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Order/Quote/Status is a web-based application that enables customers to purchase items over the Internet from a seller. In response to customer selections, sales orders or sales quotes are created. Once created, customers continue to have 24/7 access to all their own sales orders and sales quotes and can track the status of any pending shipments.
Shopping Cart
Each customer uses a 'shopping cart' to select items for purchase. Cart selections are preserved between login sessions. Once customers are ready to finalize customer selections, customers can process the cart as either a sales quote or a sales order.
Quick Add
Items and item quantities are added to the cart using a Quick Add feature. Customers can search for items using the seller's name for an item, or the customer's own name for these same items, if the seller has enabled this feature. As soon as a customer adds an item, the price is displayed.
Item Details
At any time customers can click an item to see a detailed description. This includes the item's dimensions, unit price and available quantity. If the seller has provided an image or drawing specification, these are included as well.
Related Items
The seller can display a list of suggested 'related items' for any of the items customers have added to a cart, quote or order. Customers can add a related item to a cart, order or quote.
Configured Items
The items customers select can include configured items. If a 'Configure' hyperlink displays next to an item selection, customers can click the Configure hyperlink to launch the Configurator application. This specialized application walks customers through a series of choices about the features customers would like to include with their item. Once the customer's choices are completed, the item is configured for customers.
Processing Orders and Quotes
Customers create an order or quote as follows:
Shipments
Customers can ship material to a default ship-to location or create a one item ship-to location and apply it to a single line or the entire order or quote.
Order/Quote/Status provides the status of shipments by sales order, order line, delivery line and ship sequence number. If a shipping carrier maintains a URL, a customer can link to it immediately to determine the status of an in transit bill of lading on the carrier's website.
Changing an Order or Quote
Customers can change an existing order or quote by adding it to a cart. The cart must be empty of any other items, order or quote, or this feature is disabled. Once the order or quote is added to the cart, processing of changes to the order or quote is similar to creating a new one.
Quote Conversion
If the seller has granted a customer security access, the customer can convert a sales quote into an order. Otherwise a sales person must convert sales quotes created by the customer into sales orders.
Status
The status menu enables customers to check the status of orders, products and their customer information, without necessarily being able to create or modify orders and quotes.
Consigned Inventory
Customer Portal supports the sale of consigned inventory to the customer. A customer can create a sales order and receive material shipped by the seller but pay for it only after the customer reports consumption of the material. Customer Portal provides specialized inventory menu options that report consigned inventory quantities received and consigned inventory quantities consumed.
Invoices
Once an order is shipped, the seller creates an invoice for customer purchase. Customers can review any invoices outstanding for the purchases customers have made.
Returns
Customers can request a return of item quantities. If security access has been granted, customers can be authorized to return materials without having to request a return. Once a return request or authorized return is processed in Order/Quote/Status, the seller continues to process the return internally.
Login
To login, a Customer Portal user must enter a company name, user name and password. These login requirements are defined by the seller. Customers should contact their sales person to obtain this information.
Comments and Notes
Order/Quote/Status provides extensive free-form text areas for customer comments and shipping notes.
Customer Profile
The customer profile displays the customer's contact information, bill-to information and ship-to information.
Customer Switch
An advanced feature called 'Customer Switch' enables customers to switch between the buying locations defined for a customer user ID. Customers can also select the factory material is shipped from.