Evolucionismo y adaptación: el argumento de la funcionalidad

Before we start to go into details, the lines below give an overview of the business processes in sales and distribution.

4.1.1 Basic Approach

Starting point for sales and distribution are correct master data, in particular the data on customers and products. When selling services or non-inventoried items, you can use sales categories instead of products.

4.1.1.1 Master Data and Transactions in Sales

Customer and product records are master data, only occasionally updated after initially creating the individual records. In the course of sales order processing, sales quotations and sales orders (transaction data) receive default values from customer and product records (master data). You can override the data in transactions, for example if your customer requires a different delivery address in a particular sales order. If such an update should also apply to future orders, you have to modify the customer record accordingly.

Since the sales process is mirroring the purchasing process, sales order processing is very similar to purchase order processing. Figure 4-1 shows the primary steps of sales order processing (including required predecessor and successor activities).

Figure 4-1: Sales order processing in Dynamics AX

© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2016 A. Luszczak, Using Microsoft Dynamics AX, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-13622-2_4

4.1.1.2 Sales Quotation

If we disregard prior marketing activities, sales order processing starts with a request from a prospect or customer. Answering this request, the sales team creates a quote and sends it to the potential or actual customer. Based on the sales quotation, Dynamics AX can generate activities for following up on the quotation.

4.1.1.3 Sales Order

If the customer agrees to the proposal and orders the goods or services, you have to create a sales order as the basis for order fulfillment. Like a purchase order, a sales order consists of a header, which primarily contains customer data, and one or more lines, which contain the ordered items (products or sales categories).

Optionally, you can post an order confirmation and send it to the customer electronically or as printed document. Posting the order confirmation stores the confirmation. The order confirmation is available with its original content afterwards, no matter if there is a later modification on the actual sales order.

In order to manage long-term contracts (blanket orders), you can use sales agreements in Dynamics AX. If you want to issue a shipment related to the blanket order later, create a release order with a partial quantity of the sales agreement.

Release orders are regular sales orders which are assigned to the agreement.

4.1.1.4 Delivery Management

Depending on the settings of the item, master planning takes care of the material supply (through purchasing or production) and makes sure that you can ship the sales order in time.

Before shipping the item, you can print a picking list to prepare delivery. After finishing the internal shipment procedure, you can post the packing slip. Posting a packing slip without a prior picking list is possible, if your company does not need picking lists.

4.1.1.5 Invoicing

Once the packing slip is posted, you can post invoice for the sales order. If you do not require a separate packing slip, you can also post the invoice without a prior packing slip. In this case, the invoice posts the physical and the financial transactions in parallel.

If you want to sell services or non-inventoried items, you can process a regular sales order (enter order lines with sales categories or service items). Alternatively, you can use a free text invoice in case you just need an invoice and no other sales document. In the lines of a free text invoice, you have to enter ledger main accounts instead of products or sales categories.

4.1.1.6 Customer Payment

Before the due date, your customer has to pay the invoice with or without cash discount deduction. Section 9.3.4 contains a description on how to post the customer payment and to settle the invoice in the customer transactions.

If the customer does not pay in time, you can create payment reminders in Dynamics AX.

4.1.1.7 Ledger Integration and Voucher Principle

Because of the deep finance integration in Dynamics AX, all inventory and customer transactions in sales are posted to ledger accounts specified in the setup as described in section 9.4.

In order to keep track of the whole business process, Dynamics AX comprehensively applies the voucher principle which means that you have to register a document (voucher) before posting the transaction. The transactions in sales order processing are similar to the respective purchasing process transactions.

For your guidance, Figure 4-2 below shows a comparison of purchase and sales documents in order processing.

Figure 4-2: Comparison of purchasing and sales documents

4.1.2 At a Glance: Sales Order Processing

In order to provide an overview of the main steps in sales order processing, this section shows the basics. In the example, we create an order starting in the Sales order processing and inquiry workspace and post all transactions directly in the sales order form. Of course you can also create the order from the customer form, or directly in the sales orders list page.

In the Sales order processing and inquiry workspace, which you can access from the dashboard or from the Workspaces folder of the Sales and marketing menu, click the button New/Sales order in the action pane. The Create sales order dialog shows next, where you have to select a customer in the Customer account field (you can trigger the search there by starting to type the first characters of the customer name).

Clicking the button OK in the dialog creates a sales order header with default data like language or currency from the selected customer.

The sales order detail form then opens in lines view. If you are in view mode, switch to the edit mode by clicking the button Edit or by pressing the F2 key. On the tab Sales order lines, you can start to enter an order line with item number (or sales category), quantity, and price. When selecting the item, Dynamics AX initializes the quantity, the price, and other fields like the site with default values.

If you want to enter a second line, press the Down Arrow on the keyboard or click the button Add line in the toolbar. Clicking the button Header (or Lines) below the action pane switches between the header view (see Figure 4-3) and the lines view.

Figure 4-3: Entering header data in the sales order header view

Note: If the sales order contains only one line, you might need to press the shortcut Shift+F5 to refresh the form before you can post the order confirmation next.

If you want to print the order confirmation, post it by clicking the button SELL/

Generate/Confirm sales order in the action pane. In the posting dialog, make sure that the sliders Posting and Print confirmation on the tab Parameters are set to “Yes” and optionally click the button Printer setup to select a printer (compare section 2.2.1).

In order to post the packing slip in the sales order form, click the button PICK AND PACK/Generate/Post packing slip in the action pane of the order form. In the posting dialog, choose the option “All” in the field Quantity to ship the entire quantity.

After making sure the sliders Posting and Print packing slip are set to “Yes”, click the button OK to post and print the packing slip. Packing slip posting reduces the physical quantity in inventory and sets the order status to “Delivered”.

Figure 4-4: Posting the packing slip in the sales order

Posting the sales invoice by clicking the button INVOICE/Generate/Invoice in the sales order form is similar to packing slip posting. In order to invoice only shipped items, make sure to choose the option “Packing slip” in the lookup field Quantity of the posting dialog. If you select the option “All”, invoice posting in parallel ships the deliver remainder quantity (open quantity, which is not included in prior packing slips). Invoice posting generates an open customer transaction to be paid and updates the order status to “Invoiced”.

If applicable, you can skip transactions in the process described above. The most streamlined process is to post the invoice immediately after entering the sales order (selecting “All” in the Quantity field of the invoice posting dialog).