Level 6 - 7 Feature

Although more complicated, it is possible to create standing orders in the Level 4 and 5 program.  For information, see Standing Orders (Level 4 & 5).

A Standing Order is used when you have one or more customers which agree in advance to buy a series of products.  For example, let's say you have published a book on gardening and you will be publishing five installments of the book covering different aspects of gardening.  You plan to make each new installment available every six months.  If the customer would like to receive all five installments when they become available, you can set up a standing order with the customer.

How to Access the Standing Order Module

To reach the Standing Order Module, select MAIN TASKS >> STANDING ORDERS.  The Standing Order Module will appear.

Standing Order Module: Main Screen

The Main Screen of the Standing Order Module looks just like the AnyOrder's Main Invoice Screen.  You should find it comfortable and familiar.  Any information that you type-in on this screen will be moved to the main part of AnyOrder when you are ready to create standing orders for a particular product.

This is one difference, and that's found near the bottom of the Standing Order Main Screen, just above the Notes Area.  There you'll see the "Standing Order Code" blank.  It's here where you enter a short code which ties the customer to one or more of your standing order products.  If you have two or more codes here, the codes need to be separated by one space.

The make things easier, you can select a code from a pop-up list.  The pop-up is activated by clicking on the "L" button beside the Standing Order Code Field.

To add codes to the pop-up list, select MAIN TASKS >> VIEW OR MODIFY CODE LISTS >> STANDING ORDER CODES.

There are a couple functions specific to the Standing Order Module.  One of them is filtering.  If desired, you can filter the standing order records for a selected Standing Order Code.  To do so, select INVOICES TOOLS >> FILTER FOR A STANDING ORDER CODE.

You can also count the number of records that you have set-up for standing order code.  To do that, select INVOICES TOOLS >> COUNT FOR A STANDING ORDER CODE.

By the way, just a note of terminology:  To help distinguish between the invoices in the Main part of the program and the Standing Order module, those in the Standing Order module are referred to as Standing Order records.  They basically are invoices, but it helps to call them by a different name so that the two are confused.

Another useful function in the Standing Order module is the ability to view the standing order records in a spreadsheet program such as Excel.  You can do that by selecting FILE >> EDIT & PRINT FROM SPREADSHEET.  You'll notice that the first column in the spreadsheet is entitled "TrackingNo."  The "TrackingNo" column is the Standing Order Code.  (To retain compatibility between the invoice and standing order databases, the same fields were used.  The TrackingNo field was borrowed to hold Standing Order Codes.)  The spreadsheet is a useful feature since it also allows you print a list of your standing order records.

Since the Standing Order Screen is much the same as the Main Invoice Screen, you can find out more information about similar features here: Invoice Screen.

The Standing Order Process

1. Assign Codes. To start, assign each of your standing orders a three to five letter code.  For example, the gardening series might be represented by GARD.  A series on back yard landscaping might be represented by LAND.  Enter the codes and a short description of each code in the Standing Order Pop-up list.  That's done by selecting MAIN TASKS >> VIEW OR MODIFY CODE LISTS >> STANDING ORDER CODES.  You can add new codes as new standing order products come on line.

2. Create Standing Order Records. Next, create Standing Order records for each of your standing order customers.  (If you have upgraded from the Level IV and V program, a special conversion feature is available to automatically create standing order invoices, see Pre-version IV Conversion).

There are several paste features that are available to help you.  If the customer is in your Customer Database, use the "L" beside Customer #.

If the customer is not in the Customer Database, but you've issued at least one invoice, use the second "L" beside "Address1." (The first "L" beside "Bill To" blank provides a list of your standing order customers.  That's only necessary in the case that you have a very active standing order program and you've run out of space in the Standing Order Code blank.)

If the customer is in your Primary Contact Manager, select EDIT >> PASTE FROM PRIMARY CONTACT MANAGER.  If the customer is in the Proforma module, select EDIT >> PASTE FROM PROFORMA INVOICES.

3. Select Codes for Each Customer. After you create each invoice, click on the "L" button beside "Standing Order Code" and select the appropriate code for the customer.  You may have some customers which will be receiving more than one standing order.  For example, they might receive the Gardening series (GARD code), and they might be receiving the Landscaping series (LAND code).  In that case, you would select GARD first.  Bring up the pop-up list again and then select LAND.  The Standing Order Field would look like GARD LAND.  Note that you should have one space between each code.

4. Check Codes. Check over your invoices, you should have at least one code on each standing order invoice.

5. Prepare Item Area. The next part of the process prepares the Item Area prior to moving records to the main part of the program.  The Item Area must be filled in with the name, catalog number, and price for every customer with a given code.  That, of course, would be time consuming if you had to do that by hand, but AnyOrder has a special built in feature to do it for you.  It's found under the following menu choice: INVOICE TOOLS >> PREPARE STANDING ORDERS: ADD PRODUCTS.

A. But . . . before moving to the above menu choice, you need to go to one of the Standing Order records.  The record you select isn't important.  Just make sure the Standing Order code on the record is the one you want.  This record is called the Template Record.

B. On the Template Record, delete all products from the Item Area.  Then add the product(s) that you want included on this set of standing order invoices.  You can use the "Add" button to do this.  When the Item Area is exactly how you want it, then select INVOICE TOOLS >> PREPARE STANDING ORDERS: ADD PRODUCTS.

C. At the bottom of the dialog box that appears, select the desired standing order code. Then click on "Run Process."  At this point, AnyOrder will run through all records with standing order code that you have selected.  It will replace the products in Item Area with that of the products on the Template Record.

6. Exit from the Standing Order Module. Once Item Area has been prepared (in step #5, above), everything is in place and ready to create new standing order invoices in the main part of the program.  At this point, exit from the Standing Order Module.

7. Create the Standing Order Invoices. Return to the Main Invoice Screen. If you are on a network, make sure all other users are closed out of AnyOrder. When you are at the Main Invoice Screen, select EDIT >> IMPORT FROM STANDING ORDER MODULE.  Click on the "List" button and select the same Standing Order Code that you've used in your preparations above.

If desired, you have the option of inserting a constant S-Date, Shipping Method, Shipping Amount, Net Days and/or Over-all Discount for every standing order record that you import.  Use this when one or more of these settings should be the same for every standing order invoice.  If, however, these settings can vary depending on the customer, then you should set-up each customer in the Standing Order Module with their own individualized settings and not use this option.

When ready, click on "Start Process."  AnyOrder will then create new invoices for all of your standing order customers with the designated code.

8. Check Over the Newly Created Invoices. Before doing anything else, look through the newly created invoices.  Make sure the correct products are listed in the Item Area.  Check to make sure the other parts of the invoice are as you want them.  If you find problems, you can back out of a standing order import.

You are not locked into an import if it's not what you want.  It's quite all right to go back and make whatever corrections are necessary in the Standing Order Module and then re-do the import.  To back out of a standing order import, select FILE >> REMOVE IMPORTED RECORDS.  (If you exit from the program and then come back in the program, use FILE MAINTENANCE FUNCTIONS >> DELETE INVOICES.) Important:  You'll want to back out of an import before you add any new invoices.  Once you start adding invoices, if you back out, you'll end up losing the new invoices.  Make sure everything is the way you want it before adding new invoices.

9.  How to Filter for the Newly Created Invoices. You'll notice each standing order invoice will have the following indicator in the Notes Area:  SO:::xx/xx/xx.  This tells you that the invoice is connected with a standing order processed on the date indicated by xx/xx/xx.  You can filter for that set of standing order invoices by selecting INVOICE TOOLS >> FILTER.  Let's say the standing order invoices were processed on 10/15/09.  Your filter formula would then be: "SO:::10/15/09" $ Notes The invoices displayed would be limited to only those standing order invoices processed on 10/15/09.  You can also use the filter if you want a printed list of standing orders invoices.  You can do that in Advanced Export.  Select the data you want on the list by building a profile, and then use the filter to limit the export to only those invoices with standing order indicator.

10. Ready to Print. Make sure the invoices are just the way you want them.  Then, print out the invoices, packing slips and prepare each of the customers' packages.

Real Time Inventory Processing

AnyOrder assumes that you have enough stock on hand to ship to all of the customers for which you are preparing standing orders.  It would be unusual to prepare standing orders invoices for a product which is out-of-stock.  Thus, AnyOrder doesn't check inventory availability for each of the imported standing orders.  However, if for some reason, you do want AnyOrder to do an inventory check on each of the standing order invoices, you can run Inventory Batch Processing.  For more information, see Real Time Inventory Batch Processing.