Order-to-cash
Carry an accepted offer through credit approval, fulfillment and invoice settlement without losing its commercial terms.
8 stages · 3 approvals
Roles and responsibilities
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Step 2Opportunity
Opportunity NumberNameAccountPrimary Contact
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Step 3Quote
Quote NumberCustomerOpportunityQuote Date
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Step 4Sales order
Sales Order NumberCustomerSales RepOrder Date
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Step 7Invoice
Invoice NumberCustomerEntityInvoice Date
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Step 8Cash applied
Payment NumberCustomerPayment DateMethodWire
Process steps
Follow the process from start to finish. Select a step to see who acts and what changes.
Lead qualified
Sales Rep records the inquiry and activity history, then matches or creates the correct account, contact and opportunity. Qualification retains a stable source identity so repeating the action cannot create another customer or duplicate opportunity.
Opportunity
Sales Rep maintains stage, expected close, probability and next action. Sales Manager reviews forecast and ownership within entity scope, keeping open pipeline and accepted outcomes distinct.
Approval required
Quote
Sales Rep resolves effective product prices and prepares net offered amounts. Eligible quotes within their discount authority use the explicit own-approval path; otherwise Sales Manager decides. Actual discount derives from authorized list versus offered price. The complete version, cost/currency basis and decision are frozen before sending and acceptance.
Approval required
Sales order
Sales Manager approves within order authority and available customer credit; Controller reviews exceptions. Credit includes open invoices and existing approved unbilled commitments, with atomic reservation for this order. Controller separately controls lifting a credit hold. Conversion preserves accepted net value without discounting it again.
Allocate or make
Warehouse Operator reserves eligible stock for from-stock work; Production Planner handles make-to-order demand. Contract delivery cycles and their generated orders are counted once. Direct recurring billing follows its own agreed cycle instead of inventing a physical shipment.
Pick and ship
Warehouse Operator confirms eligible dispatch against its line, quantity, lot or serial and cost. Warehouse shipments consume exact stock claims. Seller-as-principal drop-ship deliveries use verified title-transfer and customer-delivery evidence through in-transit ownership; no warehouse custody is fabricated. Partial dispatch consumes only its scope; labels alone cannot ship goods.
Approval required
Invoice
Finance Clerk submits the eligible shipment or direct-cycle amount at the frozen accepted net price, with final tax and coding. An independent Controller approves the exact regular-invoice revision through Approvals before posting or issue. The actual approver cannot be its originating person, preparer or material editor, including under delegation. Finance Clerk executes only that approved revision after current source and period checks. Concurrent preparations cannot reuse the same unbilled scope. Issued corrections follow the authorized credit path, and an external delivery retry does not issue another invoice.
Cash applied
Finance Clerk records confirmed received money once against bank and unapplied-cash control, then settles the identified invoices. Cash consumed, document-currency settlement, discounts, write-offs and withholding retain separate amounts and rates. Aging follows residual debt; a credit or refund does not erase historical cash or remove an active hold without authority.
Approvals and exception handling
3 approvals required in this process
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Quote
Sales Rep or Sales Manager signs · sales order waits
Quotes, PriceBookEntries, DocumentRevisions, Approvals -
Sales order
Sales Manager or Controller signs · allocate or make waits
SalesOrders, SalesAllocations, CreditExposures, Approvals -
Invoice
Controller signs · cash applied waits
Invoices, InvoiceItems, SalesAllocations, Approvals, DocumentRevisions - Regular invoices require an independent Controller decision for the exact current revision. Changing the customer, amount, lines, tax, source or coding requires renewed approval; preparation and execution grant no self-approval authority. Existing credit-note and return policies remain separate.
- Accepted quantitiesNet prices and tax basis survive conversion. An editable discount label cannot bypass the actual discount review.
- Another approved unshipped order remains in credit exposureMoving exposure to an invoice does not count both obligations.
- Exact stock claims prevent two shipments from using the same eligible lot quantity.
- A contract cycle chooses delivery or direct billingRetains one generation identity. MRP and invoicing do not consume it twice.
- Unidentified receipts remain in bankUnapplied-cash control until resolved. Application is a later settlement step.
- Posted creditsPayment returns and refunds retain original history, bounded amounts and separate confirmed effects.
When the process needs attention
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duplicate
Lead qualified
Qualification retains a stable source identity so repeating the action cannot create another customer or duplicate opportunity.
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exception
Sales order
Sales Manager approves within order authority and available customer credit; Controller reviews exceptions.
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hold
Cash applied
Aging follows residual debt; a credit or refund does not erase historical cash or remove an active hold without authority.
From customer assortment to size-level fulfillment
Sales Rep retains the assortment reference and proposes the exact size/color lines the customer requests. Approved orders feed product-specific availability or manufacturing demand. Warehouse Operator follows those exact lines through partial dispatch; an assortment total cannot consume stock belonging to another variant.
Records and postings
| Stage | Records | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Lead qualified | LeadsActivitiesAccountsContactPersons | Retain the qualified customer relationship |
| 2 Opportunity | OpportunitiesActivities | Maintain the forecast and next action |
| 3 Quote | QuotesPriceBookEntriesDocumentRevisionsApprovals | Authorize the exact offered terms |
| 4 Sales order | SalesOrdersSalesAllocationsCreditExposuresApprovals | Preserve accepted value and reserve credit |
| 5 Allocate or make | InventoryReservationsMRPRunsWorkOrdersContractCycles | Reserve or plan the remaining demand once |
| 6 Pick and ship | ShipmentsShipmentItemsStockEvents | Post actual dispatch and its cost |
| 7 Invoice | InvoicesInvoiceItemsSalesAllocationsApprovalsDocumentRevisions | Independently approve the exact regular invoice, then post and issue its eligible scope |
| 8 Cash applied | PaymentsReceivedPaymentApplicationsCreditApplications | Reclassify cash and settle the documented debt |
Process reports
All reportsCash Forecast
Thirteen weeks from reconciled bank balance at the stated opening timestamp; open invoice collections, unreserved bills, reserved payment instructions, approved unpaid operational payroll and tax obligations form mutually exclusive source buckets, with currency/date assumptions and uncertainty shown; Parallel payroll and duplicated bill/run obligations excluded.
Sales Pipeline and Forecast
Open opportunities by entity, owner, stage, forecast category and expected close month, with weighted value = Amount × Probability / 100 and explicit reporting-currency conversion; actual closed-won uses ClosedDate and accepted scope, excluding duplicates and cancelled replacement offers.
Cash Flow Statement
Indirect cash flow reconciled from posted opening/closing cash and balance movements, with noncash, depreciation, acquisition/disposal, FX and consolidation scope changes separated so movements are not treated as cash twice.
Aged Receivables and Payables
Document-currency net outstanding as of the cutoff from cash, discounts, write-offs, withholding and posted credit allocations, translated on a retained report basis; unapplied cash/credits shown separately, with due-date aging and disputes/holds, never counted as paid cash.
Sales and Margin by Customer and Product
Posted invoice net revenue less original-linked credits by entity/customer/product/period; standard margin uses frozen InvoiceItems.StandardCostSnapshot while actual margin uses allocated shipment/service cost, with missing-cost coverage shown rather than fabricated zero margin; Sales Rep output excludes protected cost/margin.
Run by an agent
Agent support
An assistant cannot turn its user's authority into an unattended human approval. Purchase approval, quote or order decisions, payroll approval, payment release and period close remain with the accountable people described by the process. Service access cannot bypass credit limits, document revisions, independence rules or payroll privacy. Uncertain bank responses require reconciliation before a retry can create another instruction.
# Example after configuration
$ curl -fsSL https://www.erp.ai/skill.md | paste into your agent
› order-to-cash · lead qualified on Leads, Activities, Accounts, ContactPersons
✓ Sales Rep records the inquiry and activity history, then matches or creates the correct account, contact and opportunity.
› order-to-cash · opportunity on Opportunities, Activities
✓ Sales Rep maintains stage, expected close, probability and next action.
› order-to-cash · quote on Quotes, PriceBookEntries, DocumentRevisions, Approvals
⏸ approval · waiting for the sales rep or sales manager
# 5 more stages after approval: sales order, allocate or make, pick and ship, invoice, cash applied
Other processes
4 moreProcure to pay
Authorize the purchase, match accepted quantities and release a payment instruction with the right independent reviewer.
10 stages · 6 approvals
Plan to produce
Convert remaining demand into a released production plan, accepted output and a reconciled work-order cost.
8 stages · 3 approvals
Hire to pay
Use effective employee data and approved time to prepare payroll, review its totals and reconcile actual payment.
8 stages · 5 approvals
Record to report
Reconcile each entity, authorize its close and preserve the source evidence behind the consolidated reporting pack.
8 stages · 4 approvals