The standard sales workflow is to create a quote, which gives your customer basic pricing information, with the customer possibly putting a deposit on the quote, and then converting the quote to an invoice when the customer takes the product home, with the deposit being applied to the invoice. However, if a product is not in stock, or you want to reserve a product for a customer, you must first convert the quote to an order. You convert this to an invoice when the customer takes the product home. For more information on the ordering and purchasing workflow go to About purchasing.
Example sale and purchasing workflows
- Quote-to-Invoice: You create a quote for a customer who wants to purchase items. The customer decides to buy the items. You create an invoice from the quote, which can be edited before you complete the sale.
- Quote-to-Order: You want to reserve existing available inventory for a customer who does not yet want to purchase the items, or create an order request that will eventually be compiled onto a purchase order to request the products to be ordered from a supplier.
- Order-to-Invoice: A customer wants to purchase products they have reserved on an order.
- Invoice-to-Order: You need to backorder products that a customer wants to purchase. The products are not currently in your stock , and must be brought in from a supplier on a purchase order.
- Order-to-Purchase Order: A product that is not reserved can be converted to a PO directly, using the purchase order button on the order, or it can be compiled, along with other products purchased at the same supplier, using the purchasing workflow described in the Purchasing article of the Inventory and Purchasing section.