Sales Order

Go to: Sales → Sales Order

The sales order is the commitment: this customer, these items, this quantity, this price, by this date. It is the anchor everything downstream hangs off — deliveries, invoices, purchases, and work orders all trace back to it, and the order’s status tells you at a glance what is still owed.

Approving a sales order moves no stock and posts no accounting entry. It records what you have promised to sell. Stock leaves with the Delivery Note; the receivable appears with the Sales Invoice.

Where the items come from

Source	Use it when
Sales Quotation	The customer accepted your quote — only Agreed lines come across
Proforma Invoice	The order originates from an export proforma
Typed directly	Repeat business where price and terms are already settled

Header fields

Field	What it means
Number	Auto-generated document number
Customer	Who is buying. Required
Order Date	Date the order was placed. Required
Delivery Date	Date the customer expects the goods. Required
Currency / Exchange Rate	Currency of the sale. Both required; the exchange rate must be above zero
Priority	Low / Medium / High
Payment Term / Price Term	Commercial terms
Customer Purchase Order / PO Numbers / PO Date	The customer’s own references
Ship To / Bill To / Contact Person	Addresses and contact printed on the order
Terms and Conditions	Free text or a saved template
Has Advance Payment	Marks an order where the customer pays before delivery
Status	Derived — see Statuses

Shipment and export fields (Other Details tab)

Field	What it means
Incoterm	Delivery term for the sale
Method of Dispatch	Air, Sea, or Road
Container Load	Container type for the shipment
Country of Origin	Origin of the goods
Port of Loading / Port of Destination	Shipping terminals
Shipment Time, ETD, ETA	Planned shipment timings
Contract Expiry Date	When the sales contract lapses
+/- 10% allowed in Quantity and LC amount	Tolerance flag for letter-of-credit sales
Partial Shipment / Transshipment	Whether either is permitted
Sales Team	Sales people on this order, with their contribution split

Totals

Field	What it means
Total Amount	Sum of item lines before tax
Discount Type / Percentage / Amount	Order-level discount
Apply Discount After Tax	Whether the discount applies before or after tax
Taxes Total / Total Charges / Total Taxes and Charges	Tax and charge lines
Grand Total	The committed order value
Billed Amount	How much has been invoiced so far

Item rows

Field	What it means
Item	What is being sold
Quantity	Quantity ordered
UOM / Conversion Factor	Selling unit and factor to the stock unit
Price	Agreed unit rate
Tax Rate / Discount	Per-line tax and discount
Delivered Quantity	Maintained automatically as delivery notes are approved
Billed Quantity	Maintained automatically as invoices are approved

Lines pulled from a quotation carry the agreed price, and it cannot be changed on the order. Nor can you order more than the quotation line still has outstanding. Re-negotiate on the quotation if the price or quantity has to move.

Creating a sales order

Open the screen

Go to Sales → Sales Order and click Add Order.

Choose the customer

Currency, payment term, and addresses default from the customer record.

Pull in items, or type them

Use Get Items → Sales Quotations or Get Items → Proforma Invoices to pull rows, or add item rows directly.

Set quantities, prices, and dates

Confirm quantity, unit, rate, and the Delivery Date.

Check taxes, discounts, and the grand total

Verify the committed value against what was quoted.

Save, then approve

Save leaves the order in Draft — nothing downstream can be raised yet. Approve opens it for delivery and billing.

Statuses

Status	Meaning
Draft	Being prepared. Nothing downstream can be created
To Deliver And Bill	Approved. Goods still to ship and value still to invoice
To Deliver	Fully billed, goods still to ship
To Bill	Fully delivered, value still to invoice
In Production	The order is being manufactured
Completed	Nothing left to deliver or bill
Cancelled	Withdrawn

A Cancelled order can never change status again, and a Completed order is closed too — with one exception. A genuine customer return (a credit note that reverses the delivery) or an invoice unapproval that reverses billed quantity reopens a Completed order back to a billable status, because it is no longer fully billed.

Service orders behave differently

An order made up only of service items never needs a delivery note, so ERPX skips the delivery statuses for it:

You approve to…	A pure service order becomes…
To Deliver And Bill	To Bill
To Deliver	Completed

A mixed order (service plus stock items) keeps the normal statuses — its stock items still need dispatching, and only those items are pulled into the delivery note.

Actions

Action	Available when	What it does
Edit	Draft	Full edit of the order
Edit / Update (partial)	Approved, not Cancelled or Completed	Edits a limited set of details on a live order
Approve	Draft	Moves the order to To Deliver And Bill and opens the downstream actions
Unapprove	Approved, not Cancelled or Completed	Returns the order to Draft
Cancel	Not already Cancelled	Sets status to Cancelled and releases any stock reservations
Delete	Draft	Permanently removes the order
Duplicate	Any status	Creates a new Draft copy, assigned to you, with no links back to a parent document
Assign	Not Cancelled or Completed	Assigns the order to a colleague and notifies them
View Stock	The order has stock items	Shows current stock for the ordered items
Save PDF / Save Detailed PDF	Saved order	Generates the order document

Cancelling an approved order requires the approval capability (CAN_APPROVE_SALES_ORDER), not just modify rights.

What blocks Unapprove, Cancel, and Delete

All three check for child records first. Unapprove and Delete are blocked by any child record; Cancel is blocked only by children that are not themselves cancelled.

Child record type	Reported as
Delivery note lines	Delivery Notes (with the delivery note numbers)
Sales invoice lines	Sales Invoices
Letter of credit lines	Letter of Credits
Purchase request lines	Purchase Requests
Purchase order lines	Purchase Orders
Stock ledger entries	Stock Ledger Entries

“Cannot unapprove sales order. Child records exist: Delivery Notes (DN-0012). Please delete all related records first.”

Unapproving or cancelling an order also reverts its parent: a source quotation’s lines go back from Ordered to Agreed, and a source proforma invoice returns from Linked to Accepted, so both can be used again.

Creating documents from an order

The Create menu appears once the order is approved. What it offers depends on the status and on what the order contains.

Create	Available when	Goes to
Delivery Note	Status is To Deliver And Bill, To Deliver, or In Production; no letter of credit exists; the order is not service-only	Inventory → Delivery Note
Delivery Schedule	Same conditions as Delivery Note	Inventory → Delivery Schedule
Sales Invoice	The order is service-only and status is To Bill or To Deliver And Bill	Financials → Sales Invoice
Letter of Credit	Status is To Deliver And Bill or To Deliver; no delivery note exists yet; not service-only	Export Documents → Letter of Credit
Advance Payment	Has Advance Payment is on and the order is approved and not cancelled	Financials → Payment Entry
Purchase Request	The order has stock items	Purchase → Purchase Request
Purchase Order	The order has stock items	Purchase → Purchase Order
Work Order	The order has stock items	Manufacturing → Work Order

For orders with stock items the sales invoice is raised from the delivery note, not from the order. Invoicing straight off an order is restricted to service items, which never enter stock and so have no delivery note.

Once a Letter of Credit exists for an order, the Delivery Note option disappears from that order — the delivery is raised against the LC instead. The reverse also holds: once a delivery note exists, you can no longer raise an LC for that order.

Raising a purchase request for the shortfall

Create → Purchase Request works out what you are short of. For each stock line it compares the ordered quantity against what has already been delivered and what you hold, and requests only the deficit. If nothing is short you get “No deficit found!” — you can override that and request the full quantity anyway.

Your organisation can also switch on an Auto Create Purchase Request setting, which raises the purchase request automatically the moment a Draft order is approved to To Deliver And Bill. Pure service orders are skipped.

Tabs

Tab	What it holds
Details	Customer, dates, currency, items, taxes, discounts, totals
Addresses	Ship To and Bill To
Other Details	Customer PO, incoterms, ports, shipment dates, sales team, terms
Associations	Delivery notes, invoices, LCs, purchase documents, and work orders created from this order

Filters and search

Filter	Values
Status	Draft, To Deliver and Bill, To Bill, To Deliver, Cancelled, Completed, In Production
Customer	Type-ahead on customer name
Items	Type-ahead on item name
Assignee	Type-ahead on the assigned user

The list columns are Number, Customer, Items, Order Date, Delivery Date, Assignee, and Status. Sorting is available on order number, date created, priority, and status.

Common validations and troubleshooting

Message / behaviour	Why	Fix
“Only Draft sales orders can be deleted. Please cancel approved sales orders instead.”	The order is approved	Cancel it
“Cannot unapprove a completed sales order” / “…a cancelled sales order”	The order is in a terminal state	Nothing to do
“A cancelled or completed sales order cannot change status”	Terminal state	Raise a new order
“Cannot cancel sales order. Non-cancelled child records exist: …”	A live delivery note, invoice, or purchase document is attached	Cancel or delete those first
“You need approval permission to cancel approved sales orders”	Missing `CAN_APPROVE_SALES_ORDER`	Ask an approver
“Use the dedicated unapprove or cancel action for this status”	Draft and Cancelled cannot be set through the normal status change	Use Unapprove or Cancel
“Only agreed quotation items can be converted”	A source quotation line is not Agreed	Agree it on the quotation first
“Each tax or charge must have either a rate or an amount greater than zero”	An empty tax or charge line	Fill it in or remove it
“Exchange rate cannot be negative”	Exchange rate is zero or below	Enter a positive rate
Add Order stays disabled	A required field is empty, or there are no item lines	Check customer, dates, currency, and add at least one line
The order is missing from your list	It is assigned to someone else and you lack `CAN_VIEW_ALL_SALES_ORDER`	Ask for the capability, or a reassignment

Tips

Record the customer’s own PO number. It is the first thing they quote when chasing a delivery.
Set Delivery Date honestly — it drives the pending-delivery reports and the delivery schedule.
Use Duplicate for repeat orders instead of retyping; the copy comes back as a clean Draft.
Watch Billed Amount against Grand Total to catch over-billing before it reaches the customer.
Do not raise a second order to fix a price. Cancel and reissue so the audit trail stays clean.

Sales Quotation — where agreed lines come from
Delivery Note — dispatching against the order
Sales Invoice — billing the order
Analysis & Pending Orders — ordered vs delivered vs billed
Delivery Schedule — planned instalments
Work Orders — making what you sold