Orders are the primary record in Tailwind, the root to which Shipments and Dispatches are attached. In some cases, you may want to convert an existing Quote into an order, but not every company will use quotes, and in the case of a recurring Customer or well-known route, it will make more sense to create the Order directly.

To do so, start by navigating to the Orders list. Then, click the 'Create' button, which appears above the list on the left. This will start the Order creation process.

The first step is to select the Customer you create the Order for, whoever is paying you to move this particular freight. If this is a new Customer, you will have to create a Customer record for them before proceeding. You can click on the '+' button next to the Customer drop-down field.

If the Customer already exists in your database, select them from the Customer field drop-down. Doing so should automatically populate most of the remaining fields. Then, after double-checking that the information is correct, click the 'Next' button to continue.

At this point, two additional sections will appear below the Customer information, allowing you to add information about Shipments and Revenue to the Order.

Shipments represent the freight you will be moving for the customer, including the commodity being moved and the time and location of the pick-up and delivery.

Enter as many details of the Shipment as you want to keep track of, remembering that fields labelled in red are mandatory. If the Shipment is travelling to a new location, you may need to click on the plus sign button next to the Location field to add it before proceeding quickly.

Once you have entered the Shipment information, you can continue down the page to the Revenue details or add more Shipments if necessary.

If you are only moving one Shipment for your customer – the classic one-pick, one-drop – you can continue immediately to the section on Revenue below. However, if your order is a little more complicated, you may need to add more Shipments to the Order to represent the freight you will be moving properly.

In Tailwind, if you are delivering or picking up goods from multiple locations, you will need to represent that in the system with multiple Shipments. This is true even if you pick up a large load of one commodity at one location and then deliver it to several different locations.

To make it easier to add these Shipments as smoothly as possible, the Order create page provides several options:

Add Another Shipment is for cases where everything about the new Shipment will be different: a different commodity, pick-up and delivery location. This should be used for cases where you are stringing together several different pick-ups and deliveries, all as part of the same Order. It will save the existing Shipment and provide a new, blank Shipment form to fill out.

Add Pick should be used when picking up from several locations, but they will all be delivered to the same place. It will create a copy of the existing Shipment information, but leave the ‘Origin Location’ details empty so that you can fill in the new Pick details.

Add Drop does the same thing as Add Pick but leaves the ‘Destination Location’ fields blank.

Add Return will copy the Shipment information with the position of the Origin and Destination Locations reversed, allowing you to enter details for a return trip delivery quickly.

Add Copy will copy the existing Shipment, preserving all the details. This can be useful if you are transporting several different commodities as part of the same route or if you want to include multiple recurring deliveries as part of a single Order by simply changing the dates. E.g. you are running a daily pick-up and drop-off for a Customer but only want to Invoice them once for the entire week.

In every case, you will be able to make any changes you want to the new Shipment details before continuing: adjusting the commodity, weight, date and location fields to most accurately record the details of your freight and your agreement with the Customer.

Once an Order includes more than one Shipment, you will see a list displaying the existing Shipments just above the Shipment details area.

You can use this list to navigate between Shipments you have already added (if you need to double-check or change some details) and delete any Shipments you don’t want on the Order.

Note that the active Shipment details information will also create a Shipment when you finish the Order. Therefore, you do not need to ‘save’ this information. For the same reason, if you do not want those details to be included – for example, if you added a new Shipment in error, you will have to click the ‘Cancel’ button that appears directly below the Shipment details.

Once you have added all the Shipment information necessary for your Order, you can continue to the Revenue section to add Revenue lines to the Order. Revenue represents what you will be charging your Customer for the movement of the freight.

Here you can select the specific Revenue Item and fill out the number of units and amount per unit that you will be charging. (You can read more about Revenue Items here.) If you are in a region with applicable taxes, don’t worry – Tailwind will apply the appropriate taxes automatically when the Order is finished.

As with the Shipment area, if you have only one revenue line – for example, an all-in-one ‘Freight Charge’ – you can enter the details in the Revenue area and continue to complete or dispatch the Order.

If you do want to add more than one line – for example, if there are any accessorial charges (such as tarping charges or charges for extra stops) that need to be listed separately – click the ‘Add Another Revenue Line’ button. This will save your existing line and clear the fields so you can enter details for additional lines. Again, as with the Shipment area, a list of existing lines will appear above the Revenue section, allowing you to review what you have added so far.

Once you have entered all the Shipment and Revenue information for the Order, you have two options: you can click ‘Finish Order,’ which will create the Order record and return you to the Orders list, or you can immediately ‘Dispatch Order,’ which will both create the Order and immediately begin the Dispatching process.

Dispatching the Order can be useful if you already know the Carrier or Company Truck that will be moving your load, as it will let you create the Order and dispatch it all in one step. Selecting this option will prompt you to whether you want to add your Shipments to a ‘New’ Dispatch or an ‘Existing’ one – in almost all cases, you will want to choose the ‘New’ option. For more details on setting up a Dispatch, you should read our article on Dispatching an Order.

Once an Order is fully set up, the next step will usually be to dispatch it.

Of course, sometimes you will need to edit an existing order, whether adding new details or editing what is there already.

Sometimes, Orders are a little more complicated — Orders with multiple Shipments and multi-Order Dispatching are covered in the advanced Orders & Dispatching article.