Customer Orders Overview

A company creates and uses a customer order, often abbreviated as CO, when it sells goods or services. Each time a customer requests goods or services, a new customer order must be created or changes made to an existing one in the system.

The customer order consists of two major parts: the header and the associated lines/releases. The header, defined on the Customer Orders form, contains information about the customer to whom the items are being sold, such as billing and shipping addresses, and other general information about the order, such as tax information, the total weight, and total price.

The header also contains a field that indicates the type of order: regular or blanket. A blanket customer order differs from a regular customer order in that it allows for multiple release dates for each ordered item.

Each customer order (regular or blanket) can have associated multiple line/releases, which you define on the Customer Order Lines or Customer Order Blanket Lines forms. Usually, a line/release is needed for each item being sold. The line/release contains information such as the item number from the Items form, the quantity being sold, and the unit price.

The Ship Via value is defaulted from the Customer Orders form and is used to validate the Ship Via value when grouping pick lists.

Features

These are some of the features of the Customer module:

Maintains detailed customer information
Supports centralized and decentralized order entry
Maintains multiple ship-to addresses per customer
Allows separated drop-ship addresses per line/release
Allows multiple line/releases per order
Allows blanket line/releases per order
Monitors customer order statuses, at multiple levels
Ties customer orders to multiple manufacturing jobs and purchase orders
Allows multiple deliveries and order releases
Allows customers and customer orders to be placed on credit hold
Prepares invoices and credit memos
Has the capability to post to the Financial system
Determines domestic currency value of outstanding orders
Reports past-due orders
Reports gross margin
Maintains a complete order history system
Allows orders to be copied from estimates
Allows easy creation of jobs and POs for line/releases
Provides numerous sales reports
Allows quick creation of customer orders through the Customer Orders Quick Entry form.

Interfacing with other system modules

The Customer module interfaces with other system modules in these ways:

Vendors and Purchasing: Customer order line/releases can be satisfied by POs. POs can be created automatically from customer orders using the cross-reference feature.
Material and Inventory: Line/release prices and quantity availability information are based on the Items record. The Items fields, Alloc Order and Sold YTD, are incremented by the addition and invoicing of customer orders. The Items record's On Hand quantity is increased or decreased by customer order returns and shipments.
Production and Jobs: Customer order line/releases can be satisfied by jobs. It is possible to create job orders automatically from customer orders using the cross-reference feature.
Estimating: Estimate orders can be copied to customer orders.
MRP and APS: Customer orders are shown as outstanding requirements.
Accounts Payable: Salesperson commission information can be accessed during A/P Check Printing/Posting (payment of outside salespersons).
Accounts Receivable: The customer's credit limit is analyzed each time an order is entered and the system warns you when the customer has exceeded the credit limit. The invoices and credit memos are generated and printed, and are posted to the AR Posted Transactions form.
Payroll: Inside salesperson commissions can be included in the Payroll Transaction Generation feature.
General Ledger: All material transactions associated with customer order shipments and returns generate entries in the CO Distribution Journal.
Product Configuration: The addition of a planning item to a customer order line/release allows an item to be configured based upon the planning item options. If this is an item which has not been previously added on the Items form, it can be created at that point.
Data Collection: Shipping transaction information gathered by a data collection solution is used to update the shipped fields of the appropriate customer order line/releases.
The Source tab on the Customer Order Lines form gives you a view into order sourcing information related to inventory, purchase orders, jobs, requisitions, transfer orders, and service orders.

Where is the CO number shown?

The CO number is referenced in these places:

On a PO line/release cross-reference
On a Job Material cross-reference
On the Job header