the right side. You can see the item quantity included in the order in the Quantity column. The Warehouse column shows you the item quantity that is currently in stock.
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Optional: Activate the option Confirm payment manually. This step marks the payment icon in the order status indicator as green.
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Optional: Activate the option Deactivate postage verification. This way, no postage check will be carried out by the order status indicator.
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Click on Create partial delivery.
Two orders that are linked to each other are created. You can access all partial deliveries in the original sales order. You can divide a sales order as often as you need until you have created all the partial deliveries that are required.
You can manually start auto-shipping by opening the drop-down menu Action and selecting the option Auto dispatch: Hand over to dispatch center. By doing so, the items are booked out of the warehouse and an invoice and a delivery note are created.
After the transfer to auto-shipping, you can find the sales order in the module Dispatch center. From there, your warehouse employees have access to order processing by picking the items included in the sales order and preparing them for shipment. More information on the dispatch center is available in this article.
Important
The transfer to auto-shipping is only possible if all symbols of the order status indicator are displayed in green. More information on the order status indicator is available in this article.
There are two additional methods for starting auto-shipping:
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Method 1: Go to Sell > Sales Orders > Tab: Delivery handover. Here, all sales orders that are ready to be transferred to auto-shipping are listed. You can use the group function at the bottom left of the menu to start auto-shipping for multiple sales orders at once. The process starter autoversand_manuell must be active for this step. If you use this method. transfer to auto-shipping is carried out in a semi-automated manner.
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Method 2: Open the Process starter module and set up the process starter autoversand_plus to fully automate the transfer of sales orders to auto-shipping as soon as all order status indicator symbols are displayed in green.
Tip
More information on process starters is available in this article.
If needed, you can add items included in the sales order to a warehouse, or remove them from stock. To so, open the Action menu and select one of the option Stock items or Take out items.
If you wish to create a return for a sales order, select the option Continue as a return from the Action drop-down menu. You are then asked to select the returned items and their quantities and to enter a Reason for the return. To finish, click on Create return. A return is then created and can be further processed in Xentral.
Tip
More information on returns is available in this article.
Do you want to download sales order data in different formats, for example to process them with the help of external tools or to save them locally? You can download the order confirmation any time as a CSV or PDF file. To do so, open the drop-down menu Action in a sales order and click on Export as CSV or Open PDF. The files are opened automatically afterwards.
You can reserve the items included in the sales order in your warehouse by opening the Action drop-down menu and clicking on Reserve all products.
Xentral allows you to automatically reserve stock as soon as products are included in a sales order. You can set up this automation for each project. To do so, open the desired project in the Projects module and activate the option Auto reservation in warehouse under Tab: Settings > Tab: Logistics / Shipping > Section: Options.
Tip
More information on reservations is available in this article.