Sales process

E-invoicing in Germany: How to implement the obligation with SAP Business One

Of the Sales process in SAP Business One — International als Order-to-Cash denotes — describes the logistical and commercial document flow from the initial customer quote to payment. It interlocks sales, beer and financial accounting, so that every physical and economic transaction can be tied to a specific receipt.

Context

The default chain is Quote → Customer Order → Delivery → Outgoing Invoice → Credit Note/Return. Every receipt is generated by Add or by copying over Copy to from the preceding document, thereby automatically maintaining the document link (linking plan). The customer order logically reserves the stock. With the delivery will the stock be physically reduced - with continuous inventory management, this results in the cost of goods booked (material expenses to inventory). The A/R Invoice triggers the journal entry Debtors (Dr) to Sales + value added tax Have and closes the delivery as soon as invoice quantity = delivery quantity. Variants include the Booking invoice (billing before physical delivery, turnover immediately, stock reserved), the Line haul without own warehouse, deposit invoices and service receipts without warehouse reference. Status information Open, Partially Delivered, Closed control the subsequent logic of the chain.

Demarcation

The sales process is not identical to the SalesFunnel a CRM that maps the initiation up to the order entry via opportunities and sales stages — the sales process begins as soon as a concrete need is formalised. It is also not equivalent to the Purchasing process (Procure-to-Pay), although both are structurally similar. While the linkage plan is the view of the individual document chain, the sales process is the organisational-processual view of the entire settlement.