Loading

The Sales Console

The Sales console is the sales desk's workspace: quotes, sales orders, delivery notes, invoices and the customer list on one screen, with every line priced by your price lists and every order checked against the customer's credit. It replaces keying sales documents into the generic datastore editor.

Where to find it

Admin Panel → Sales:

  • Sales — the Sales console: quotes, orders, deliveries, invoices and customers
  • Pricing — the price lists, rules and price simulator the console prices lines from

Architect Panel → ERP - Sales:

  • Customers — the customer master as a datastore list
  • Sales Quotes, Sales Orders, Delivery Notes, Sales Invoices and Sales Credit Notes — the raw document lists, for looking up and auditing

Who can open it

The console is for admin-tier users whose security group holds the ERP: Sales role, and for architects. The role decides which consoles a person reaches; the company grant decides which companies they work in. Read access to a company shows its documents, write access lets you raise and change them. Roles and company access are granted in ERP Setup (see Getting Started with ERP).

A salesperson sees a customer's credit position but cannot change the credit limit, put a customer on stop or switch off reminders. Those belong to Accounts Receivable, so the person paid on a sale never sets the customer's credit.

The screen

  • Company: choose one company or All my companies. Amounts across several companies are shown in the currency most of them use.
  • The figures: Open quotes, Orders to deliver, On credit hold, Ready to invoice and Sales this month (net of credit notes, compared with the same days last month, with a six-month trend). Click a figure to open the documents behind it.
  • Tabs: Quotes, Orders, Deliveries, Invoices and Customers.
  • Filters on each document tab: Status (Open (not finished), Every status, or one status), Customer, a date range, Salesperson, and a search box for the number, customer, PO or reference.
  • New quote and New order open the line editor.

Raising a quote or an order

  1. Press New quote (or New order) and choose the Company and Customer. Currency, salesperson and delivery address come from the customer.
  2. Add lines: Item, Qty and, optionally, Disc. %. The Unit price fills itself from your price lists and rules, and each line explains itself: which price list, which quantity break, which rules applied, the margin and the tax.
  3. Watch the Stock column: it shows what is available and marks a line short when there is not enough.
  4. Save with Save draft, Save and mark as sent (quotes) or Save and confirm the order (orders). On an order the second button changes to Save and ask for credit approval when the order would take the customer over their credit limit, and is disabled when the customer is on stop.

Typing your own price over the engine's price is allowed only for holders of the Override sales prices permission. The line then shows Overrides the price list and keeps the price it replaced.

Working with one document

Open a document to see its details, lines, progress (what each order line has shipped and been invoiced), related documents and history. The buttons along the top are exactly the moves you may make now: Confirm order, Create delivery note, Cancel order and so on. A step you cannot take is listed under Why ... not offered with the reason, so nothing is silently missing.

Print / PDF opens the document on its company letterhead and Send by e-mail sends it as a PDF (see Document Output & Letterheads). The Attachments & notes card holds files and notes for the document.

What goes wrong

  • "No company to work in": your group has the role but no company access. Ask an ERP administrator to grant it.
  • Invoicing is not offered: invoices are raised by Accounts Receivable, so on the Sales console the step reads as not offered and the delivery appears on their To invoice list.
  • A price shows "–": no price list prices that item for this customer, currency and date. Check it in the price simulator.

Worked example

A sales administrator at a distributor opens Sales, picks the UK company and sees two orders on credit hold. They open the Quotes tab, raise a quote for 40 cable kits, and the line shows the trade list price with the 25-unit quantity break applied. They save it as sent and print it. When the customer accepts, they open the quote and press Create sales order, which copies the lines at the quoted prices and marks the quote Accepted.

Recommendations

  • Grant ERP: Sales and ERP: Receivables to different groups so selling and credit stay separate.
  • Give Override sales prices to few people; every override is recorded on the line.
  • Read the price explanation on the first orders after a price list change.
  • Use the figures as the day's work list: credit holds first, then orders to deliver.