Entering / Finalising Charges on a Fulfilment

Background

Fulfilment charges need to be recorded, so that they can be charged to the client via the invoice process.

The final charges involved with a fulfilment may not be known at the outset of the client order, and/or they may change during the processing of the order due to a variety of factors.

It is also worth noting that fulfilment costs may in certain circumstances be zero, should the assembly effort be modest and the client collects the order.

What is important to understand is that should there be billable costs on a fulfilment, then as soon as the final costs are known, the following must happen :-

• The costs are communicated to, and agreed by, the customer.
• The customer's approval of the costs is recorded on the fulfilment.
• The costs are entered on the fulfilment.

It is imperative that all three of the above activities are undertaken, so that when the client is invoiced for the fulfilment, there will be no disputed charges.

See Understanding the importance of Recording Costs for more information.

It is also worth reiterating, that although indicative fulfilment costs may have been entered when the fulfilment was initially created, circumstances may have subsequently altered (for example, increased packing effort, and/or changes to the despatch method) which have a material impact on the costs of the fulfilment. Definitive costs must be fully captured and made clear to and agreed by the customer

In short, the fulfilment record might already have charges recorded on it - in which case they must be verified, and if necessary altered and communicated to the client for approval, and approval documented.

Alternatively, the fulfilment record might not have any charges yet recorded - in which case they must be recorded, communicated to the client for approval, and approval documented.

About this Task

This topic outlines how to update strokeone to record fulfilment charges and record that the client has approved the charges.`
Note: that fulfilment charges can be entered in two layouts:-

• Via the Fulfilment list layout.
• Via the Fulfilment Prices tab on the detail form.
  

Both methods are outlined below - it is worth remarking that they are functionally identical.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have opened the Fulfilment list layout.

Procedure for entering via the Fulfilment list layout.

1. Identify the fulfilment that you wish to enter finalised charges on.
   
2. Click the Details button for the record identified.
   
   
3. In the Details pop up window, ensure that you select the Charge tab
   
   
4. Be Mindful, that there are three likely chargeable components that can constitute the costs for a fulfilment :-
   1. Delivery Costs - typically these will refer to the costs of the courier tasked with delivering the fulfilment, and these will vary according to the courier used, the speed of the delivery (same day, overnight, standard etc.) as well as the destination.
   2. Packing Costs - typically these refer to the time effort (organising, packing and labelling) involved in physically assembling the fulfilment for despatch. As a general rule, as the complexity of a fulfilment rises (i.e. number of splits) so does the attendant packing time costs.
   3. Packing Material Costs - these typically refer to the cost of the packing materials. If new and/or specialised boxes / packing materials are required, then the costs of supplying these are recorded and passed on as chargeable elements to the customer.

    

5. To record a fulfilment cost click the new record icon to the right, which inserts a new charge record against the fulfilment.
   

6. Bearing in mind the cost types, populate this row as follows:-
   

   Field	Comments
   Delivery	This should be pre-populated with the Company name as defined on the fulfilment delivery record. Enhancement: What is the purpose of showing this here ? - and why is it called delivery ?
   Type	This is where you record the category of cost for the fulfilment. Click in the drop-down  and select the appropriate value from the list:- Delivery Packing Materials Packing Time Enhancement: there needs to be a way of either adding to this list, or adding a value of "other"
   Description	This should have defaulted with the following data:- <Type>&<Company>&<Category>&<delivery_description>&<delivery_method>&<fulfilment_id> This text string will be included on the invoice that is passed to the customer, so it is worth reviewing this to ensure that it is accurate, clear and meaningful.    If necessary you can overwrite this string, but ensure that should you do so, that your entry is helpful and clear.
   Produced	Enter here the quantity for the type of fulfilment cost that you are recording. For example, if you selected a Type of Delivery, you would record here the quantity of courier services that were used for the delivery Similarly,if you selected a Type of Packing Time, you would record here the number of billable hours packing time for the fulfilment.
   Unit Cost	This is an optional field. It records the internal cost per unit that is being charged.
   Unit Price	This is a mandatory field, and records the billable cost per unit of the charge that will be invoiced to the customer. For example, for a charge of delivery - record here the cost of one unit of the courier service. If the charge is for packing time, record here the cost of one hour of packing time.
   Total Cost	This is system calculated and not user editable. (Produced * Unit Price)

    
    
7. Repeat steps, 5) to 6) until all charges for the fulfilment are recorded.
   
8. Using an example of a fulfilment that had a courier charge of £45.00, two hours packing time of £20 per hour, and Twelve boxes at 75pence each it would look like the following:-
   
   
9. Once the finalised charges have been fully entered, the costs should be emailed to the client as per steps 19 to 21) and the fulfilment marked as ready for invoice as outlined below.

Procedure for entering via the Detail Form

10. Identify the fulfilment that you wish to enter finalised charges on.
    
11. Click the open record icon for the Fulfilment record identified in step 10) to open up the Job Order detail form.
    
    
12. From within the detail form, navigate to the Fulfilments Prices tab. It will look something like the following.
    

Layout Composition
Take a moment to familiarise yourself with the layout contents.

The left pane (1) shows the Fulfilment records on the job order. If there are numerous fulfilment record for this job order (i.e. a one to many) they will be listed here.

The right hand pane (2) provides a portal to record fulfilment charges.

Notes:   
The fulfilment charges pane (2) is not populated, until a fulfilment has been selected for view (by clicking its view button) in the left pane (1).
The charges (2) are unique per fulfilment record. That is, they are linked to whichever fulfilment in the left pane (1) is being viewed.

13. Click the view button in the fulfilment records pane (1) to select the fulfilment record to record costs on.
    Note: the Description and Date fields will highlight to denote that the record is selected
    
    
    
14. To record a fulfilment cost click the new record icon in the fulfilment charges (2) pane:
    
15. This inserts a new record into the charges pane:-
    
    
16. Record the details of the charges  - the process is identical to that outlined in step 6) above
    
17. Repeat steps, 14 to 16) until all charges for the fulfilment are recorded.
    
18. Using an example of a fulfilment that had a courier charge of £45.00, two hours packing time of £20 per hour, and Twelve boxes at 75pence each it would look like the following:-
    
    

Communicating Fulfilment Costs to client for approval

19. The fulfilment costs should be communicated to the client to ensure that they are aware and approve. Depending on the client, you may wish to refer this task to the internal salesperson recorded on the job order.
    
    

20. As a mechanism to notify the client of these costs at this point you could click on the email button in the fulfilment records pane on the Fulfilments tab.
    
    
    which will automatically generate an email with the recorded costs (as well as a delivery note)
    click for example.

     

    
    (Note: the email button generates but does not send the email)

     

Recording Client Approval

21. Once client approval for the charges have been obtained, this should t be recorded.
    A suggested way to do this is to use the Delivery Notes field on the Fulfilments Pane..
    A suggested syntax is to record:-
    Costs approved by <client_approver_name> on <date> via <approval_method>
    e.g.:-
    
    
    

Marking as Ready for Invoice

Once the delivery costs have been finalised and entered and client approved - (see note below), the fulfilment is in a state where it can be invoiced. In order to communicate this status to the Accounts department, the invoice needs to be marked as ready to invoice.
Notes

There can be cases where there are no fulfilment costs in which case, the fulfilment can be marked as ready to invoice per the below process

A fulfilment can be marked as ready to invoice directly from within the Fulfilment Prices tab, or from the Fulfilment list layout. It is functionally identical.

To record this within the Fulfilment Prices tab, follow these steps:-

• Ensure that you click the view button for the fulfilment record that you wish to mark as ready for invoice
  
  Check to see that the costs are accurately recorded.
  

• Click the Ready to Invoice button for the fulfilment record selected above.
  

• Note the following occurs:-

• The Ready to Invoice status icon updates to Green (Completed) in the fulfilment records pane.

• The Ready to Invoice button disables

• The Ready to Invoice status icon for each of the fulfilment's charges also updates to Green Completed in the fulfilment charges pane
  
  

To mark as ready for Invoice from the Fulfilment List layout,  follow these steps:-

• Ensure that you have located the record that you wish to update.

• Click the Invoice button for the record
  

• Note the following occurs:-

• The Invoice status icon updates to Green (Completed) in the fulfilment list layout.

• The Invoice button disables
  

• The Ready to Invoice status icon for each of the fulfilment's individual charges also updates to Green Completed
  
  

Related Topics

Marking a Fulfilment as Ready to Invoice from Fulfilment List Layout.