Sales Orders (SOs)are fundamental transactions in your inventory management system that capture customer purchase requests and initiate the order fulfillment process. A Sales Order serves as the primary document for recording what products your customers want to buy, the quantities required, agreed pricing, and delivery details.

Whether you're processing simple single-item orders or managing complex multi-warehouse shipments with custom pricing, this article provides the step-by-step instructions and best practices you need to maximize efficiency and accuracy in your sales order workflow.

To create a Sales Order and invoice and dispatch stock from your inventory, you first need to ensure you have the following already set up:

You will also want to review your account's configuration settings to ensure they align with your sales process requirements. Go to Settings > Company and on the Configuration and Settings tab review the following feature options:

Maintain control of your sales process by determining which users also have the authority to create and manage SOs, by enabling the following role permissions:

Additionally, you can control which users have the further permission to edit a Sales Order's discounts and pricing. Enable "Can Edit" on the following permissions:

And you can determine which users are allowed to margin and profit calculated per Sales Order in a Sales Quote, by granting their respective sub-permissions, under Sales Order, too.

To create a new Sales Quote:

When the customer is assigned to the Sales Order, a lightbulb icon will be displayed next to the customer's name. Hover over this icon to display some key customer data, such as:

If you're subscribed to BI Vision, and you have permission to view the BI Vision page, click on the "Explore more with Business Intelligence" link, in the customer insight and BI Vision's Sales page will open, pre-filtered by the customer.​
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After a Sales Order has been created, you can provide further context for the order in the fields at the top of the Sales Order's page.

In the Order Lines tab, add and manage quantities and prices of the products being ordered. The quantity on a Sales Order Line must always be greater than zero and the price cannot be negative.

To add a new line to a Sales Order:

Once an Order Line's been added to an SO, the fields and functions described in the table below will be displayed in the Order Lines tab to provide further context and detail.

When serialized or batch-tracked products are added to a Sales Order, the Serial or Batch column in the Order Line will display a fraction value to highlight how many units of the allocated stock have been assigned a serial or batch number. If the fraction is incomplete and highlighted in red, the serial or batch numbers assigned need to be reviewed and updated. When the fraction is complete and highlighted in green, all required serial or batch-tracked stock for the products is successfully assigned.

Hover over the action cog icon in either the Serial or Batch headers in the Order Line grid to assign the oldest batch/serial numbers to all lines on the Sales Order. Alternatively, you can assign serial or batch-tracked stock to the Shipment of a Sales Order, and this will automatically update the Sales Order's Order Line.

If any of the products you are selling require a zero-rated tax that will not automatically populate, you can apply it on a per Sales Order line level:

The total weight and volume of a Sales Order are calculated using the dimensions that have been entered for the ordered product's base unit of measure. Each Sales Order Line has a maximum Total Weight and Total Volume limit:

Include additional charges like shipping, freight, or labor on Sales Orders in the Charge grid, displayed under your Order Lines. Charges can be added as either:

To add a free-text charge to a Sales Order:

To add an NDP charge to a Sales Order:

If you are integrated with Xero or QuickBooks, you will also see a drop-down menu to select which Sales Account the charge will export to when invoiced.

A "round-up" accounting methodology to calculate the totals for Sales Orders. The discount, tax, and subtotal value of each order line is calculated first, and then summed for the final transaction total. Round-up methodology is then used, limiting the decimal places from 4 to 2 on each price revision.

The calculations used for Sales Orders are as below:

UnitPrice = RoundTo4Dp (InclusiveUnitPrice / (1 + taxRate)

DiscountedUnitPrice = RoundTo4Dp (ExclusiveUnitPrice * (1 - DiscountRate))

LineTotal = RoundTo2Dp (ExclusiveDiscountedUnitPrice * Quantity)

LineTax = RoundTo2Dp (ExclusiveLineTotal * TaxRate)

TaxTotal = SUM(all LineTaxes)

SubTotal = SUM(all ExclusiveLineTotals)

Total = TaxTotal + SubTotal

Whilst a Sales Order is open, in Parked, Placed, or Backordered status, updates and edits can be made to the details, products, and quantities included. However, product quantities that have been invoiced or shipped from a Sales Order cannot be removed or edited.

Use the fixed and custom Sales Order statuses to manage orders throughout the sales process. To update a Sales Order's status, click on the Save drop-down button in the top right corner and select the appropriate status, or click on Complete.

When a Sales Order is completed, any products that have not already been included on completed Invoices or dispatched Shipments for the Sales Order will be included in a final Invoice and Shipment, respectively. No changes can be made to the products, quantities, or prices on the completed Sales Order.

The table below describes each status and how it has been designed for use.

In the top right corner of a Sales Order, you'll see a button labelled either Allocate or Deallocate. This button allows you to control whether stock from your Sales Order warehouse's inventory should be allocated to the order.

When a Sales Order is allocated, each ordered product's stock availability in the order's warehouse decreases by the order quantity. This allows you to see how many units of Stock On Hand (SOH) you have left for the product, and if you need to purchase or assemble more.

When a Sales Order's required stock is allocated, the button will show "Deallocate". If a Sales Order is deallocated, the product's stock availability will increase by the ordered quantity, any batch or serial assignment will be removed, and any Parked status auto-assemblies or assemblies created from the Sales Order will be deleted.

If the Sales Order has not allocated stock yet, the button will show "Allocate". When a Sales Order is allocated, any ordered products that meet the conditions for auto-assembly will have a Parked assembly created, and the ordered product's stock availability in the order's warehouse will decrease.

Each ordered product's SOH will only decrease when it is dispatched on a Shipment for the Sales Order.

When a product on order is set up to auto-assemble, a Parked Assembly will be created automatically, at the time the Sales Order is allocated, to assemble the unavailable quantities of stock required. But if an auto-assembly was not initially required, or your Sales Order contains products that require manual assembly to fulfill the order quantity, create and complete assemblies directly from the Sales Order.

To create an Assembly for select lines on a Sales Order:

An orange exclamation point icon will be displayed next to the product's order quantity, in the Order Lines tab, to highlight that a Parked Assembly has been created for this line.

To complete an Assembly from a Sales Order:

To complete all Parked assemblies that have been created from the Sales Order:

If there is enough component stock to fulfil the Assembly, it will update to completed, and the assembled product's SOH will increase. A green tick icon will then replace the orange exclamation point icon in the Order Lines tab.

Create Purchase Orders directly from a Sales Order to manage the sale of stock that's bought to order. Purchase Orders can be created for all product quantities on a Sales Order, or only select lines, to align with your procurement needs.

To create a Purchase Order for all stock on order:

To create Purchase Orders for select lines on a Sales Order:

A hand-truck dolly icon will be displayed in the Quantity field on each order line that has a Purchase Order created for it. Hover over the icon to see the PO's Number, Delivery Date, Supplier, and purchase quantity, and click on the PO's number to open the PO. The Purchase Order will display the originating Sales Order's number in the Sales Order No. field.
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To recreate an existing Sales Order:

​If "Use customer/product price and discount " is ticked, the new Sales Order recalculates the price and discount from the original Sales Order for the customer you have selected. If unticked, the new Sales Order uses the same prices and discounts from the original Sales Order on the new Sales Order.

To replicate a Sales Order for a new Sales Quote:

You can print a Sales Order's Packing Slip or the Sales Order by clicking on the Print drop-down icon in the bottom right corner of a Sales Order's page, and selecting as appropriate. Either document will be generated in a PDF format, using the Doc Designer template selected in the Sales Order Template and Packing Slip Template drop-down menus available at the top of the Sales Order.

Similarly, click on Print Labels in the bottom right corner of a Sales Order's page to print labels for the products and on order. By default, the Label Quantity populated in the Label Printing window will match the order quantity per product, but you can edit this, the Price Tier, and the Label Template per product before selecting Print.

If the International Commerce Codes setting is enabled in your account, you will have the option to print a Commercial Invoice from a Sales Order, provided the Sales Order has a Shipment. Click on the Print drop-down icon in the bottom right corner of a Sales Order and select "Commercial Invoice", and the PDF document will be generated, using the Commercial Invoice Doc Designer template selected in the shipment's page.

Send the Sales Order or Packing Slip to your customer by clicking on Email drop-down icon in the bottom right corner of the Sales Order's page. By default, the customer's primary contact, "Ordering" contact, and default cc email address will populate in the "Email Sales Order" window, and the email's Subject and Body will populate from your account's email templates. You can make any necessary adjustments to the recipients, subject, and body of the email, as required. Click on Attach Files to include any documents that have been attached to the Sales Order, and tick the "Send me a copy" checkbox to include yourself as a recipient. Click Send in the Email Sales Order to deliver it to your recipients.

The Email drop-down icon will also show an "Export to 3pl" option, which allows you to email your third-party logistics team one of your Data Exporter templates, pre-populated with the Sales Order's data.

Sales Shipments provides you with the ability to manage the pick, pack, and dispatch process for the stock ordered from your inventory. Shipments can be created for all ordered stock at once or can be split into smaller shipments if Order Management is enabled in your Settings > Company > Settings.

To create a Shipment for all stock on order:

To create a Shipment for select lines on a Sales Order:

Whilst a Shipment is open, in Parked, Placed, Picking, Picked, or Packed status, the product quantities included will not be removed from the shipping warehouse's SOH. But you can enable "Limit Ship Quantity to Stock not on open Shipments" in your company settings to ensure only available stock will populate in the shipment's Ship Quantity. Only when the Shipment is dispatched will the Ship Quantity be removed from the product's SOH, and the Shipped field in the Sales Order's Order Line tab will update to show how many total units have been dispatched for the product.

The Shipments tab in a Sales Order's page displays an overview of each shipment that has been created or dispatched for the Sales Order, populating the following details:

Click on a Shipment's number to open the shipment, or hover over the action cog icon to select one of the following options:

Sales Invoices allow you to manage the monetary sale of your goods and services, separately from the shipment of your stock. Invoices can be created for whole orders, select lines, or portions of an order, and managed independently to align with your sales process.

Only when the Invoice is completed will the Invoiced field in the Sales Order's Order Line tab update to show how many total units have been invoiced. Once an Invoice is completed, the Sales Order cannot be deleted, but you can create a Credit Note to counter the sale for your reporting.

To create an Invoice for a whole Sales Order:

To create an Invoice for select lines on a Sales Order:

To create an Invoice for only the lines that have been included on a Shipment:

To create a partial invoice, where the invoice is generated for a percentage of the total Sales Order:

The Invoices tab in a Sales Order's page displays an overview of each invoice that has been created or completed for the Sales Order, populating the following details:

Click on an Invoice's number to open the invoice, or hover over the action cog icon to select one of the following options:

If your account is integrated with Xero, when an Invoice is completed from your Sales Order, it is exported to your Xero account to update your Sales and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) accounts. When the Invoice in Xero has the status Submitted, Authorised or Paid, you can email a copy of Xero's invoice from the Sales Order in Unleashed. The Xero Invoice will be sent to the contact saved for the customer in your Xero account, from your account owner's email address.

To email Xero's Invoice from a Sales Order:

When a Credit Note has been completed for a Sales Order's Invoice, the Sales Order's lines and quantities will remain unchanged. But each Credit Note will be displayed in the Credits tab in a Sales Order's page, populating the following overview details:

Add external documents relevant to the Sales Order in the Attachments tab. You can either drag and drop files from your device into the upload tile in the Sales Order's Attachments tab, select "browse local files" to search and select the files to attach from your device, or select "browse uploaded files" to attach files already uploaded to your account's File Library.