Sales from order to payment: process overview

What the sales process in Bimp is

The sales process in Bimp is a sequence of linked documents, each responsible for its own part of the deal: agreement and reservation, money, shipment, return. The documents do not duplicate each other: the next one is created based on the previous one and takes the customer, contract, items, and prices from it. All articles in this section are listed on the “Sales” page.

The basic chain:

1. Customer order: the agreement, the invoice, the goods reservation.
2. Customer payment: receipt of money, closing the debt.
3. Sales of goods and services (for services, a certificate of completed work): the fact of shipment, writing off from the warehouse, revenue, and the customer’s debt.
4. Customer return and Customer refund: if the customer cancelled the purchase.

Bimp has no separate Invoice document: an invoice is a print form of the customer order; see Printing an invoice and a delivery note, and exporting to Excel.

What happens at each step

Each document changes its own part of the accounting: reserve, debt, or stock. The table shows exactly what.

Step	Document	Reserve	Warehouse	Customer debt	Money
1	Customer order	goods from the “Reserve” column are reserved	the balance does not change, the free balance decreases	does not arise	expected payment in the payment calendar (if ticked)
2	Customer payment	does not change	does not change	decreases (or an advance arises on overpayment)	received to the account or the cash desk
3	Sales of goods and services / certificate	the reserve is written off	goods are written off the warehouse	arises: the customer owes the sale amount	do not change
4	Customer return	n/a	goods return to the warehouse	decreases by the return amount	do not change
5	Customer refund	n/a	n/a	settlements are updated	money is paid out to the customer
6	Closing the order (“Completed” status)	released if any is left	n/a	n/a	n/a

Step 1. Customer order: agreement, invoice, and reservation

A customer order records what the customer wants to buy, at what price, and from which warehouse. After saving, it gets the status “New”.

• Reservation. The quantity in the “Reserve” column does not go into the free balance, so another manager will not sell the same goods. “Reservation days” limits the period; 0 means an unlimited reservation. In detail: Reserving goods.
• Invoice. The print form of the order is the invoice for the customer.
• The warehouse does not move. The goods physically stay in the warehouse until a sale is created.

If the goods are not in stock, you can still create the order; see Selling goods that are out of stock. Discounts and prices are set in the order. The warehouse can be filled in automatically: Automatic warehouse selection by line of business.

Step 2. Customer payment: money and debt

A Customer payment records that the customer has paid and closes their debt for orders. You create the document from an order row (the Customer payment icon), from Sales → Payments, or from Finance → Settlements with counterparties.

• One payment can be distributed among several orders; an amount that exceeds the debt becomes an advance under the contract. See Customer payment, advances, and overpayments.
• You can create several payments for one order, for example when the customer pays in parts.
• A payment does not write goods off the warehouse and does not release the reservation: it affects only settlements.
• Payment in another currency, or for several orders in different currencies: One payment for several orders in different currencies.

You can record a payment both before shipment (prepayment) and after it. The order of steps 2 and 3 depends on the terms of the deal.

Step 3. Shipment: Sales of goods and services

The Sales of goods and services document is the fact of shipping goods or providing a service. It is what writes goods off the warehouse and records revenue and the customer’s receivable. Without it, the goods stay on the company balance even if they have already been handed to the customer.

• You create it with the Create based on button in the order or with the sale icon in the order row; items, prices, and the extended description are transferred automatically.
• For a partial shipment, change the quantity in the document: you can create several sales for one order.
• For services, the same document records the provision of the service; the print form is the “Certificate of completed work”. The document date must equal the date the service was provided; you cannot create it with a future date. See Certificate of completed work.
• Packing an order with a scanner: Packing an order with a scanner.

After the sale, the customer’s debt appears (if payment has not arrived yet) or is closed by a payment entered earlier. You can see it in the “Settlements with customers” report; the sale appears in the “Sales” report (Sales report).

Step 4. Return: goods and money

A return cancels a sale fully or partially and consists of two separate documents.

What is returned	Document	What it changes
Goods	Customer return: created from the Sales → Returns tab, the items are pulled in from the sale	goods return to the warehouse, the customer’s debt decreases
Money	Customer refund: from the “Returns” tab or from Finance → Settlements with counterparties	money is paid to the customer, settlements are updated

If the customer has already paid and returned the goods, you need both documents: otherwise the cash desk will show money that is no longer actually there. For returning a specific series from a sold batch, there is a separate guide: Returning a specific series.

Step 5. Closing the order

You close an order when the goods are shipped (the service is provided) and the money is received. To do this, change its status to “Completed” (or another status with the “Closed order” switch on): the remaining reservation is released, and the order goes to the archive and is hidden from the list. To see the archive, click Archive above the order list. Statuses and automatic release of the reservation are described in Order statuses.

How documents are linked to each other

The documents of the chain are linked by the “Create based on” function: the new document remembers which one it was created from and takes the customer, contract, and items from it. From a customer order you can create a sale, a Customer payment, a Supplier order (if there are not enough goods), and a Stock transfer; the list of available documents depends on the current document type. In more detail: Creating a document based on another.

You can see the whole chain on the “Links” tab of the customer order: this is a tree of linked documents. Above the tree there are the buttons “Expand all”, “Collapse all”, “Refresh” and a “Search” field by document number or counterparty. If you have just created a document in another tab, click “Refresh”.


Example. A manager opens an order for 12,400 UAH and on the “Links” tab sees a Customer payment and a Supplier order, but does not see a Sales of goods and services document. Conclusion: the money has arrived, the goods were ordered from the supplier, and nothing has been shipped to the customer yet. See Links tab.

Typical scenarios

Situation	Which documents to create
Prepayment, then shipment	order → payment → sale
Shipment with deferred payment	order → sale → payment after the deferral
Payment in parts	order → several payments (different amounts) → sale
Service	order → sale with the “Certificate of completed work” print → payment
Goods not in stock	order → Supplier order based on the order → sale after receipt
The customer returned goods after paying	Customer return → Customer refund
The customer cancelled before shipment	change the order status to a cancelled one (releases the reservation); if payment was already made, a Customer refund

Additional features

• Bulk printing of documents and waybills: Bulk document printing, Printing a waybill (form 1-TN).
• Export documents: Proforma invoice and packing list.
• Planning sales targets for a period: Sales plan.
• Selling without your own warehouse: Dropshipping and the commission agent price list.