How to take and track sales orders

A sales order records what a customer has asked for. It is not a bill: nothing is owed and no GST is due until you raise the invoice. Takkada keeps orders open until the goods have actually gone, so at any moment you can see what you have promised and how much of it is still to ship.

Before you start

• You need permission to see sales orders on this business, and a separate permission to create them. Being able to read the list does not mean you can add to it.
• Making the invoice from an order needs the sales-invoice right. Without it the button is there but refuses, with the reason "You can't make invoices here. Ask your admin for the Sales Invoice right."
• Loading an order onto a van is a different screen with its own access. See the van section below.
• Quotations live in the same list as orders. A quotation is a price you have offered; an order is a commitment.

Order or invoice — which do you make?

Make an order when the customer has asked for goods you have not sent yet. Make an invoice when the goods are going, or have gone. An order costs nothing and can be edited or cancelled. An invoice is a tax document: once it is in your books it should be reversed with a credit note, not deleted.

The usual sequence is order first, invoice later, and Takkada carries the order's items, rates and reference into the invoice so you do not key them twice.

Take an order

1. Open "Sales Orders".
2. Tap "New Sales Order".
3. Choose the customer.
4. Add the items with quantity and rate.
5. Set the order date, and a "Delivery Date (optional)" if you have promised one.
6. Review the summary and save.

The order gets a number and appears in the list as Open.

Find an order again

The list filters by type and by state:

• "All Orders" shows everything.
• "Open Orders Only" hides what is finished.
• "Quotations Only" and "Sales Orders Only" separate the two kinds.

If you have filtered too hard you will see "No orders match the selected filters" — clear the filter rather than concluding the order is gone.

Open an order to see its items, its status and its totals, and use "Share Sales Order" to send the customer a PDF of it.

Pending quantity and partial fulfilment

An order does not have to be shipped in one go.

• An order that has been fully invoiced closes.
• An order that has been part invoiced shows "Partially Closed".
• The quantity still owed on each line is its pending quantity.

Businesses using the pending-orders view get a whole screen for this. Open "Pending Orders" and you see every customer with something owed, each line showing what is still pending. When there is nothing left it says "Nothing pending — every order is fully shipped."

To ship part of an order:

1. Open the order, or find it under "Pending Orders".
2. Choose to make the invoice. On a business using pending orders this opens "Fulfil Order"; from the pending list the same door is labelled "Make Invoice".
3. Enter the quantity "Packed" against each item — the amount actually going now, which may be less than the amount ordered.
4. Continue into the invoice, check it, and save.
5. The order stays open for the rest, with its pending quantity reduced.

When everything has gone, the screen says "Nothing pending on this order — everything ordered has been invoiced or cancelled."

Cancelling what will never ship

If the customer no longer wants part of an order, cancel that line instead of leaving it pending forever. The cancel step asks for a "Reason (required)", so the order's history explains itself later.

Bill an order

From an open order you get two doors: "Convert to Invoice" and "Make challan". Both are offered whenever the order can still be billed. Your business's dispatch document setting decides which of the two is the highlighted one — it does not remove the other. Each door has its own permission, and the one you lack tells you which right to ask your admin for.

Sending an order out on a van

Orders can also be loaded onto a van and billed after the goods have actually left. That is a separate screen with its own access: as well as being allowed to see orders, your business needs Dispatch switched on and you need access to it. If Dispatch is not available to you, everything above still works — you just invoice from the order directly.

The dispatch guide covers loading, keying back what actually went, and billing from a van.

When it does not look right

The order is not in the list. Check the filter first, then check that you are on the right business.

"Convert to Invoice" is greyed out. Either you do not have the sales-invoice right — the reason names it — or the order is already closed or cancelled.

The pending quantity looks wrong after an invoice. Pending is reduced by what you actually invoiced, not by what was ordered. If you packed less, the remainder is still open, which is the intended behaviour.

A line shows as being on a van. Goods on a van are still owed and still appear as pending until they are billed. That is deliberate — it stops the same goods being promised twice.

You cannot edit the order. Orders stop being editable once they have been converted or cancelled, and on businesses using pending orders once part of the order has been fulfilled. Cancel the remaining lines or raise a fresh order.