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Deliveries and Shipping

A delivery note records what is leaving the building against a sales order. Shipping it takes the stock out, posts the cost of sales and moves the order on. A delivery shipped by mistake can now be reversed rather than worked around with a credit note.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Sales:

  • Sales — the Orders tab to create deliveries and the Deliveries tab to pick and ship them

Architect Panel → ERP - Sales:

  • Delivery Notes — every delivery note; the badge counts notes raised and not yet shipped

Who does it

Holders of ERP: Sales or ERP: Inventory can create and ship delivery notes in the companies they have write access to. Accounts Receivable can read and edit them but not create them.

Creating a delivery note

  1. Open a sales order that is Confirmed or Partially Delivered and press Create delivery note.
  2. The panel lists every line still open with Still open, Available and Take. Take starts at what can be promised now; a line marked short has less available than ordered.
  3. Change the quantities if you are shipping part of the order. A line left at 0 stays open for a later delivery.
  4. Confirm. The new delivery note opens in Draft.

An order made up only of services has nothing to deliver. Its Create delivery note step is shown as not offered, and the order is invoiced straight from the order instead.

Picking and shipping

  1. On the draft delivery, the Lines and picking card asks for Ship from: the location the stock leaves.
  2. For lot- or serial-tracked items, choose the Lot / serial per line, or leave Earliest expiry first (automatic). A line with None on hand will be refused when you ship.
  3. Press Save picking, then Ship.

Shipping does three things in one step: it releases the order's reservation for those quantities, issues the stock (earliest expiry first unless you picked lots) with its cost of sales journal, and moves the order to Partially Delivered or Delivered. A delivery note for services only skips the stock issue. How stock movements and valuation work is covered in Stock & Inventory.

A shipped delivery appears on the Receivables console's To invoice list until it has been invoiced in full.

Reversing a shipped delivery

Use Reverse the delivery (Shipped to Reversed) when goods were shipped by mistake: wrong goods, wrong quantity, wrong customer.

  1. Open the shipped delivery note and press Reverse the delivery.
  2. Give the reason. It is kept on the delivery's history.
  3. The engine reverses every stock movement the delivery posted, cost of sales included, rebuilds the order's reservations from what it still has to deliver, moves the order back (for example from Delivered to Partially Delivered) and opens the order lines again for a new delivery.

Reversal is refused once anything has been invoiced from the delivery. In that case raise a credit note against the invoice with a return location, which brings the goods back into stock (see Sales Invoices and Credit Notes in this section).

A draft delivery that will not ship can simply be cancelled; its quantities go back to the order.

What goes wrong

  • Create delivery note is not offered: the order is not Confirmed or Partially Delivered, the customer is on stop, or the order is services only.
  • Ship is refused for a lot-tracked line: nothing of that item is on hand at the Ship from location. Choose another location or receive the stock first.
  • Reverse the delivery is not offered: the delivery has already been invoiced. Credit the invoice instead.

Worked example

An order for 100 sensor units is confirmed with 60 in stock. The storeman presses Create delivery note; Take shows 60 and the line is marked short. They confirm, pick lot L2409 from the main warehouse and ship. The order shows Partially Delivered with 40 still open. Next morning they notice they picked the wrong customer's order, press Reverse the delivery with the reason "shipped against wrong order", and the 60 units return to stock and to the order's reservation.

Recommendations

  • Give the warehouse ERP: Inventory so they can ship without holding the Sales role.
  • Pick lots by hand only where the customer asks for a specific lot; otherwise let earliest expiry decide.
  • Reverse before you invoice: once invoiced, the correction is a credit note.
  • Close short an order whose balance will never ship, so its reservation is freed.