Over the course of the sales process, an offer or order will go through various phases. As the file will be handled by a large number of different people, it is important that its status can be checked. Everyone must be able to see the progress of the file. For example, is it an order yet? Have the parts been delivered yet?
To be able to track their progress, you can develop a classification based on sales statuses. The status classification serves as:
The use of sales statuses is mandatory.
In addition to providing information about the progress of a file, statuses have a number of other functions:
Tip: Overly detailed status classifications may not be useful in practice, as files will require frequent status changes, without this providing much additional information. Statuses should serve as a guide, but often there is no need to create a status for each and every step in the process. You are therefore recommended to create an initial, concise classification of the statuses that represent the most important steps in your process. Leave sufficient room between status numbers, to allow you to add statuses if you later realize that you need more statuses.
The status type indicates the phase the process is in: 'Offer', 'Order', 'Actual costing' or 'History'. The status type determines the 
actions permitted for a line with this status. For instance, if a sales line is of the 'Offer' type, no invoices may be issued for that sales line. If a purchase line is of the 'Offer' type, the purchase offer line cannot be converted into a purchase order.
Once a status has been filled in for a sales line or production file, a number of protective locks will automatically be set for the file involved. These locks are based on the status type filled in for the sales status (on a sales line) or the production status (on a production file).
Below you will find an overview of the locks applicable to sales lines and production files having a particular status type.
Actions allowed for sales lines
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Offer
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Order
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Actual costing
|
History
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Reserve in economic stock
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Create or process shipping note
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Invoice
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Purchase to order
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Link production order
|
No
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Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Production receipt
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
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No
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It is not always possible to change the status type of a sales line. For example, you cannot change the status of a sales line to an 'Offer' type if certain actions have already been performed for the line.
Use the Sales line status overview menu item to list the actions already performed for the sales line, and to check whether the status can be changed to 'Offer' or 'History'.
Below you will find an overview of the options and conditions for changing the status type.
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To offer
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To order
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To actual costing
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To history
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From offer
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-
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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From order
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If no transactions
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-
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Yes
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If order is complete and derived orders* have a 'History' status type
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From actual costing
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If no transactions
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Yes
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-
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If order is complete and derived orders* have a 'History' status type
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From history
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If no transactions
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Yes
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Yes
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-
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*Derived orders are production orders linked to a sales order (in the case of to-order production) and/or purchase order lines created for purchases made on a sales order.
Actions allowed for production orders
|
Offer
|
Order
|
Actual costing
|
History
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Reserve in economic stock
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No
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Yes
|
Yes
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No
|
Issue parts
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No
|
Yes
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Yes
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No
|
Create purchase requirements to order, receive items, and post costs
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No
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Yes
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Yes
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No
|
Purchase to order
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No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Link production order
|
No
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
No
|
Production receipt
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No
|
Yes
|
Yes
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No
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It is not always possible to change the status type of a production file. For example, you cannot change the status of a production file to an 'Offer' type if parts have already been used for the file.
Below you will find an overview of the options and conditions for changing the status type.
|
To offer
|
To order
|
To actual costing
|
To history
|
From offer
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
From order
|
If no transactions
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-
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Yes
|
If order is closed and derived orders have a 'History' status type
|
From actual costing
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If no transactions
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Yes
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-
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If order is closed and derived orders have a 'History' status type
|
From history
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If no transactions
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Yes
|
Yes
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-
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You can choose whether the sales value of a sales line has an impact on intake overviews: for an offer line, the Impact on offer intake setting applies to the offer intake overview, and for an order line, the Impact on order intake setting applies to the order intake overview. It is possible that at some point, you want a sales line to be ignored for the intake overview. For each sales status you can specify whether the sales sums are to be included in the intake overview. If, for instance, an offer line has a 'Positive' sales status, a change in the sales sum will be displayed in the offer intake overview.
The sales status type determines whether you can choose a value for the offer and/or order intake setting.
- If the status type is 'Offer', you can only choose a value for the offer intake. The value 'None' is automatically selected for the Impact on order intake setting.
- If the status type is 'Order' or 'Actual costing', you can only choose a value for the order intake. The value 'None' is automatically selected for the Impact on offer intake setting.
- If the status type is 'History', you can choose a value for both the offer intake and the order intake.
Intake settings
You can choose from the following intake settings:
- None: If this option was selected for the sales status used on a sales line, that sales line has no impact on the intake overview. Select this option, for example, in the case of a sales status for:
- Offers you create because you see an opportunity and you do not want the offers to be included in the offer intake yet
- Canceled orders. If positive or negative amounts were already displayed in the sales overview, they will continue to be displayed.
- Positive: If this value was set for the status used on a sales line, the sales line will have an impact on the intake overview:
- The full sales sum of the sales line will be displayed in the intake overview if the value of the previous sales status was not 'Positive' (if that value was 'None' or 'Negative'). This is true, for instance, for an offer that was initially an opportunity, but was then converted into an offer.
- If the value of both the previous status and the new status is 'Positive', any difference from the previous sales sum will be shown. For example, if the customer initially places an order for $ 500, but ends up placing an order for $ 300, this will result in the following lines on the order intake overview if the value is 'Positive'.
Note: If the new sum is lower than the old sum, the value 'Positive' will result in a negative sum (in this example $ -200).
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Sales line
|
Order intake sum
|
Period (month)
|
|
010
|
$ 500
|
October
|
|
010
|
$ -200
|
November
|
- Negative: If this value was set for the status used on a sales line, the sales line will have an impact on the intake overview:
- If the value of the previous sales status was 'None' or 'Negative', nothing will change in the intake overview. In practice, this will be rare, because a decrease is not (or no longer) possible.
- The sales sum in the intake overview will show a decrease if the value of the previous sales status was 'Positive': the full sales sum of the sales line will be shown as a negative sum in the intake overview. This is true, for instance, for an order that is canceled or assigned a 'History' status. If an order with a sales sum of $ 500 is canceled, the order intake overview will show $ -500:
|
Sales line
|
Order intake sum
|
Period (month)
|
|
010
|
$ 500
|
October
|
|
010
|
$ -500
|
November
|
After a sales status has been changed into a sales status with a different setting, the intake overview may or may not show an increase or decrease. The table below shows how status changes affect the intake overviews.
How are status changes reflected in the intake overviews?
Changing sales statuses may affect the offer or order intake overview. The table below shows how status changes affect the intake overviews. If the offer or order intake setting for the new status differs from that for the old status, this may result in a change to the sales sum in the intake overview. You can see all changes on the Sales value log form: 'Old sales sum' (Old total sum) and 'New sales sum' (New total sum).
Status changes within a status type
The table below shows what happens to the intake overview when a status is changed within the same status type, for example if for the status type 'Offer' an opportunity (value 'None') is converted into an offer (value 'Positive') . The 'Order' and 'Actual costing' status types are regarded as the same status types here.
|
|
|
|
From status with option:
|
To status with option:
|
|
None
|
Positive
|
Negative
|
None
|
-
|
Fully positive sales sum
|
-
|
Positive
|
-
|
Difference between old and new sales sum
|
Fully negative sales sum
|
Negative
|
-
|
Fully positive sales sum
|
-
|
Note: If it is a new sales line (and therefore there is no previous sales status), this only affects the intake if the value of the status is 'Positive': the full sales sum will then be displayed in the intake overview.
Status changes to a different status type
The table below shows what happens to the intake overviews when a status gets a different status type, for example if the status type 'Offer' is changed into the status type 'Order'. The most common status (or status type) changes are displayed, as well as the less common changes that result in a change to the intake.
|
|
|
|
|
From
|
To
|
Option
|
Status type
|
Option
|
Status type
|
Impact on intake
|
All options
|
Offer
|
Positive
|
Order/Actual costing
|
Fully positive sales sum in order intake
|
All options
|
Offer
|
Negative or None
|
Order/Actual costing
|
-
|
Positive
|
Offer
|
Negative
|
History
|
Fully negative sales sum in offer intake
|
Negative
|
Offer
|
Negative
|
History
|
-
|
All options
|
Order/Actual costing
|
All options
|
Offer
|
All changes to the order intake rolled back
|
Positive
|
Order/Actual costing
|
Negative
|
History
|
Fully negative sales sum in order intake
|
Negative
|
Order/Actual costing
|
Negative
|
History
|
-
|
All options
|
History
|
All options
|
Offer
|
All changes for 'History' status type rolled back in the offer intake
|
All options
|
History
|
All options
|
Order/Actual costing
|
All changes for 'History' status type rolled back in the order intake
|
Example
The following sales statuses have been defined:
Sales status
|
Status type
|
Impact on intake overview
|
00 Opportunity
|
Offer
|
None
|
05 Offer request
|
Offer
|
Positive
|
10 Offer calculation
|
Offer
|
Positive
|
15 Offer sent
|
Offer
|
Positive
|
31 Order
|
Order
|
Positive
|
85 Order canceled
|
Order
|
Negative
|
The sales employee identifies an opportunity to make a $ 100 sale. The customer then requests an offer. The sales employee would like to see the sales sum of $ 100 displayed in the offer intake. While reviewing the offer, the customer decides to order more, and the offer sum is increased by $ 100. The offer is eventually converted into an order.
The status flow of sales line 010 is as follows:
Sales status
|
Sales sum
|
Impact on intake overview
|
10 Opportunity
|
$ 100
|
None
|
20 Offer request
|
$ 100
|
Positive
|
25 Review offer
|
$ 200
|
Positive
|
30 Offer sent
|
$ 200
|
Positive
|
40 Order
|
$ 200
|
Positive
|
In the offer intake overview, one line is created as a result of the opportunity being converted into an offer request that should be displayed in the intake overview (status 10 changed into status 20), and another line is created as a result of the $ 100 increase in the sales value during the offer review (status 20 changed into status 25).
Offer intake:
Sales line
|
Offer intake sum:
|
Period (month)
|
010
|
$ 100
|
October
|
010
|
$ 100
|
November
|
If the sales employee converts the offer into an order, the full sales sum of $ 200 will be displayed in the order intake overview (status 30 changed into status 40).
Order intake:
Sales line
|
Offer intake sum:
|
Period (month)
|
010
|
$ 200
|
December
|
If the customer cancels the order in the new year, the decrease in the sales value will be displayed in the order intake overview. The offer intake overview remains the same.
The status flow of sales line 010 during the order stage is as follows:
Sales status
|
Sales sum
|
Impact on intake overview?
|
40 Order
|
$ 200
|
Positive
|
80 Order canceled
|
$ 200
|
Negative
|
The order intake overview already included a line as a result of the conversion of the offer into an order, and now a line is added with a negative intake sum, because the order was canceled (status 40 changed into status 80).
Order intake:
Sales line
|
Order intake sum
|
Period (month)
|
010
|
$ 200
|
December
|
010
|
$ -200
|
January
|