Orders Overview
An order is a planned purchase of merchandise by a customer. All orders in Prism require entry of a Bill To Customer. Depending on your Prism preference settings, the customer may be required to make a minimum initial deposit. Additional deposits can be taken at any time until the order is filled. Fulfill the order when a customer is ready to pay off the balance and receive the items. Fulfilling an order records the sale and deducts the items from inventory.
Three types of orders are available in Prism:
| Order Type | Notes |
|---|---|
| Customer Order | This is the standard order type and is the only order type enabled by default in preferences. |
| Layaway | Use this order type to allow a customer to pay for the purchase over time. For example, a customer can order an item and spread the payment over three equal monthly installments. Layaways by default are disabled in preferences. |
| Special Order | Special orders enable customers to order items not normally carried in inventory, (e.g., "one-off" orders) or to order a special shipment of an item that already exists in inventory. Items that have the Special Order flag selected can be listed on documents (purchase orders, transfer orders, slips and adjustment memos). |
In practice, there is not much difference between a customer order and a layaway. Both order types enable you to take one or more deposits against the order. The distinction is more a logical one, in which a customer order is used to order out-of-stock merchandise or merchandise not normally carried, and a layaway is used to allow a customer to pay for the purchase over time.
When creating a transaction, you can include both sale and order items. When tendering the transaction, the initial deposit amount required for the order (if any) is added to the transaction subtotal.
Orders Preferences
You can define a minimum percentage that will be due when creating each type of order. This preference is in Node Preferences > Transactions > Orders.
Sample Node Preferences > Transactions > Orders:
If a minimum percentage is defined and an item's type is changed to "Order", the required deposit amount is added to the transaction Total. Users can modify the initial deposit amount, if necessary, when tendering the transaction. If no minimum percentage is defined, then the deposit dialog will still be displayed; however, users are not required to make an entry.