Handling Customer Backorders

A backorder sales order can be handled by viewing various reports in Acctivate including the Backorder Report and the Order Backlog By Product Report. Go to Inventory Reorder Report (and the Business Alerts > Inventory Mgmt tab) to view the reports.

A backordered sales order that contains products that are not currently in stock, but will be sold or delivered when they become available, can be handled by viewing various reports in Acctivate including the Backorder Report and the Order Backlog By Product Report.

The Inventory Reorder Report (and the Business Alerts > Inventory Mgmt tab) can be viewed as a preventative measure, so that your inventory level does not become too low resulting in having to do backorders. These resources display all the items in inventory that are currently stocked at a level below the listed minimum stocking quantity (set in Product Information window) for that item. (Refer to: Know if I am low on stock)

First, view the Backorder Report:

Sales orders marked with a status of backordered will display on the Backorder Report only if the order has been partially invoiced, meaning the available products were invoiced, but not the backordered ones.

The Backorder report will supply you with the order numbers for backordered items, along with other details of the orders, such as the specific products that are backordered and the quantity of those products that were ordered, shipped, and backordered.

You can use this report to order and purchase the appropriate products from your vendor for restocking your inventory, as well as see which specific orders you need to open and edit after you update your inventory and are ready to schedule shipment for a backorder.

Select Sales > Sales Order Reports and from the window that opens, expand the Orders folder.
Select Backorder Report from the Orders folder.
In the Report Selection Criteria window filter according to the specific backorders you want to view on the report.
You can leave the Filter fields set to All to view a report with all backorders.
After filtering, choose the appropriate button to either print or preview the report.

Purchase products:

Next, you will need to order and purchase products from your vendor according to the Backorder Report, so that you can satisfy the sales orders documented in that report and restock these products in your inventory.

Select Purchasing > Purchase Order to purchase the products that are currently backordered.
Go through your usual purchasing procedure (after you receive the products, receive them into Acctivate, etc.).

View another report, the Order Backlog By Product Report:

After you have updated your inventory, this report will show you all open sales orders by product. The on hand quantity will be what was received into inventory and now can be used to schedule shipment and satisfy the backorder.

Select Sales > Sales Order Reports and from the window that opens, expand the Orders folder.
Select the Order Backlog By Product Report.
In the Report Selection Criteria window filter according to the specific backorders you want to view on the report.
You can leave the Filter fields set to All to view a report with all orders.
After filtering, choose the appropriate button to either print or preview the report.

Modify the Sales Order, to schedule and ship the backordered product(s):

Based on the Order Backlog By Product report, you can see which sales order you need to open and edit for backordered products. Read our training page for more detail on rescheduling sales orders.

From the Order Backlog By Product Report, you can get instant access to the specific sales order by double-clicking the order number in the report.
Click the Edit button, to edit the sales order.
In the header, change the Status field to Scheduled.
Complete the order and release it for invoicing.