Optimize Your Sales Process with SAP B1

SAP Business One is a complete and flexible software solution to manage essential processes in small and midsize businesses, including accounting and finance, sales and service, inventory and distribution, and purchasing and operations.

Research* finds that 96% of Best-in-Class (the top 20% of performers) growing businesses have implemented an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution. These solutions are designed to help organizations of all sizes to face their challenges and provide a single business system to support visibility, efficiency, and decision-making. ERP is the key tool in business to make your life easier.

The Sales Module

Here we describe the functionality of the Sales module of SAP B1. This module covers the entire sales process, from creating quotations for customers and interested parties, to invoicing, creating document drafts, and printing. SAP Business One provides an extensive range of sales documents, each of which pertains to a different stage of the sales process.

You can customize documents to meet special requirements, as follows:

Combine different types of content in one sales document by making appropriate settings in the Form Settings window.
Perform batch processing of target documents using the Document Generation Wizard.
Create letters using the Dunning Wizard to notify customers of their open invoices and to remind them of overdue payments.
Add predefined text to a document with the built-in text editor.

The Sales Module

You can customize documents to meet special requirements, as follows:

Combine different types of content in one sales document by making appropriate settings in the Form Settings window.
Perform batch processing of target documents using the Document Generation Wizard.
Create letters using the Dunning Wizard to notify customers of their open invoices and to remind them of overdue payments.
Add predefined text to a document with the built-in text editor.

Activity Management

Activities refer to interactions you have with business partners, such as phone calls, meetings, tasks, or other types of activities. You are able to manage a one-time activity, or recurring activities.

All activities are automatically recorded in your calendar and in activity reports, which you can use to:

Plan your day, week, and month.
Analyze your communications with business partners, both currently open activities and activities that have been closed.
Monitor the progress of your sales opportunities and the service calls of business partners.

Activity Management

All activities are automatically recorded in your calendar and in activity reports, which you can use to:

Plan your day, week, and month.
Analyze your communications with business partners, both currently open activities and activities that have been closed.
Monitor the progress of your sales opportunities and the service calls of business partners.

Sales Orders

The sales order is a commitment from a customer or lead to buy a product or service. The document serves as a foundation for planning production or purchase orders.

Your line of business determines whether or not a sales order is a legally binding document - your company may not manufacture products or ship items before a sales order has been created.

Creating sales orders does not post value-related changes in the accounting system. However, if the sales order is created for items, the ordered quantities are listed in Inventory Management as reserved for the customer. You can view the ordered quantities in various reports, such as the Inventory Status report, as well as other windows in SAP Business One. This information is important for:

Optimizing ordering transactions and stockholding
Ensuring that customer requirements are dealt with quickly and satisfactorily

Sales Orders

The sales order is a commitment from a customer or lead to buy a product or service. The document serves as a foundation for planning production or purchase orders.

Your line of business determines whether or not a sales order is a legally binding document - your company may not manufacture products or ship items before a sales order has been created.

Optimizing ordering transactions and stockholding
Ensuring that customer requirements are dealt with quickly and satisfactorily

Returns

For legal reasons, you cannot delete a delivery or invoice that you enter in SAP Business One, or change accounting-relevant data in these documents. However, the customer might send the goods back for various reasons, or you might have made a mistake when you entered the documents. In such situations, create a return document. When you enter a return document, you can reverse the posting of a delivery. When you create the return, the system corrects the inventory quantities. If your company runs a perpetual inventory, creating a return automatically generates a journal entry that updates the inventory value. The return is the clearing document for a delivery.

Returns

Down Payments

Businesses require down payments from customers to ensure that the customers are committed and will follow through with the orders they place.

In SAP Business One, you can map this business practice by issuing an A/R down payment request or A/R down payment invoice to your customer, or by creating an A/P down payment request or A/P down payment invoice, if one of your vendors requires you to make a down payment before shipping the goods you ordered. After you receive payment from your customer or make the payment to your vendor, you can deduct the down payment amount from the final invoice.

Down Payments

Businesses require down payments from customers to ensure that the customers are committed and will follow through with the orders they place.

Accounts Receivable (A/R) Invoice

The invoice is a legally binding document. When an invoice is received, the posting is made to the related customer accounts in the accounting system. If a delivery did not precede the invoice and you sell the warehouse items, inventory quantities are also updated accordingly when you issue the invoice.

If you create an invoice without reference to the delivery, the system automatically posts changes to the inventory. In other words, if a delivery already exists for the transaction and you create an invoice without reference to this delivery, errors can occur in inventory management because the delivery quantity is posted twice in the system.

SAP Business One enables you to create an A/R invoice with a zero amount. You can do this when delivering items without a charge, for example, items that are part of a promotion or covered by a service contract.

Accounts Receivable (A/R) Invoice

A/R Credit Memo

For legal reasons, you cannot delete a delivery or invoice that you enter in SAP Business One or change accounting-relevant data in these documents. However, the customer might send the goods back for various reasons, or you may have made a mistake when you entered the documents.

If a sales transaction for which you record an accounting and an inventory posting has been completely or partially reversed, you must enter a corresponding sales document to clear it. This document reverses the changes in terms of inventory quantities and monetary values.

The credit memo is the clearing document for the invoice and for the returns. If the goods were delivered to the customer and an invoice has already been created, you can partially or completely reverse the transaction by creating a credit memo. With the credit memo you correct both the quantities and the monetary values. The system increases the inventory of the credited items by the amount specified in the credit memo. The credit memo credits the value in the customer account in the accounting system and amends the revenue account by the same amount. The system corrects the tax amounts automatically.

SAP Business One enables you to create an A/R credit memo with a zero amount. You can do this when you clear A/R invoices for items delivered without a charge, for example, items that are part of a promotion or covered by a service contract.