Sales Order Processing
Sales Order Entry is the Prism software module that fulfills a phone order, a mail order and many aspects of an e-commerce order. Unlike Point of Sale, where the customer is standing in front of the register with the item they are purchasing, Sales Order Entry allows your staff to take and process and ship orders directly to your customers.
From entering customer orders (not applicable for e-commerce), to picking and packing the merchandise, to generating invoices and shipping out product, Merchant Technologies provides you with the tools to manage and execute this entire process.
Sales Order Entry also provides customer order inquiry screens, to quickly and easily respond to customers questions regarding the status of their order; Prism's Order Management reports assist your staff in managing orders to ensure that they do not get delayed or overlooked; Special order tracking, work in process tracking, shipping charges, handling charges, special component add-ons for value added items and a variety of other features are also included in this module.
- Order Entry
- Order Fulfillment
- Customer Order Inquiry
- Order Management Reports
- Order Status Reports
- Special Orders and Back Orders
- Employee Hierarchy
- Contract Pricing
- Shipping Software Interfaces
An order entry representative will type in all relevant data regarding the order. For repeat customers, their personal information, preferences and, if applicable, terms will be automatically filled in by the system, eliminating the possibility of error and reducing the data entering time considerably.
When the order entry representative selects an existing customer, that customer's name, phone number, bill to and ship to addresses and terms would automatically be pulled into the order. The next step would be to enter the item numbers into the order.
Prism provides many item lookup options to identify items, should the item being purchased not be complete obvious to the order taker.
Prism generates pick tickets (with aisle and bin number referencing), to pull items out of inventory.
Packing slips are generated next, which identify the items that are to be shipped-formatted to display in a clear packing slip envelope with all relevant shipping data such as address and your shipping account number displayed.
Invoices are placed in the box to show what was purchased, the price and quantity purchased and any balance due. If paid-in-full in advance, this is reflected on the invoice.
Prism allows you to display the entire order process with the touch of a key. The system will show you the order date, pick date, pack date, ship date. If a backorder is holding up shipment, it will tell you the purchase order number the item is on, the purchase order creation date and the expected delivery date of that purchase order. All of this is viewed on one screen.
This report displays the status of the overall order (e.g., picked, packed, shipped) and the number of days the order has been in that particular condition, the percentage shipped, the total dollar amount of the shipment and the gross margin percentage of the order.
With this information, you can see if an order has been packed for a number of days, but never shipped. You will be alerted to orders that are not fully completed and have been open for "X" number of days. Orders that may have unusual gross margin percentages, indicating a possible pricing error, will also be brought to your attention.
In addition, no intervention is required by your buyers since the item is automatically place on your purchase order. Buyers, of course, may review and modify the order, if desired.
When the goods arrive at your warehouse, there are no questions committed inventory, since information such as customer name, order number, quantity and the line number are prominently displayed next to each received item on the purchase order for your fulfillment personnel to view.
The same principal holds true with backorders. The only difference being that with a backorder, the item has already been ordered and has yet to be received. Just as with special orders, the warehouse personnel are fully informed of these committed items when they receive the merchandise.
For example, schools may allocate a dollar amount per teacher for a school year. Or, a police department will allow each officer a certain amount of money for uniforms. The post office may limit the number of uniforms each postal employee can purchase. Prism addresses all of these scenarios.
This feature also allows you to determine who can charge a purchase to an account and it allows you to set purchasing limits per employee, if the company establishes such limits on its employees.
If you win the bid, you can convert that quote into a contract for that particular customer. Whenever the customer orders from you off of that contract, the customer's specific pricing, as determined by your contract, is automatically defaulted into the order. The system will allow you an option to override that pricing to normal pricing, should the customer, for example, be purchasing for another situation other than the contract (e.g., personal purchase vs. business purchase).
Contact pricing can be as broadly or as narrowly defined as you wish. They can be created for all or some items, items that contain multiple components, specific to departments, classes and vendors.
There are virtually no limitations on the pricing structures you wish to employ.
