A delivery order records the quantities you actually deliver to a customer against an invoice. It is a dispatch and fulfilment document: it tracks how much of what you invoiced has left your hands, line by line, so you can see what is still to be delivered. A storekeeper, a dispatcher, or the salesperson usually raises delivery orders as goods go out.
A delivery order posts nothing. It has no ledger effect, no customer balance, and moves no stock, because the stock already left inventory when you raised the invoice. All a delivery order does is record the delivered quantity against each invoice line. You can deliver an invoice in full on one delivery order, or in parts across several as the goods go out.
A delivery order is always built from an invoice, never from a quotation or a sales order. You raise it from the Invoice, which is where the stock actually moved, so its lines are the invoice lines you are dispatching.
Find delivery orders under Sales & Customer → Delivery Order.
Before you start
- An invoice must already exist for the customer, with lines that have not yet been fully delivered. A delivery order can only pull lines from invoices; you cannot type a product onto it by hand.
- The lines you can deliver are the invoice's stock lines. Only products of inventory type Inventory or Non-Inventory can be delivered. Service lines are excluded, since there is nothing to dispatch.
- The customer you are delivering to must exist in Customers. A delivery order covers one customer, and can draw lines from one or more of that customer's undelivered invoices.
- Each line needs a location, which prefills from the invoice line. The header Location is required to save.
- You need the Create Delivery Orders permission, granted per user under Permissions. List Delivery Orders lets you open the screen, and Edit, Delete, View, and Print Delivery Orders cover the rest. To raise one from the invoices list you also need List Invoices to see the invoices. See Users, seats & permissions.
A delivery order records dispatch, it posts nothing
Saving a delivery order does not touch your accounts and does not move any stock. The stock left inventory when you raised the invoice; the delivery order only records how much of each invoiced line you have actually delivered. It also does not change the invoice's status.
Raise a delivery order
There are two ways to start a delivery order. Both pull their lines from the customer's invoices; they differ only in where you begin.
From the invoices list
Select the invoices to deliver
On the Invoices list, tick the checkbox on each invoice you are delivering. Select more than one only if they are for the same customer.
Create the delivery order
Select Create Delivery Order. The delivery order form opens pre-filled with the customer, the billing and delivery addresses, the sales rep, and one line for each undelivered invoice line, each quantity pre-scaled to what is still to be delivered.
From the delivery orders list
Open a new delivery order
Go to Sales & Customer → Delivery Order and select New Delivery Order. The delivery order form opens.
Check the template
The Template picker sits in the toolbar at the top of the form. ZyncLedger pre-selects your default delivery order template, so you can usually leave it. The template decides which fields the form shows and how the printed note looks; switch it here if you keep more than one layout. See Print templates for how these are set up.
Choose the customer
Select the Customer (required). ZyncLedger fills the Billing Address and Delivery Address from the customer's record and sets the Sales Representative to the customer's default. The customer's Balance and Credit Limit show for reference. Picking the customer opens the Select items from undelivered Invoices dialog (see the next step). Changing the customer clears any lines already added, because they belong to a different customer's invoices.
Pick the invoice lines to deliver
In the Select items from undelivered Invoices dialog, ZyncLedger lists every line from this customer's invoices that still has quantity left to deliver. Each row shows the Invoice #, Date, Product, Ordered Qty, Delivered Qty (already delivered on earlier delivery orders), Remaining Qty, and a Delivery Qty you can edit. Tick each line you are delivering and set its Delivery Qty, capped at the remaining quantity, then select Add Selected Items. To add more lines later, pick the customer again to reopen the dialog.
Set the delivery details
Fill the header fields:
Field What it does Delivery Order Date (required) The date of the delivery. Transaction Number Identifies the delivery order. In Automatic mode (the default) it shows Auto-generated and ZyncLedger assigns the next number on save; in Manual mode you type a number that must be unique across all transactions. See Document numbering. Location (required) The location the goods leave from. It prefills each line's location. Delivery Order Reference Your own reference for the delivery, such as a dispatch or vehicle note number. Branch The branch to attribute the delivery to, for reporting. Sales Representative The rep to credit for the delivery. Prefilled from the customer's default. Check the lines
The items table shows one row per invoice line you added. The Product, Description, and Location are taken from the invoice and cannot be changed here. Only the Quantity is editable, and it is capped at that line's remaining (undelivered) quantity, so you cannot deliver more than was invoiced. Use the trash icon at the end of a row to drop a line. The Summary on the right totals the Total Items and Total Quantity.
Add delivery notes (optional)
Use Delivery Order Notes at the foot of the form for dispatch or handling instructions. If you keep standard wording, pick it from the note selector to autofill; a note marked default fills in on its own for a new delivery order.
Save
Select Save to save the delivery order, Save & New to save and start another, Save & Close to save and close the form, or Save & Print to save and print the delivery note. The delivery order saves with a status of Open.
What it does (and what it does not post)
Saving a delivery order records the delivered quantity against each invoice line it covers. That is its whole effect. It does not post to the ledger, does not change the customer's balance, and does not move any stock. The stock already left inventory on the invoice; the delivery order is a record of dispatch, not a second stock movement.
For each line, ZyncLedger adds the delivered quantity to that invoice line's running delivered total. That total is what the undelivered-items dialog reads when you deliver against the same invoice again, so the next delivery order only offers the remainder. When an invoice line's delivered quantity reaches its invoiced quantity, the line no longer appears as available to deliver.
Delivering does not change the invoice's status
An invoice's status tracks how much of it has been settled by a Customer Receipt or an Invoice Credit, not how much has been delivered. Recording a delivery order against an invoice leaves the invoice's status where it was. Delivery and settlement are tracked separately.
Partial and multiple deliveries
You do not have to deliver an invoice in one go. Each line's delivery quantity is capped at its remaining amount, which is the invoiced quantity minus what earlier delivery orders already delivered, so you can dispatch part now and the rest later on further delivery orders. A single delivery order can also cover lines from more than one of the same customer's invoices, so you can dispatch several invoices together.
Delivery order status
A delivery order saves with a status of Open and stays there. Recording deliveries does not advance it, so a live delivery order is always Open until it is deleted, at which point it becomes Deleted. The status filter on the delivery orders list also offers Partial and Closed, but delivery orders do not reach those states.
Tips & gotchas
Deliver from the invoice you shipped against
A delivery order always starts from an invoice, because that is where the stock moved. There is no way to raise one from a quotation or a sales order: confirm and bill first, then record the dispatch against the invoice.
You cannot deliver more than was invoiced
Each line's delivery quantity is capped at the invoiced quantity minus what has already been delivered. ZyncLedger blocks a delivery order that would push a line over its invoiced quantity. To deliver more, raise or amend the invoice first.
Deleting a delivery order frees the delivered quantity
Deleting a delivery order sets its status to Deleted and zeroes its quantities; the record is kept so its history and number stay intact. The delivered quantity it recorded is given back to the invoice lines, so those quantities become available to deliver again. ZyncLedger blocks the deletion if the delivery order's date falls in a period closed by the Ledger close date. Editing a delivery order likewise adjusts the invoice lines' delivered quantities to match, and is blocked in a closed period.
Related
- Invoice is the document a delivery order is always built from, and is where the stock actually leaves inventory.
- Customers are the parties you deliver to, and carry the addresses and default sales rep that prefill the delivery order.
- Products & Items are the lines you deliver; only Inventory and Non-Inventory products can be delivered, not Service lines.
- Warehouses & Locations are where the goods leave from.
- Invoice Credit is the document to raise instead if goods come back rather than go out; it reverses the sale and takes stock back in.
- Document numbering controls the delivery order's transaction number.
