If the order fulfilment mode is switched on, you have the option to ship each line within an order from different locations or raise a Purchase Order from different suppliers. Without order fulfilment, you will need to ship orders as a whole, or else use the "split to back order" feature to move line items to secondary sales orders for later shipment.
Order fulfilment is a feature only available on Pearl Premium stock control module, and needs to be activated by the Pearl support team.
Setup and requirements
Accuracy
To make the best use of order fulfilment you will need to maintain an accurate stock system. Each product will need to be assigned to one or more suppliers in order to raise Purchase Orders directly from the Sales Order.
Data management
If you wish you may upload a price list from each supplier, which contains the SKU and price breaks for that particular supplier. This will allow you to choose the cheapest fulfilment option for any Sales Order. If you do not have supplier prices to hand, or do not wish to manage this extra data, you can still fulfil orders using the default cost price as stored in your product database. You will still need to tie the product to the supplier, and ensure that all suppliers are set to use the "cost" price list.
To fulfil an order (creating Packing notes and Purchase orders)
When in the order edit screen, click the "fulfil" button. You will be taken to a screen which prompts you to choose a fulfil method for each of the products on the order. You may wish to ship all products from your warehouse, all products from supplier(s), or a mix of the two. For each supplier chosen, a Purchase Order will be created, and for each warehouse chosen, a Packing Note will be created.
For any Purchase orders to be created, you can choose the delivery address, and the status on which to create them. Pearl won't send the Purchase Order off, you'll need to open it and send as normal by email once you're happy with it.
You can revisit the fulfil screen multiple times to ship items as they arrive in your warehouse.
When creating a packing note, you can choose the preferred ship method, which will allow your warehouse team to prioritise orders based on courier collection time, or by batch. The warehouse staff can change the shipping method later if required. The shipping method can be used to change the template that is used for printing the packing note.
Order statuses
There is the option to get Pearl to update the order status automatically as the order moves through the system. Each time you fulfil, Pearl will detect whether the order has been completely fulfilled, or if it's still just part fulfilled.
If the order's part fulfilled, then Pearl can update the status to "Part fulfilled" (or similar of your own choice)
Once the order is 100% fulfilled, then Pearl can update the order status to "Fulfilled" (or similar).
To set up:
- Create two new order statuses - we suggest "Part fulfilled" and "Fulfilled"
- Visit Setup:Options:Sales
- Select these two statuses from the options neat the bottom of the screen
If required, the administrator can set the sale status during the fulfil process, which will override any automatic update.
Updating stock
If order fulfilment is switched on, the regular rules of updating stock will not apply. Usually, stock is updated when an order is invoiced. With fulfilment, every line within a sales order will need to be fulfilled either to a Purchase Order shipped to customer (no stock update), or else a Packing note from a warehouse (to update stock).
The stock must be updated for each packing note, and you will no longer have the option to update the stock for the entire order at once. Stock may only be updated once for each packing note.
If a Purchase Order is set as "drop ship" then the matching row(s) in the sales order for which it was created will not need to have stock updated.
If a Purchase Order is to be delivered to your own premises for later shipment, then Pearl will allow you to raise a packing note for the relevant lines even after having raised a PO to get the stock in.
Accounting entries
Even if "update stock when posting to accounts" is switched on, Pearl will not make any stock adjustments when Order Fulfilment is activated and you invoice an order. When the items are removed from your warehouse, a stock adjustment will be made per packing note, and if "Use Cost Of Sales" is on, then a journal entry for Cost of Goods Sold will also be made.
Processing packing notes
Once you have created packing notes, your warehouse team will take over. A packing note goes through the following stages:
- Printed
- Picked
- Packed
- Shipped (stock updated)
Each packing note is marked as it goes through the process, so if you have a busy warehouse with multiple staff at multiple terminals, you won't have the same work done twice, and risk of duplicate shipping for the same order is minimised.
Reach the packing note screen from the Sales zone. Clicking the "advanced options" at the top of the report will give you the options to filter for packing notes printed but not yet picked etc.
To batch print packing notes, filter as required, tick all then click "print selected". Note that this does not mark the packing notes as printed, since Pearl does not know if you've had problems with the printer. You'll need to select printed:yes and then update.
Picking run
To produce a single consolidated picking list for all selected packing notes, click "pick" once you have selected some packing notes. Typically you would print and pick for the same set of packing notes.
The order of items on the picking list is determined by the Aisle, Bay, Shelf, Bin stock location.
Note that displaying a picking list on screen WILL mark the included packing notes as picked, even if you don't select and update them to picked manually.
Packing note templates
You can set different shipping methods for each packing note when you create them at the "fulfilment" stage. Half the order may be shipping by 1st class mail, and the other half may be shipped by courier, for example. The 1st class mail would need to be printed on a different template from the courier note. Choose the tempate you wish to use when setting up the shipping methods.
Undoing changes that you have made
If you delete a Purchase Order raised using fulfilment, then the sale for which it's created will be completely unlinked, ie the sale will forget that the items were ever fulfilled, allowing you to re-fulfil from somewhere else.
There will still be notes in the order notes trail, and these will link to a non existant order if you deleted the PO. You can choose to fulfil negative quantities into Packing note "credits", ie put items back into stock.
Deleting packing notes
You can only delete a packing note when it's completely un processed (ie not printed, picked, packed or stock updated). You can unpick, unpack and unprint a packing note, but you can't reverse the stock updated step.
If a packing note is completely unprocessed, then click the trash can icon in the packing notes screen to remove it.