From enquiry to a delivery date you can actually keep.
Enquiries, quotations with revision history, confirmed orders and delivery commitments that production can see.
The delivery date is promised in the first ten minutes of a conversation and defended for the next six weeks. In most factories it is promised by somebody who cannot see the work centre queue, against a quotation that will be revised twice more, for a customer whose final quantity is not yet settled.
That is not a discipline problem, it is an information problem. Sales cannot commit realistically to something they cannot see, and production cannot plan around a commitment they hear about after it was made. The gap between them is where most late deliveries are actually created — long before any machine runs late.
Running the sales side in the same system as production closes the gap in both directions — which is what separates sales order management software from a shared spreadsheet of open orders. An enquiry becomes a quotation with its revisions kept, a confirmed order becomes demand that production can see, and the delivery commitment sits on the order where both sides read it.
What you get
Enquiry capture
Enquiries recorded and owned, so the follow-up is a list rather than a set of personal reminders across three phones.
Quotations with history
Every revision kept, so what was quoted, when, and at what rate is answerable after the order lands.
Order confirmation
A confirmed order locking the quantity, rate and delivery commitment that everything downstream reads from.
Visible to production
A confirmed order becomes demand production can plan against, rather than news that arrives with the work order.
Balance tracking
What has shipped and what remains on each order, so the answer to 'where is my material' is one number.
Sales against target
Order intake read against targets as the month runs, not reconstructed at the end of it.
Quotation revisions are the record that matters later
Most quotations are revised — a quantity changes, a specification is clarified, a rate is negotiated. When each revision overwrites the last, the version that won the order is the only one left, and every question afterwards is answered from memory: whether the freight was included, whether that rate was for the higher quantity, what the delivery was when the customer accepted.
Keeping revisions means those questions have answers. It also removes the most common small dispute in this business, which is a customer working from an earlier version of a quotation than the one that was accepted.
A delivery date production has seen
A commitment made without visibility into the shop floor is a guess with a customer attached to it. The fix is not a rule that sales must ask production first — that gets skipped the first busy week — but making the order visible as demand the moment it is confirmed, so planning is working from the real book rather than from what reached them.
The second-order effect is a better conversation with the customer. When the order carries a commitment everybody can see, a slipping date is noticed inside the company first, which is the only time it can still be managed.
Where sales stops and production starts
In an integrated system that boundary is a status change rather than a handover. The confirmed order carries its items, quantities, rates and dates forward into the work order without being retyped, which removes both the delay and the transcription error that make the first day of a job the most error-prone one.
Questions people ask.
What does sales order management software do?
It runs the commercial side of an order — enquiry, quotation and its revisions, confirmation, and the delivery commitment — and carries that forward into production without anything being re-entered.
Are quotation revisions kept?
Yes. Each revision is retained, so what was quoted at what rate and on what delivery, and when it changed, is answerable after the order is won.
Can production see confirmed orders?
Yes. A confirmed order becomes demand visible to planning, which is what allows a delivery date to be committed against a real queue rather than an assumption.
How is the pending balance on an order tracked?
The order keeps its balance quantity, reduced by each dispatch, so a partly shipped order stays open with its remainder visible to sales and production alike.
Does it track sales against targets?
Yes. Order intake can be read against targets during the month rather than assembled after it, which is the only point at which the number is still actionable.
Related parts of the system
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