Once you create an unissued order from the FF&E Worksheet (see next major topic) or create one manually, this system can cover every step from editing items prior to issuing orders, to tracking vendor payments, to tracking shipping status, and invoicing your clients. These status "milestones" are controlled by a logic that helps prevent errors from occurring.

Not every possible function will be used by every user (especially if you simply generate orders for others to manage or invoice your clients based on a fixed fee), however you should know the general order in which FF&EZ expects things to occur and the way it handles the inevitable exceptions to that.

Assumptions

The process shown in the table below is based on one primary assumption: 

Specific steps occur when the information needed for them (quantities and costs) can be verified. 

That is the assumption—of course, reality does not always cooperate, but the system can handle revisions and unexpected changes. Here is our main assumption expanded to the typical steps of processing orders (the actual steps are included later):

1. The single most important prerequisite before creating orders is to verify that shipping addresses have been set on the Specifications List screen for products that are being shipped to a non-project address (i.e., another vendor or a staging address (e.g., warehouse) set up as a "vendor"). This prevents items with different shipping addresses from being included on the same order (unless this is your intent—see shipping addresses).
2. Orders are created from the FF&E Worksheet, using its Order... button, but normally after the Worksheet  quantities and costs are confirmed (changes can still be entered on the orders). Created orders do not have to be issued immediately. 
3. Best practices: If you are tracking payments to vendors (both deposits and any final payments through the Enter/Reconcile Vendor Final Invoices steps), always update any estimated or quoted freight amounts in the "Freight Quote" field on the Orders screen. This ensures that "estimated remaining" totals are as accurate as possible on the vendor payment reports. It also streamlines the entry of deposit requirements (see next). Do the same for tax estimates if they apply to the order and would appear on the vendor's invoice.
   
   Exception: If an order has already been reconciled and a vendor invoices unexpected extra freight or tax amounts, these are simply entered as special items.
4. Vendor deposit requirements and vendor deposit payment status should be entered as soon as they are known. This is a prerequisite if you wish to issue deposit check requests or report on vendor payment status (i.e., to a purchasing management client). Note that there are right-click shortcuts to make entering deposit amounts easy.
5. If you need to pre-invoice your client on a specific order (for a partial deposit or full amount owed to you), you can do so by 1) setting up the pre-payment in the Client Deposit Requirements section on the Order screen, then 2) issuing a Client Deposit Invoice. This is typical if a financial source needs a detailed list of what a client's funding draw covers.
   
   Note that FF&EZ's item-based approach to invoicing may not be needed if you are invoicing based on a "percentage of completion" basis—that can be done from within your accounting system.
6. Orders should be issued before any further vendor-related processing occurs other than that related to deposits.
7. Actual "Shipped" status and quantity should always be entered or confirmed., This makes it easier to accurately process or reconcile vendor "final" invoices and to issue accurate payment-related documents. A 100% deposit invoice is later treated as the "final" invoice if no changes occurred to the order. 
   
   The shipped quantity is the "actual" quantity that is compared to vendor invoices. Entering "actual" quantities, not assumed quantities, can be critical to having FF&EZ catch vendor errors (or worse). For orders without any unexpected quantity changes, the Expediting screen's Update Order Status command updates the entire order quickly.
8. Vendor deposit payments must be recorded prior to processing vendor final  invoices (per #3 above) with Enter/Reconcile Vendor Final Invoices. The deposit is applied to order items during this reconciliation step to calculate a true final balance.
9. Best practice: Order items should normally be marked with at least "shipped" status as soon as this is verified (confirming the quantities). This allows you to use a filter when generating payment-related documents where you want the quantities to be accurate.
10. In order to calculate a verified balance for some or all items on an order, you must process a final vendor invoice for those items (for 100% deposit invoices see next step). You can then issue (or merely record) a balance check request documenting what is owed to the vendor. 
11. For orders pre-paid with an exact 100% deposit, you must still process a "final" vendor invoice (by using the original deposit invoice ID) to confirm they had no changes (there is a button for this). This process marks the order items as having been reconciled to the original order and either paid or having a balance.
12. Freight charges will not be added to a client invoice (to pay you) unless Processing> Enter/Reconcile Vendor Final Invoices has been used to enter actual freight charges or a "special item" for additional freight has been added to the order with a vendor invoice number. 

The system is designed to streamline these steps as much as possible, especially for most orders where you can confirm (or trust) that the entire order was shipped without any shipping splits or other variances. For some product types (or vendors) you should never simply accept original quantities as the shipped quantity.

The shipping and payment status of any order item depends on your entries on the Expediting screen and in the Processing commands. All status milestone points can be reversed, although this may require reversing the status for more than one item (for instance, if multiple items have appeared on an invoice or a check request). Alternatively, you can simply add adjusting line items to the order and process them normally. See Reversing Status Milestones for more information.

Tracking Quantities is Important

FF&EZ tracks four kinds of quantities in processing orders: 

1. The original order quantity, which can be revised until an item is noted as "shipped"  (or has been invoiced on a final (not deposit) invoice). After that, the original quantity becomes the basis for calculating any variances. This number appears on the Item screen and the Orders screen's item list.
2. The "shipped" quantity, which is then used for calculations of cost instead of the original quantity and is entered (or simply confirmed) on the Expediting screen. If the shipped quantity represents a partial shipment, FF&EZ creates a "split" for that item and transfers the unshipped quantity as the quantity for a new sub-item split. The shipped quantity (and variance) can be changed until the vendor's final linvoice is reconciled or the item appears on a balance request or a client invoice. This number also appears in the Orders screen's item list.
3. A "variance" quantity is recorded when the "shipped" quantity is more or less than the original and this is a change in the final quantity. The variance is included in the  net "shipped" quantity.
4. The "received" quantity, which should match the "shipped" quantity.

Quantities can be changed until a processing step (such as appearing on a balance request or a client invoice) locks them from further changes. At that point, a change requires that you either 1) void the document(s) that caused this lock, or 2) add an adjusting line item to the order and process it normally. Adjusting items are usually linked to a vendor invoice (or other document) that is separate from any previous ones.

Deposits on "Expected" Numbers vs. Final Balances

If you are tracking vendor payments, it is important to understand how FF&EZ splits this process into two distinct phases: 

1. What is proposed to be ordered along with the expected cost, tax, freight and required deposit, and... 
2. What was actually shipped and the total amounts the vendor actually invoiced to which any deposit will be applied. 

FF&EZ tracks all these numbers, however it relies on you to confirm any final quantities and amounts prior to applying deposits. 

Processing Steps

The flow of work for processing orders breaks down into the following major functions. Some are prerequisites to the steps that follow them and some can be done in parallel as needed (see assumptions above). This short list is detailed in the table that follows:

1. Create orders as needed from the FF&E Worksheet contents. At this point, you can use Processing> Issue Orders to preview and print "draft" orders for review. This includes saving to a PDF file with an option on the Preview screen. 
2. Where they apply to an order, record tax quotes (if a specific tax rate can't be used) and freight quotes. Be sure to enter a tax rate if it applies to the sell price and you plan to invoice from FF&EZ. Normally, tax rates can flow from the specification rate (originally set on the project screen), but there are situations where you can prevent this so taxes can be entered from vendor quotes.
3. (Optional) You can enter your own client deposit requirements on the Orders List screen, then use Processing> Print Client Deposit Invoices to invoice your client for a deposit to cover your own vendor payments. When a deposit is received, record the amount. Deposit requirements and payments are entered in the Order List screen's Client Deposit Requirements section. You can also record deposit payments with Processing> Enter Client Deposit Payments if a check applies to more than one deposit invoice. 
   
   As an alternative, you can use the FF&E Worksheet's "Quote/Contract" report format to specify a total required client pre-payment. The report's options include the ability to add a required deposit. If you use this method, it should be easier to manage and apply the deposit within your own accounting system. 
4. As soon as possible: Enter any deposit requirements and pro forma invoice information from the vendor. Requirements are entered manually on the Orders screen's Vendor Deposit Requirements section. Although you can enter "Pro forma" as an invoice number, we recommend you create a unique ID, such as a PO # + a date string, in case you want to search for it later. An ID generated by the vendor is always best.
   
   You can record these as simple status updates, but you can also issue official "deposit check requests" (Processing> Issue Vendor Deposit Requests). Optional: use deposit check requests for documents to your accounts payable or to your purchasing management client. Exporting them as transactions is an option (contact us). 
5. Record any vendor deposit payments as soon as they are confirmed (this can happen during the next few steps, but must be done prior to using Enter/Reconcile Vendor Final Invoices. Deposit payments can be recorded directly on the Orders screen or using Processing> Enter Deposits to Vendors. This information appears on the "Vendor Payment" and "Deposit" status reports.
6. Issue the orders. We recommend using the [>PDF] option button to create record copies of your orders. 
7. On the Expediting screen, update order shipping dates and quantities. This can be done for single items (Update Item Status) or for the entire order if no line item changes occurred (Update Order Status). You can also mix these methods to process exceptions first. Update "received" dates and quantities if you want to fully use the item status tracking features. "Expediting Status" reports show the progress of shipments you've updated. 
8. When a pre-paid order is complete or when you receive any balance invoices from the vendor, use Processing> Enter/Reconcile Vendor Final Invoices to reconcile the expected order quantities and amounts to the actual invoiced amounts. This step applies vendor deposits to verified numbers, so be sure to process all orders with this command, even pre-paid orders. Pre-paid orders have shortcuts described in the  section Processing Pre-Paid Orders.
9. Use Processing> Issue Vendor Balance Requests to record the milestone of requesting payment to a vendor of verified balance amounts. If a physical document is not needed, you can use the command's Record (only) option.
10. Record any final payments to vendors with Processing> Enter Vendor Balance Payments (this keys to the balance requests created in the last step. This also appears on the "Vendor Payment" reports. 
11. Use Processing> Print Client Balance Invoices to invoice your client if you are charging on a item-by-item basis. Note: many FF&EZ users invoice out of their own accounting systems, using the FF&EZ invoice's "Invoicing Detail" format option for the backup detail to a  simpler official invoice. This makes sense if you specify a project deposit using the Worksheet's "Quote/Contract" format instead of issuing Client Deposit Invoices (see #3 above). 
12. Record payments on your invoices. Again, if you are invoicing from your own accounting system, this is optional.

Here are the above steps for issuing, expediting and reconciling orders, with notes and order of work. As we have mentioned, some steps are not required to be in the exact order shown, but this is noted. 

As mentioned above, these steps can be canceled or voided in roughly the reverse order in which they are listed. See Reversing Status Milestones for more information.