What is Sales Order?

A sales order is an internal document created by the seller to confirm and process a customer’s purchase. It captures the complete details of the transaction: which products are being sold, in what quantities, at what prices, the shipping method, delivery address, and payment terms. Sales orders serve as the authoritative record that drives warehouse fulfillment, invoicing, and inventory deduction.

Why It Matters

Sales orders are the backbone of order management. They translate customer intent (the purchase) into operational action (the fulfillment). In multichannel operations, sales orders are created from various sources—your Shopify store, Amazon Marketplace, eBay, wholesale portals, phone orders—and must all flow into a unified system for consistent processing. Without centralized sales order management, multichannel businesses face duplicate orders, missed orders, and inconsistent fulfillment.

How It Works

• Order Creation: Sales orders are generated automatically from e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, or created manually for phone, email, or wholesale orders.
• Validation: The system validates payment status, inventory availability, shipping address accuracy, and any business rules (credit limits, restricted items) before accepting the order.
• Fulfillment Trigger: Validated sales orders enter the fulfillment queue, where they are prioritized, batched, and assigned to the appropriate warehouse for picking and packing.
• Invoicing: Once shipped, the sales order triggers invoice generation and revenue recognition in the accounting system.
• Completion: The sales order is marked complete when the customer receives the goods and the payment is settled.

How Nventory Helps

Nventory centralizes sales orders from all connected channels into a single dashboard, automatically validating, prioritizing, and routing them for fulfillment. The system ensures consistent processing regardless of which channel the order originated from, eliminating the chaos of managing separate order queues for each marketplace.