Getting Started with Sales

Sales in Brightpearl cover everything from "opportunities" to quotes and invoices. This quick start guide will run you through the process of working with sales.

You will learn how to:

1. Add a new sales order
2. Add line items to the order
3. Allocate stock to the order
4. Fulfil the order
5. Print, pick, pack and ship goods
6. Invoice a sale and send it to the customer
7. Record customer payment
8. View the sales pipeline
9. Create a sales order status
10. Manage your sales workflow

Before you start...

...you will need to create a product record and add some stock to use for the below exercises, use the following data and steps to create a stocked product:

1. On the left-hand side of the screen click the Quick Add icon  and select Product.
2. In the Product info tab enter the item name and category.
3. (Retail companies only; if you are on a Services subscription you will not see this tab) In the Stock/Inventory tab make sure that "Manage inventory levels for this item?" is set to Yes.
4. In the Prices tab select the COST tab and enter the price. Do the same for the RETAIL price list.
5. Click the Save changes button to add the product.
6. To increase the stock level go to Products > Add inventory.
7. Search for the Mug.
8. Click Add items.
9. Enter a quantity of 10 and a comment - "adjustment after stock take".
10. Click the Add items button.

1. Add a sale

Generally most workflows in Brightpearl start with a contact. In case you haven't already added contacts, let's add a customer now.

Use the following data and steps to add your customer:

1. On the left-hand side of the screen click the Quick Add icon and select Customer.
2. Enter the customer Company, Firstname, Lastname.
3. In the Info tab enter the email address.
4. In the Addresses tab enter the customer address.
5. That's all you really need at this stage. Click the small drop-down arrow on the Save changes button and select Save & order.

2. Add line items to the order

Use this data and the steps below to add line items to the order:

Adding free-form rows - Line item 1

1. Place your cursor in the line Details field and type the charge description. 
2. In the Account drop-down, choose the Account/Nominal code to which this sale belongs. This will be used to track sales by category in your Accounting.
3. Select the Tax code. If you're not VAT registered, this will be not applicable.
4. Enter the Quantity.
5. Enter the price excluding tax.

Adding pre-defined line items / products - Line item 2

This is where things really start to save you time. Your Brightpearl database can store everything from labour and delivery charges to products with SKUs and full multi-warehouse stock control. There is a full Getting Started guide on products / inventory, which you might want to read later. But let's crack on with this guide for now.

1. In the sales order click the Add a blank row link just below the line item you just added.
2. You can use the Quick Add or Batch Add of product items.
   • Quick Add - in the Item code field begin typing your product name, SKU or ID.
   • Batch Add - click the Batch add price list item link. Search for your products and enter the quantity of each to add. Click the Add button to add them all.
3. Click Save changes.

You'll see that the sale now contains your free-form row and the Mug. Using predefined items will let you track sales much better; you can create generic items such as "overtime" and then edit the description once added to the sale, which will then let you track all sales of overtime in the product sales report.

3. Allocate stock to the order

Allocating stock means it is reserved for this order and cannot be sold to someone else unless you unallocate it. It's an optional step, but it's really useful for effective stock management.

1. Just below the line item on the order, click the Allocate all link.
2. Click the Save changes button.

Note the details printed just below the product name.

4. Fulfil the order 

Fulfilling will create a goods-out note and indicate that you are ready to get the item packed up and shipped out.

1. Hover your mouse over the Fulfil order link at the top of the order.
2. Click Fulfil and ship later.
3. The goods-out note is created. A green message box displays the goods-out note reference, e.g. GN#100001/1. Click this reference to open the document...
4. Continue to the print, pick, pack and ship section...

5. Print, pick, pack and ship

1. Click the Print button to print the goods-out note and timestamp it.
2. Click the Pick button to print a picking list (used for collecting items from around your warehouse) and mark the order as picked (i.e. you've collected all the items).
3. Click the Pack button to mark the order as packed, i.e. the order is ready to go!
4. Click the Ship button to mark the order as dispatched and timestamp it.
5. Click the Close button to return to the order.

Once you have marked the order as shipped your stock levels are reduced and your stock accounting is updated.

6. Invoice and send it to the customer

You will need to invoice your customer to ask them to pay.

1. In the order click the Invoice button at the top.
2. A warning message will be displayed, click OK.
3. Click the Email/Print button to view the document.
4. Click the Email link at the top, select your customer's email address and send.
5. Click close.

Invoicing your customer will update your customer's account to indicate that they owe you money. It will also update your accounting.

7. Record the customer payment

You can use this method to record a payment already received, or if you have registered with a credit card service (such as SecureTrading or SagePay) you can record and take the payment directly within Brightpearl at the same time!

1. Scroll to the bottom of the sales order.
2. Click the Take Payment button.
3. Select the bank account payment was made into.
4. Enter the date the payment was received, let's say today.
5. Enter the payment reference, this will be a cheque number or statement reference, let's say 5523654.
6. Click the Allocate payment button.
7. Click the link to return to the order.

The order is marked as paid and the customer's account balance is reduced indicating they no longer owe us money. This transaction is also posted to accounts.

8. View the sales pipeline

As you add more Orders and Quotes, you start to build up a pipeline of future potential revenue. Go to Sales > Dashboard, you'll see a number of different charts and reports that show exactly what's going on with all your sales. Powerful stuff. The Weighted Sales Pipeline shows the sales you have on the system that are not yet invoiced, and the date that you're expecting payment. Click the little tools icon to change the view to 4 months and Save. You can drill-down by clicking on the charts to see more detail.

9. Create a sale order status

Your Brightpearl account is set with a number of pre-defined statuses, which of course you can edit if you want to.

1. Go to Setup > Sales > Sales statuses.
2. Click the Add a new status button
3. Enter "On hold - payment issues" into the Order status name.
4. Set the number of remind days to 3, which means that you'll get a reminder if sales on this status are not updated within 3 days.
5. Select a colour for the status using the colour wheel.
6. Click the Add new status button.
7. The screen refreshes with the new item added to the list of statuses. You can rearrange the statuses by clicking the green arrow in the left and dragging it into place.

You can now see this extra status in your menus. Your imagination is the limit!

Tip: Keep things simple until you are comfortable with the rest of the system. This is a powerful feature but it's easy to get distracted by settings too early in your learning process.

10. Manage your sales workflow

You've just created a new sales order status. These can be manually changed on orders but you can also select which ones should be automatically picked up after certain events happen, such as invoicing. This is known as the sales workflow.

1. Go to Setup > Sales > Sales workflow.
2. Work your way down the screen selecting which status should be applied after each event.
3. Click the Save changes button.

Finishing up

Hopefully this has give you a good overview of some of the basics. We go into more detail on each of the topics within their own section of our free online support documentation.

If you want to reset your data and start over, then read about resetting your data here