Auto-generated Orders (or Recurring Orders)
Auto-generated quotes and orders provides sales representatives and their end customers the ability to make changes to an autogenerated sales document (quote or order). Setting up documents for auto-generation (or recurring creation) is simple. Make certain that your initial sales order has all the service items or repeat consumable goods that need to be sold and billed on a recurring basis. All the products and payment options on that initial sales order will be transferred onto either a new Quote or Sales Order to be generated on a scheduled recurring basis for modifications and acceptance.
General Guidelines
- Once activated, if a user’s access rights allow them to convert a quote to an order, they can create recurring orders (this does not have a new access right).
- Functionality will include ALL line items on an order, similar to Copy to New Quote function.
- A recurring order can be copied to either a new quote or order.
- New documents will be either Open (quote) or Submitted (order).
- All recurring orders can be invoiced like all regular orders.
Document Path for Auto-generated Order Series
Quote > Order > Order Series > Quote/Order
Additional paths:
> Invoice
> Recurring Invoice > Billing Invoices
> RMA
Enable Series Orders
To enable this feature, go to Admin > Company Settings > Documents > and expand the Sales section. Click on the checkbox for “Enable Convert to Auto-create for the automatic generation of Quotes or Sales Orders in a series.” Then select your defaults in the three rows beneath it. Keep in mind that all Auto-generate defaults can be changed when creating a new series in the Auto-generate Series window.
- Set default automation to be either Quotes or Sales Orders. Which will your company be able to use more? Quotes or Orders?
- Set the default number of auto-created documents.
- Set the default number of days for auto-creation before the billing date.
Auto-generate Series Window
Selecting this button opens the Auto-generate Series modal with create auto-generate options.
- Start Date (Series) *
- Frequency (from recurring invoice list)
- # in series
- Creation Date (day of the month; ideally X number of days prior to desired billing date)
- Billing Date (information for users)
- Select to generate either quotes or orders
- Optional checkbox to be notified when this series will expire. This uses the system generated Renewal Notifications email template
* Important information about Start Date. When creating the Auto-generated series it is important to know that the initial order becomes the first (-01) in the series automatically. Therefore it is important that the started date reflects when the second (-02) in the series will be generated.
Series Documents
Once the series has been created, there are a few management options available to support it.
- Schedule sub-tab. Added the Schedule sub-tab in the document header for reviewing generated documents and scheduled documents to be created. In the document header an additional “View Order Schedule” link was placed under the Renewal date section in row one of the header (similar to payment schedule for recurring invoices).
- Edit series information. There is a limited amount of editing available for the auto-generated series. Specifically, users can modify only: Total in Series, Billing Date, and if they need to switch from quote to order (or the reverse).
- Series E-mails use the “Auto Document Notification” email to sends an email to the sales rep when an automatic document has been generated. This email needs to be activated in the System E-mails section of admin by editing the email template. Tip: If you plan to use both series document types (quotes and orders) add the “document_type” merge field to your email template’s subject and body.
- Cancel and Suspend. Once initiated, “Cancel Order Series”, footer button is available to stop the auto-create process. Or, if it needs to be suspended for a short period of time, select the Suspend Series option.
