Overview of Orders

The Orders module is one of the most important screens because it provides one location for you to manage your orders, check on order status, and complete orders. To access the Orders module, navigate from Main Menu > Order Management > Orders. 

Note: This guide gives a general description of order functionality. Your system administrator can set preferences for your specific aACE System. These settings may automate or constrain various aspects of billing, procurement, production / fulfillment, and shipping for orders. 

Order Detail View

To review details about an order, first use the Quick Search bar to locate the desired record, then click the Go-to (>) icon for that order. 

aACE tracks extensive information about orders. The detail view is organized across multiple views or tabs (detailed below). For each tab, the Orders module footer remains visible. The tabs include: 

• Sales / Production / Service Order Tab — This tab title changes based on the type of order. The tab displays general information about the order. Fields vary slightly depending on the most important data for each type of order. On all order types, however, it includes the items ordered and some customer details.
• Management Tab — Displays info about the order's progress. Information is organized using these tabs:
  • Procurement
  • Production
  • Shipping & Receiving
  • Invoicing
  • Tasks & Preferences
• Job Costs & Approvals Tab — Displays time and material costs, plus a list of jobs and their current approval statuses.

Sales / Production / Service Order Tab

This section of the guide uses a sales order as an example. Note that production and service orders have varying layouts and fields which support additional functionality.

1. Bill To and Ship To

Selecting a customer on a new order record will auto-populate several fields with relevant information from that customer's Company record. You can manually update fields on Pending orders. After the order is in Open status, certain fields cannot be edited. Editing is also constrained by your user group's access privileges.

• Auto-populated fields:
  • Bill To / Ship To Addresses
    Note: Clicking the Clipboard icon () copies the address. Clicking the Location icon () opens a web browser and displays the address in Google Maps.
  • Billing Terms — When the customer is expected to send payment 
  • Blind — Reduces the information included on the packing list and other documents
    Note: If you mark the Blind flag on an order, aACE will automatically apply that setting on related shipment records. 
  • Ship Type — Controls whether individual items on the order will be shipped as soon as they are ready or whether the shipment will be delayed until all order items are prepared.
  • Ship Date — Estimated date for the shipment to leave your facilities
• Manual-entry fields:
  • Inventory Bin — Optional field to specify which of your inventory bins the product should be drawn from
    Note: If you select a bin, the order will be affected by the inventory levels in that bin. For example, a specific bin may only have half the product needed for the order.
  • Shipping Terms — Indicates when liability and ownership of goods are transferred from seller to buyer (i.e. who is responsible for goods that are damaged during shipping)
    Note: When you select Free on Board (FOB), the transfer point is when the product is loaded as freight. When a physical location is specified, the responsibility for the shipment passes from the seller to the buyer at that point.

2. Comments and Next Steps

You can record notes about customer interactions or progress on the order in the Comments and Next Steps field. If the next stage for the order includes a deadline, you can also select a date using the Calendar icon (). These notes serve as reminders for when your team needs to take action on the related order.

3. Description and Additional Info

You can record notes about an order using these fields. Info recorded in some of these fields may flow through to related records.

aACE also includes other note-taking features on an order. You can include notes about an order item by clicking the Pin icon (). If an item has notes on the line item code (LIC) record, then aACE will flow this information through to the Additional Info icon () on the order. 

If notes fields have too much information to display on the screen all at once, you can expand the text box. Click Edit, then click and drag the Expand icon (). 

4. Order Items

All LICs you have selected for the order are listed in this section. The Order Items section also includes items from any template applied to the order. Flags in this section identify items that are on backorder (BO), that are to be drop-shipped (DS), or that are special order (SO) items. Prices itemized in this list are combined into the totals section farther down the screen. 

In Edit mode, additional columns may be visible: 

• Invtry — Current quantity of available inventory for that LIC
• Alts — The number of alternate products for that LIC
  To replace the current item with an alternate product, click the colored Alts number, then select the desired item. Alternate products for an LIC are specified on that LIC record. Alts can only be applied while the order is in Pending status.
• Upgs — The number of available upgrade products for that LIC
  To add more related products to the order, click the colored Upgs number, then select the desired item. aACE creates a line below the original LIC, showing the upgrade as a child-item for the original LIC. Upgrade products for an LIC are specified on that LIC record.
• Opts icon () — Displays a list of option products for that LIC
  Added similar to upgrades; however, any LIC in your inventory can be added as an option product.

5. Sales / Billing / Fulfillment / Shipping Tabs

These views of related data make it easier to find key information. Important details include:

• Sales — The sales rep, account manager, and priority level
  Note: This tab may also include information about the related lead record. Some of this info is entered by the sales rep who generates the order, while other fields are auto-populated from the CRM & Sales module.
• Billing — The type of order, the payment account to use, whether the transaction is recurring, and the currency / exchange rate (if used)
• Fulfillment — The priority level and schedule, as well as related projects and jobs
• Shipping — The carrier, carrier service, ship point, and carrier account number
  Details specified here will populate the corresponding fields on the shipment record.

6. Totals Section

The various totals here are automatically calculated. However, some fields can be manually updated:

• Adjustment — A manual surcharge or discount, entered as a dollar amount or a percentage
• Shipping — Auto-populated based on customer company shipping details, but open for manual editing 
• Tax — Auto-populated based on the customer company tax profile, but open for manual selection

Click the Refresh icon () to update the Totals section with any recent changes.

Management Tab

Information about an order's progress is organized across various tabs. These tabs may vary, depending on which layout your system administrator has selected as the default. This screenshot shows the Price-Based sales order layout:

1. Overview Tab

You can view a summary of the order's progress here. This summary includes current and outstanding quantities for procurement, production, invoicing, and shipping. Marking the Print flag () indicates that an LIC's summary information will be displayed on related reports. 

You can also manage payments from this screen in the Totals section. Clicking the Add icon () opens the the Apply Payment dialog to apply a payment to the order. You can view how aACE is calculating the Payment Due amount by clicking the Calculations Tooltip icon (). 

2. Procurement Tab

If items need to be purchased to fulfill the order, they will display on the Procurement tab. These items include back-ordered, drop-shipped, and special-ordered products. You can also generate new purchase orders linked to this order. 

3. Production Tab

If items need to be assembled for an order, aACE will generate the needed jobs and tasks. You can also manually generate new jobs and view their scheduling on the calendar.

4. Shipping & Receiving Tab

This tab shows both incoming and outgoing shipments related to the order. It also allows you to create new shipments.

5. Invoicing Tab

You can view an order's related invoices as well as progress billing details. It also allows you to create new invoices. 

Any billing notes will display in the top right corner in the highlighted Pin icon () for easy reference. 

6. Tasks & Preferences Tab

You can view any order tasks for the current order. This tab provides options to generate tasks, open them, and close them. Certain order-level preferences are also accessible here. 

Job Costs & Approvals Tab

Typically used for production orders, this tab organizes the Time Costs and Material Costs. It provides go-to links to each job needed for the order. Quantities and costs are updated as your team enters expenses and approves timesheets. 

In the Approvals section, you can identify each job as billable or non-billable and then approve them.