Order handling
An order handling process may be defined as the process where one order goods or service and sets price, delivery time, payment terms, articles and quantity.
An order process may result in
Service order for goods in stock.
Service order for goods pending reception.
Regular service order.
An order process, which requires an order confirmation, can be said to be legally binding. It is at this point you may include the order in the companys financial records for expected future income.
When creating a service order one have to register the product which should undergo a service together with the service job(s).
It may be more difficult to estimate a price for a complete service order compared to a sales order as it depends on what parts and operations which is set to be included. The service job could have a fixed price, but operations and parts in addition makes the invoices.
In addition to the several other tasks in the order process, it is important to mention the tasks where you should follow up the acknowledged, but not delivered orders. You are handling the customer backlog, which could be defined as what the customer is owed by the seller. Within this task you could follow up the customer backlog based on requests or in internal routines. For instance, getting confirmed dates from supplier/production, control that orders are delivered according to confirmed date or attempt to expedite purchase orders/productions if customers requested date is not fulfilled.
Good internal routines for following up the customer backlog is vital. If the company seldom delivers in time, or may offer reduced delivery times for certain customers, this may be rectified by closely following up the backlog to avoid discrepancies.
An order may, as all other processes, be cancelled until a certain threshold has been reached.
Tasks involved in this process
Receiving an order
Creating an order where products, quantity, pricing and delivery terms are included.
Allocating goods
Ensuring the goods and service parts are actually in stock or pending reception.
Acknowledging the order
Sending a sales order to one or several recipients.
Follow up on the customer backlog
Even if the order is already acknowledged it may still be cancelled or partially delivered.
Change an order
After request and agreement with the customer, create a new version of the sales order.