Sales Order

The Sales order, sometimes abbreviated as SO, is an order issued by a business to a customer. A sales order may be for products and/or services. Given the wide variety of businesses, this means that the orders can be fulfilled in several ways. Broadly, the fulfillment modes, based on the relationship between the order receipt and production, are as follows:

• Digital copy - Where prices are digital and inventory is maintained with a single digital master. Copies are made on demand in real time and instantly delivered to customers.
• Build to stock - Where products are built and stocked in anticipation of demand. Most products for the consumer would fall into this category
• Build to order - Where products are built based on orders received. This is most prevalent for custom parts where the designs are known beforehand.
• Configure-to-order - Where products are configured or assembled to meet unique customer requirements e.g. Computers
• Engineer to order - Where some amount of product design work is done after receiving the order