Should we change the customer on the order?

Kinetic ERP
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1

We have an situation where we have around 10 open sales order for a customer. They include a mix of simple products that we buy in, and more complex products with BOM’s and related jobs.

The jobs are in various states with some new jobs, some in process and a few complete.

We sell to companies on construction sites, and this particular customer has left the site, and another customer has stepped in to finish the project, and they have asked us to send them the remainder of the products on those orders. Nothing apart from the customer, PO number, address, and delivery dates are changing.

Because there are multiple orders and multiple lines, we have been asked can we ‘just’ change the customer on the order, then the remaining shipments will be shipped and invoiced the new customer. This would save going through each order, closing shipped lines and then creating new orders for the new customer. It would also save us ‘moving’ the products made on the related job to a new order/customer (if this is even possible).

However it also sounds ‘dangerous’, I’m not sure about traceability and the impact on Finance, and how this would work for in progress jobs. Up to now we’ve never done this as its always one order one customer. I assumed the change customer functionality is just for when the order is entered against the wrong customer and you can change it before jobs/shipping etc.

Would appreciate any advice.

1 Like
2

Make to order? Yes you can fiddle with demand links. We have had to do this far too often.

But for the original question - is it even possible to change the customer on the order after the fact? I thought it was not.

So is this like a button? You make it sound like you have seen something before.

3

Hmm, the safest thing would be to create new orders and modify the demand links like @JasonMcD mentioned.

But you could also just make sure everything for the previous customer has been invoiced and shipped, and then change the Bill To Customer on the sales orders to the new customer, and change the Ship To to the new customer. I would recommend testing in pilot if you are worried.

4

I agree to both of the suggestions. Particularly the test it bit. Should not take long to spin up some order lines and simulate the situation in Pilot. You may even have the existing transaction in the same state in that case you will be 100% confident. Just make sure you document the steps to redo to live.

Not sure if you can change the details on partially shipped order though.

5

Yes you can just change the Sold To Customer ID:
image

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6

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I think I’m going to play it safe and create new orders and change the demand links, especially as we have BPM’s hanging off order creation, and if they are related to the customer then we may miss something.

I need to do the changes asap so don’t really have time to test it all in Pilot now, but have noted to do it at some stage, would be interesting to know for the future in case it comes up again.

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And that’s the order that was partly shipped already? I’m just surprised it is not grayed out.

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If it helps, you can “Copy Order”… and there is an option to only copy open releases. But, if I remember correctly, it will wipe pricing… you’d have to reset your dates… you’d still have to repoint your WIP jobs. But, if there are a LOT of lines, at least that portion of the entry would be done for you.

2 Likes
9

i believe that changing the customer is “ok” as any historical things like Packslip/invoice will all be retained with the old customer ID… but i also think that just for clarity, that it would be best to create new orders with the new PO and customer, and transfer the jobs… closing the old orders short.

2 Likes
10

You’re correct - it looks like you can change the order if jobs exist, but once one line is shipped then its greyed out. So for some of our orders that answers the questions anyway.