Manage sales orders in SamBooks: create, confirm, fulfil and invoice

Sales orders are where the customer-facing sales cycle starts: the delivery note (DDT) and the invoice both come out of an order. This guide walks you through creating an order (by hand or from an accepted quote), confirming it, fulfilling it according to the delivery terms you chose, and generating the invoice — without losing track of anything along the way.

What it's for

The Sales orders section (sidebar → Active cycle → Sales orders) collects every order from your customers: this is where you record what you've promised to deliver, to whom, on which shipping and payment terms. From a confirmed order, SamBooks generates — depending on the case — the loading order, the delivery note (DDT) and the invoice, without you re-typing lines, prices or customer data.

Before you start

• The customer must already exist in Customers, with at least one address if you're planning a delivery.
• The items or services you want to put on the order must already be in the catalogue (an order can mix goods lines and service lines).
• If your company has more than one warehouse, check that the one the goods will ship from is set up.

Step-by-step

1. Open the order list

In the sidebar go to Active cycle → Sales orders: this opens the table of all orders, with number, date, customer, status and total. At the top there are two buttons to create a new one: New order (manual order) and New from quote (converts an already-accepted quote).

2. Create a manual order

Click New order. In the form:

• pick the Customer from the search field: as soon as you select one, SamBooks pre-fills VAT number, SDI code and — if set on the customer record — payment terms;
• click Add line for every item or service you want on the order, choosing it from the catalogue: price, unit of measure and VAT rate fill in on their own (from the customer's dedicated price list if one exists, otherwise from the general price list); you can still edit any of them by hand, line by line;
• the Payment terms section shows conditions, method, days and collection account: they're pre-filled from the customer record but stay editable. If a field is missing on the customer record, it's simply left blank — that's not a form error, just pick it here;
• in the Shipping section you set the Carriage terms — the options are Not specified, Carriage paid (sender) and Carriage forward (recipient) — and, if needed, the Pickup warehouse. With any carriage term other than "Not specified", SamBooks also requires a pickup address and a delivery address.

Once the required fields are filled in, click Create order: the order is created in Draft status, still editable.

3. Create an order from an accepted quote

If you already have a quote the customer has accepted, there's no need to re-type anything: click New from quote, pick the quote from the list of accepted ones and confirm. SamBooks creates the order by copying lines, prices, payment terms and shipping data exactly as they are on the quote — the agreed price stays frozen and is never recalculated from the price list. An order created from a quote is already confirmed (you don't need the "Mark as confirmed" step described next).

4. Set carriage terms and transport ownership on the order

Opening an order's detail (click its row in the table) shows the Logistics section, with two independent fields:

• Carriage terms: Carriage paid (sender), Carriage forward (recipient) or Not specified. It decides who arranges transport and, as a result, which action you'll see later to fulfil the order (see steps 6 and 7).
• Transport by: Sender (us), Recipient (customer) or Third-party carrier. It records who physically handles the transport.

After choosing the values, click Save logistics: a message confirms "Logistics updated." Logistics data stays editable even after the order has been confirmed.

5. Confirm the order: from Draft to Confirmed

A draft order is only a sales promise: as long as it stays a draft, it doesn't commit anything in the warehouse. To move forward, click Mark as confirmed in the header. If the order has at least one goods line, SamBooks requires carriage terms to be set (anything other than "Not specified") before it can be confirmed: if they're missing, a message tells you, and you can go back to the Logistics section to complete it.

On confirmation, the order moves to Confirmed status and the ordered goods are committed in the warehouse: the available quantity doesn't change (nothing physically leaves the warehouse yet), but that quantity is now reserved for this customer and can't be committed to another order. The physical stock is only released later, when the delivery note is issued (not when a draft DDT is merely created) — the order detail's Workflow tab summarises this step with the line "Order confirmed: commits stock and is ready for fulfilment."

6. Fulfil an order with "Carriage paid" terms: create the loading order

If you set carriage terms to Carriage paid (sender), the confirmed order's header shows the Create loading order button: you (the sender) are the one arranging transport. Clicking it opens the "Create loading order from order" wizard directly on the order page, with the order already pre-selected among those to plan. From there, logistics organises the loading order, which will produce the delivery note.

7. Fulfil an order with "Carriage forward" terms: draft DDT and pickup notice

If you set carriage terms to Carriage forward (recipient), it's the customer who arranges pickup: the header shows two dedicated buttons.

• Generate draft DDT opens a window where you set, line by line, the quantity to fulfil (defaulting to the full remaining amount, always editable) and creates a delivery note in draft. Here too: a draft DDT doesn't release stock yet — that only happens once the DDT is issued from the Delivery notes section.
• Notify: ready for pickup opens a window with a live preview of the email the customer will receive ("the goods are ready for pickup"). You can leave the recipient field empty to use the customer's default contact (if the customer has an email or PEC on record) or type a specific address. Check the preview and click Send to email the customer.

8. Generate the invoice: service lines right away, goods lines from the DDT

Click Generate invoice in the header (shown when the order has at least one service or free-text line not yet invoiced): the "Generate invoice from order" window opens. Here you can see the two line types treated differently:

• service lines (for example a consulting fee) have a checkbox and a "To invoice" field: select them and click Generate invoice to create a draft invoice (document type TD01) with those lines right away;
• goods lines are shown with a lock icon and the note "Invoiced from the DDT": they can't be selected here, because goods are only invoiced after they've been delivered with a delivery note. To create that DDT without leaving the window, click Generate DDT: it opens the "Generate draft DDT" window from step 7, on the same order.

A mixed order (goods + services) can therefore generate both an invoice for the service part and, later, a DDT and — from that DDT — the invoice for the goods part: these are two parallel paths, not alternatives.

9. Edit or delete a draft order

While the order is still a Draft, the header (and the table row) show Edit, which reopens the same creation form with the data already filled in, and Delete, which removes the order. Once an order has been confirmed or fulfilled, this button no longer applies: logistics data remains editable as described in step 4, and everything else is handled with Cancel (see next step).

10. Cancel a confirmed order

If a confirmed order shouldn't go ahead anymore, click Cancel in the header: the order moves to Cancelled status and the stock committed for that order is released, becoming available for other orders again.

11. Download the PDF or email the order

From any order status, the header (and the table row) show Download PDF, which generates the order document with lines, totals, payment terms and shipping data, and Send by email, which sends it straight to the customer.

12. Let Sam do it instead of doing it by hand

Every operation described above — creating an order, confirming it, updating logistics data, generating the draft DDT, generating the invoice, notifying the customer that goods are ready for pickup, cancelling or deleting the order — is also available by asking Sam in the chat panel: the form and the chat are equivalent and produce exactly the same result on the same order. Pick whichever is more convenient at the time, and feel free to switch between the two on the same document.

Tips

• Always check the order's status on the Workflow tab in the detail view: it lists every possible step (Draft, Confirmed, Fulfillable, Partially fulfilled, Fully fulfilled, Cancelled) and highlights the current one, so you always know what you can do from there.
• The Chain tab on the order detail shows the source quote (if the order came from one) and the delivery notes/invoices generated downstream, with direct links to open them.
• On a mixed order, remember that "Carriage paid" and "Carriage forward" terms lead to different actions (loading order vs. draft DDT + pickup notice): they're mutually exclusive, you'll never see both on the same order.

Common issues

• Confirmation is blocked because carriage terms are missing: happens if you try to confirm an order with at least one goods line before carriage terms are set (the error message currently appears in Italian: "Il porto è obbligatorio…"). Go back to the Logistics section, choose Carriage paid or Carriage forward, click Save logistics and try confirming again.
• Payment conditions empty after picking the customer: if method, days and account fill in but "Payment conditions" stays blank, that's not a form error — it means that field simply isn't set on that customer's record. Pick it manually here.
• The "Generate invoice" button doesn't show up: it only appears when the order has at least one service or free-text line; if the order only contains goods, those lines are always invoiced from the DDT (step 8), not from here.

FAQ

Does confirming an order release stock right away? No. Confirming only commits (reserves) the goods: they're still physically in the warehouse until you issue the delivery note. Stock is only released when the DDT is issued.

Why do some orders show "Create loading order" and others "Generate draft DDT"? It depends on the carriage terms you set: "Carriage paid" (your responsibility) leads to the loading order, "Carriage forward" (the customer's responsibility) leads to the draft DDT plus the pickup notice. They're alternative paths tied to the same field.

Can I edit an order after confirming it? The full form (lines, customer, prices) is locked once the order is confirmed. The only fields that stay editable at any time are the logistics ones (carriage terms, transport by, address, delivery date and delivery notes) in the detail's Logistics section.

Related features

• Quotes and pro forma invoices: an accepted quote turns into an order with one click (see step 3).
• Delivery notes (DDT): the delivery notes generated from an order live in the Delivery notes section, with the same draft/issued status.
• Sales invoices: invoices generated from an order (directly for services, from the DDT for goods) continue their lifecycle in the Invoices section.
• Warehouse: the quantity committed by confirmed orders is visible in the Stock tab.