Evaluating a Product's
Sales Order Features
You
can tell a great deal about an accounting software package by
entering a simple order into the system. This will allow you to
gain insights into the look and feel of the system, the way it
navigates, the speed, the ease of use, the breadth of features,
etc. The
sales order process typically involves three major steps as
follows: Identifying
the customer Identifying
the items for sale Arranging
for payment The
following article walks you through this process using Sage
BusinessWorks. The screen below allows the user to select the
proper customer. Upon
selecting the proper customer, Sage BusinessWorks displays
summary information and makes it easy for the user to verify
basic information such as terms, sales representative, bill to
address, etc. To
gain more detailed information, the user clicks on the customer
button in the upper right hand corner to display the customer
information screen shown below. In this screen, the user can see
the amount of credit, unpaid balances, e-mail address, and the
number of years the customer has been a customer. Also handy are
buttons that allow the user to drill down to transaction data
such as payments received or invoices delivered. This would be
useful for reconciling a disputed outstanding balance, or
answering a quick question regarding the last invoice amount,
the last check number received, etc. The Letter button makes it
easy for the user to print a predefined letter that is ready to
send to the customer. The Attach button allows the user to input
customer comments and notes that might be useful in the future.
These are all useful features to look for regardless of which
accounting software package you are evaluating. Back
at the order screen, another button provides access to the
screen where additional ship-to addresses are maintained. With
Sage BusinessWorks, you can hold up to 500 different ship-to
addresses for each customer – that is usually more than enough.
The button at the bottom of this screen is a quick print button
which makes it quick and easy to print a shipping label. Once
the customer has been properly identified, the user is ready to
move on to step two – identifying the parts and service items to
be purchased by the customer. To
accommodate the wide variety of items sold by businesses, Sage
BusinessWorks supports several different types of items. In the
screen below, we see that Sage BusinessWorks tracks parts,
non-stock items, Labor items, comments a kits. Each of these is
important. Parts
are obviously important, that’s what many businesses sell.
However, many businesses also sell parts, which they do not keep
in stock. In this case, Sage BusinessWorks allows the user to
make the sale, even though the non-stock part requested is not
on the premises. For example, assume a customer has just
purchased a bike, and they want to also purchase the streamers
that hang out of the handlebars. Perhaps you do not stock
streamers, but you know that Wal-Mart does. You agree to sell
these streamers to the customer for say $8.00, and before the
bike is delivered, your employee drops by Wal-Mart and picks up
a set of streamers for $3.50. Labor
is an important category because it allows the company to sell
labor to its customers without a time and billing system – in
affect, the inventory module is the time and billing system. It
works like this. An automobile repair shop charges it’s customer
$250 for 1 bumper, $350 for 1 fender, and 8.75 repair hours at
$35 each. The invoice reads perfect – and sales tax is
suppressed on the labor charge. In other words, the company sets
up and sells repair hours at $35 each, painting hours may be
priced at $50 each, and so on. In this manner, the company is
able to charge the customer for materials and labor. Sage
BusinessWorks understands this need, and accommodates it well.
Peachtree Complete Accounting does the same. The
visible comment option allows the company to easily insert an
unlimited amount of text onto the invoice such as “warranty
void” or “fill with oil before starting engine”. In the 80’s
many accounting software packages lacked this feature, but
today, BusinessWorks has this problem solved.
Finally, Sage BusinessWorks also supports kits, which is a group
of individual inventory items that are assembled together prior
to sell. For example, a company may assemble 45 different items
into a single carburetor. As the worker assembles the
carburetors, they indicate the assemblies in BusinessWorks,
which in turn increments the number of carburetors on hand, and
decreases the number of the various components on hand by the
appropriate amounts.
BusinessWorks provides a search tool that is impressive. With
this search tool, the user can search for text within the item
description. Many products are weak when it comes to searching
lists as they are only able to look up items based on an
alphabetical search. For example, assume that the customer
wanted to purchase a “lamp”. The order taker might not be aware
that the customer really wants to purchase a “desk lamp” or
“fluorescent lamp”. In this case, the order taker would search
the “L’s” for lamps, and would completely miss the “desk lamp”
or “fluorescent lamp”, which might lead to losing the sale. With
BusinessWorks, the order taker could search for the phrase
“lamp”, and BusinessWorks would find all occurrences of this
phrase and return a comprehensive list. Not only that, but
BusinessWorks can also search other fields as well to find
manufacturer part numbers, colors, styles, sizes, locations,
etc. As an
item has been selected for sale, a quick item button allows the
order clerk to view information on that particular item
including quantities on hand by warehouse, pictures, attached
notes, and even historical transactions. As the
item is selected, Sage BusinessWorks pops up the matrix pricing
window which is customer and quantity sensitive. This window is
seen in the screen below. Notice that the cursor defaults to the
appropriate sales price based upon the current customer and
order quantity.
Finally, as the item is finalized, the order clerk has the
option of picking the particular warehouse location from which
the item will be shipped. As a
completion to the order process, the final screen allows the
order clerk to indicate the method of payment. In the
screen below, the order clerk prepares to accept a credit card
payment. Third party add-on applications can automate the credit
card check and approval process. If the
customer purchases an item for which serial numbers are being
tracked, then BusinessWorks pops up a window to remind the order
clerk to indicate the precise serial numbers associated with
this particular sales order. Back
in the warehouse, workers print out the picking tickets and
package the items for shipping.
