- Raise the order. Pick the customer; the form brings their currency, the stored exchange rate for the day, their territory and sales rep, and prices each line from the price grid (Chapter 6). The order is a draft while you compose it.
- Approve it. Approval makes the order a commitment: the quantities are spoken for, and — with credit management on — the order's value counts in the customer's credit exposure from this moment, before a single item has moved. Approve and post are separate permissions (1.5).
- Deliver on waybills. Each waybill is raised from the order and takes what is actually leaving, up to the quantity still open. Posting a waybill moves the stock. A customer on credit hold cannot be delivered to — the waybill stage is where holds bite.
- Invoice what was delivered. The invoice is raised from the waybill (or the order), and it inherits the order's prices and its frozen exchange rate exactly — the commitment is made good at the figures the customer was promised, whatever the catalogue or the currency market has done since. Posting the invoice records the receivable.
- Take the money. Receipts are allocated against the invoice until it is settled (see Receiving money, below).
The order stays open until everything on it has been delivered and invoiced, and can be closed by hand when the remainder will never proceed.