In this article we will discuss how to set up and use the Order Fulfillment Module to provide for automated order processing based on an ongoing subscription of customer agreed service/product deliveries. There are many different industries that can truly benefit from having their business software automatically know when its time to invoice a customer for their specific needs without having to manually look at calendars or spreadsheets to determine when/what you should be invoiced on a daily basis. The most common businesses that benefit from an automated order fulfillment strategy are usually those operations which offer consumer/commercial products which are going to run out, expire and/or require periodic replenishment.
Some common business models that fit this need are:
- Health and Diet Supplier
- Vitamins/Supplements dealer
- Prescription Drugs / Medical Supplies
- Pet/Animal food suppliers
- Magazines, Newsletters and other Media Content
- Home/Office Water Delivery Services
- Beauty Products
- Book Clubs
- Janitorial Supplies
- Office Supplies
There are even more service-based businesses that can benefit from this repetitive order processing as well. Any business who clients must repeatedly be serviced or contacted for appointments can also benefit from automated order fulfillment. In most cases, this feature replaces the need for using online tasks/reminders/schedulers to let personnel know to contact customers. Since the order fulfillment module allows for service item codes to be used, one can simply setup recurring services that will repeat on any interval (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.). These type of recurring service orders can then be used as your task list to contact customers about an upcoming service/ appointment. The benefit of this strategy over alternate tasks/calendar management schemes is that you have addressed all steps in one process… the reminder to fulfill the customer’s periodic needs and the accounting transaction to quickly invoice/charge the customer. When these steps are combined into one cohesive step, you are less likely to make mistakes.
Here are just a few service business models that would also benefit from automated order fulfillment:
- Lawn Care
- Pest Control
- Hair Cut/Beauty Salons
- Cleaning Services
- Counseling
- Day Care
- Pool Maintenance
- Professional Services
- Meal Preparation Services
How to set up a recurring order
The basic concept of a recurring order in ManageMore is to create rules for repetitive services/products you want invoiced/delivered for each customer. Once these rules are in place, an employee would simply go to the Sales Order Management window (presumably on a daily basis) and let ManageMore automatically generate new orders that require fulfillment.
To begin, the first step is to obviously have a customer account already established in the program. Once a customer account is created, you can create the necessary recurring order from a few different places in the application. For this example, we will navigate to Activities… Order Entry… New Recurring Order.
A recurring order record has several field options you need to familiarize yourself with. These settings will determine how often a customer order will regenerate itself and what service/product to ultimately invoice for.
The Fill Status on the recurring order form provides an Active/Inactive status which determines if the recurring order rule will be generated or not. Use this option to temporarily halt any future order filling without removing all the details on file.
The Fill Cycle is a convenience field which basically auto-fills other fields for quicker data entry. The Fill cycle lets you choose from common re-occurrence options such as weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual and bi-annual. Choosing one of these cycles will automatically set the next two fields on screen (Fill Range and Fill Frequency) to their expected values.
The Fill Range and Fill Frequency should rarely be modified unless you are attempting a custom re-occurrence (like every 28 days) outside the common Fill Cycle options.
The Sequence (Seq) setting is an advanced option intended for accounts with many re-occurrences on file. By saving a unique sequence number, you can control how the detail items are displayed on the order. Simply assign a numeric value to recurring order record and ManageMore will collate them on the final sales order in numerical fashion.
The Process setting is another advanced option within the Order Entry part of the application. Sales Orders can use processes as a way of differentiating different order types (i.e. Job Order, Service Order, etc.). A process is a user-defined label you create ahead of time in the Order Entry management area of the program. From the menu, see Lists… Order Entry… Sales Order processes for more details on setting up processes, if you wish to do so.
The Ship Via setting acts as a default shipping method for the recurring item at hand. If the recurrence item is service-based, just leave this field blank.
This Commencing On date setting is mostly for historical purposes and always defaults to today’s date.
There are some optional settings that can also be activated for order fulfillment. In particular, if you have a need for a recurring order to automatically terminate after a certain period, then please see… Setup… Application… Optional Features… Order Fulfillment… and check on the “Allow recurring orders to have a termination date” setting.
The Terminating On Date field option provides a method for stopping future recurring orders. This may be useful for contractual arrangements or special requests made by the customer.
The Next Fill Date is one of the most important settings on the recurring order. This tells the program when it is time to generate the next customer order. On the initial entry of the recurring order, it is critical that you consider the appropriate next fill date the customer should receive their recurring product/service. Subsequently, the program will automatically advance this date using the Fill Range / Frequency setting to determine the next time the new order should be generated.
Next, enter the SKU Item code that will be used for the future orders. Choose from any valid product/service item you created ahead of time in Supertrack Inventory. Be aware that you can only apply one item code per recurring order record. Multiple recurring product/service items for a single customer will require multiple recurring order entries to be added to the same customer account.
Now, after selecting the item, simply select your Quantity (Qty) and Extended Amount you want to charge the customer on subsequent orders.
Finally, there is also an optional Freight Amount field (only appears if a physical product was selected as a SKU Item) which allows you to include shipping charges on your customer’s future order as well.
TIP: If a customer requires multiple recurring items for his/her periodic order fulfillment, make certain that the Billing Range/Frequency and Next Fill Date are the same on every recurring order record you enter for the customer. The program will automatically combine the items onto one sales order when the next fill date is approached.
TIP: You can introduce flat rate redemption item codes on recurring orders, if you choose to do so. This is a great marketing concept to show customers a rebate savings being applied to their future generated orders. When used in conjunction with a Termination date, you can use this redemption item code strategy for applying temporary credits (like a referral credit or short-term product discount) that last xx months long. Just be certain that other recurring items records exist on the customer account so that the final order is always a positive dollar amount.
TIP: Overriding the Description field will result in a custom description appearing on this customer’s sales order only.
Once all the recurring order items are entered, you can add/edit/remove recurring orders from the customer record on the Order Tab. Most users will find it more convenient to utilize the Customer Care window for future adding/editing/removal of customer recurring orders. From the Customer Care window, simply select the Recurrence Tab as shown below for reviewing/modifying a customer’s recurrence items.
TIP: ManageMore offers a convenient “Quick Add” feature for quickly entering the customer and recurring order in one simple step. Please refer to the Quick Add Order article for more information on this.
Checking Your Orders
The process of checking to see if orders are ready to be fulfilled is fairly automatic. From the main menu, go to Activities… Order Entry… Manage Sales Orders. You can also add a shortcut on the ManageMore Toolbar for easy access to this Order Processing Window.
The Sales Order Management window also provides a button (highlighted and circled in pic above) which can check to see if recurring orders need created now or if you want to jump ahead a few days or more to have future orders generated immediately (in case you are trying to get ahead of upcoming workloads).
Once the order is generated, the rest of the process is basically handled like any other sales order within the order entry of the application. You can pick, verify, label, print and/or post the order when you are ready to invoice and deliver the good(s)/service(s) to the customer.
