Customer Master Record

To create a customer, click on the menu and select Address | Customer Menu | Customer Maintenance. You can optionally enter cusm in the navigation box on the main menubar. This will bring up the Customer Maintenance menu (Figure 4). Click New and enter the data for name and address. You can keep the defaults in the drop-down selection fields. The address information entered here will appear on any packing slips or invoice prints. Take note of the address code assigned to your new customer address record. Once you've entered the name and address, click the Add button to commit.

Figure 4: A screenshot of the Customer Maintenance menu, where customer address info is maintained along with associated data representing the customer.

Item Master Record

To add an inventory item that will be shipped and invoiced in this business transaction scenario, click on Inventory | Item Menu | Item Maintenance or enter item in the navigation box. Click New and enter any description for the item you desire. You can keep most of the defaults in the other text fields. You will need to enter a price in the Selling Price text box. Once you've typed in the description and selling price, click Add to commit the item to the item master. Figure 5 shows the Item Master Data menu with a sample item added.

Figure 5: The Item Master Data menu contains information regarding the type and class of an item, as well as pricing, cost, and on-hand quantity per warehouse/location.

Sales Order, Shipment, and Invoicing

Now that you have a customer and an item record, you can create the order, ship the product, and invoice the shipment. Typically, this is done with separation of duties by one or more responsible parties within the business (order entry department, shipping department, etc.), but BlueSeer provides a short-circuited menu option to perform all three functions in one menu, and I will use this option to demonstrate the order-to-invoice business scenario. Click on Order | Order Maintenance or enter ordm in the navigation text box. You will notice three tabs on this menu (Main, Lines, Schedules). Click New on the Main tab and choose the newly added customer code in the Customer drop-down selection box. You can keep all the other default values on this tab. Next, click the Lines tab. You should see that the item drop-down box is already selected with the item you created in the item master. You will also notice the price has been assigned from the selling price in the item master. All that is needed is to enter a quantity and the click the add item button. The item will be assigned to the details table in the Lines tab, along with a summation of the total at the bottom of this tab (Figure 6). Now, click the Main tab again and click Add to commit the order. This action will immediately insert an order record in the database and return you to the Main tab in the Order Maintenance menu with the newly created order retrieved.

Figure 6: A record showing the quantity and price for an item to be shipped to a specific customer on a unique sales order. The total sales order price is shown at the bottom of the Lines tab.

You will notice the message the order has not been shipped, indicating that this order is new and has not been further processed. To ship and invoice the order as-is, simply click the Invoice button in the bottom left corner. Note that this invoicing step is performing several functions at once. By clicking the Invoice button, you are shipping the order and invoicing the shipment within the system. To print the invoice, click the print invoice button and a dialog frame will appear with your invoice print (Figure 7). You can either print or save as a PDF as necessary.

Figure 7: A screenshot of the actual invoice PDF created upon completion of the sales order. Relevant information, such as invoice number / date, bill-to party addresses, quantities, and summary prices are provided for accurate payment by the customer.