From inquiry to collection, one flow
Order-to-Cash is the spine of revenue — it starts when a customer asks for a price and ends when the cash clears the bank. It runs through sales, stores, dispatch and finance, and on most ERPs it runs in fragments: a quote in one system, a credit check in another, dispatch on paper and ageing in a spreadsheet. Compreo runs the whole sequence as one connected flow, so every sales order carries its price, its credit standing, its stock commitment and its receivable from the first inquiry to the final collection.
The order, from first inquiry to cleared cash
Eight stages, one record. The same order object moves end to end — no re-keying between sales, dispatch and finance, and no document that exists only in someone's inbox.
Inquiry
Capture the customer's requirement against the right item, UOM and price list before anyone commits.
Quotation
Price it from the live price book with discounts and tax, send it, and track it against an expiry.
Sales Order
Confirm the quote into a firm order with a credit check at the gate, not after dispatch.
Availability (ATP)
Check available-to-promise against stock, in-transit and planned supply, and give a real commit date.
Delivery / Dispatch
Pick, pack and ship; the delivery note draws from the order, so what leaves the dock matches what was sold.
Invoice
Bill straight from the delivery, so quantity, price and tax reconcile without a manual cross-check.
Receipt
Apply customer payments to open invoices, full or part, with the balance always visible.
Collections
Chase overdue receivables on a live ageing view, by customer and by bucket.
Where order-to-cash usually leaks
The failures are rarely in selling. They are in the seams between sales, dispatch and finance — and each seam costs either margin or cash.
Credit checks bypassed
Orders get confirmed and shipped before anyone confirms the customer can pay. The exposure only surfaces when the invoice ages, and by then the goods are gone and the limit is blown.
Pricing errors
Quotes priced off a stale sheet, the wrong discount applied, tax computed by hand. The order books at a number nobody can defend, and the margin is lost before the first delivery.
Dispatch vs invoice mismatch
The delivery note says one quantity, the invoice says another, the UOM doesn't line up. Customers dispute, payments stall, and finance spends the month reconciling instead of collecting.
Ageing not visible
Receivables sit in a spreadsheet that is always one day behind. Nobody knows which buckets are slipping until DSO has already moved, so collections chase blind.
One record, checked at every gate
Each stage hands a complete, validated order to the next — the controls live in the flow, not in someone's discipline.
- Priced once, correctly — quotations pull from the live price book with discount and tax logic, so the number on the quote is the number that books and the number that bills.
- Credit at the gate — the sales order runs a credit check against the customer's limit and open exposure before it can be confirmed; blocks route to finance, not around them.
- A real commit date — ATP checks stock, in-transit and planned supply before promising, so dispatch dates are honest and make-to-order lines feed straight into planning.
- Dispatch drives the invoice — the invoice is raised from the actual delivery, so quantity, UOM and price reconcile by construction and disputes drop.
- Cash applied, ageing live — receipts settle against open invoices and the ageing view updates in real time, so collections work from one current source.
The same flow, shaped to the business
Order-to-cash is make-to-order as often as off-the-shelf. ATP reads against planned production and component stock, so the commit date reflects what the shop floor can actually build, and the sales order feeds the production plan directly.
Revenue is recognised as work is done, not as goods ship. Billing runs as progress billing against the BOQ and WBS, with certified quantities driving the invoice and retention tracked through to final collection.
The order arrives at the counter and the table. POS and member billing post folio and outlet charges into the same receivables ledger, so banquet, room and membership dues age and collect on one view.
The modules behind the flow
Order-to-Cash is not one module — it is four working in step. Sales runs the front of the flow, stores commits and ships the stock, finance bills and collects, and the portal puts the order in the customer's hands.
What changes when it runs as one flow
See Order-to-Cash running on your data
Bring a real order — from inquiry to collection — and we will run it end to end on Compreo.