Understanding Order Releases
You can have orders on hold for several reasons. For example, you can hold orders that do not meet margin requirements, or that exceed a customer's credit limit. When an order is on hold, you must release it back into the processing cycle for any additional processing to take place. You do this using the Release Holds program (P43070) or the Batch Release Credit Holds program (R42550).
You can place a variety of holds on an order, including:
Customer holds, such as credit holds.
Item holds, such as detail lines that do not meet the margin requirements.
Order holds, such as orders that do not meet minimum amounts or that exceed maximum limits.
If you activate the JDESOENTRY workflow process, the system processes the order through order hold checking. After you click OK to accept the order, the system checks the processing options for hold codes and compares the order against the order hold information.
If the system puts the order on hold, it sends an E-mail message to the address book number defined in the hold code as the person responsible. This message indicates that the order is on hold. The person responsible for releasing the orders can use the work center to review messages sent during the workflow process and to access the orders to release. When you release the order, the system sends an E-mail message to the salesperson, defined in the commission fields and the sold to number, indicating that the order is being processed.
You must release an order from hold to return it to the processing cycle. For example, if you enter an order for a customer who has exceeded their credit limit, the system places the order on hold. When the customer makes a payment, their credit status changes and their orders can be filled. However, the system does not process this customer's orders until you release them. You must have appropriate security access to release an order. You can release items and orders for customers as many times as necessary. You can print the Print Held Sales Order report (R42640) to review all sales orders that are on hold.
To speed up the order release process, you can select and release orders based on the parent address book number.
Additionally, you can use the Batch Release Credit Holds program (R42550) to release sales orders on credit hold. The program releases sales orders based on the pick date and customer credit limit. When the customer submits a payment to satisfy outstanding invoices and has a credit balance to apply toward the existing sales order, the program reviews sales order detail lines by pick date. The program releases sales orders from hold using the earliest pick date on the order detail line.
See Setting Up Branch Sales Markups.
(Release 9.2 Update 26) You can use the Batch Release Credit Holds program (R42550) to release held orders, up to a cumulative amount that does not exceed the customer's available credit limit, even if the customer's total exposure exceeds the credit limit.
For example, customer A has a credit limit of $100,000. Customer A’s exposure includes:
- Receivables: $15,000
- Active Orders: $65,000
- Held Orders: $30,000
Total exposure = receivables + active orders + held orders = $110,000
Available credit = credit limit - (receivables + active orders) = $20,000
With this enhancement in R42550, you can release up to $20,000 of the held orders. The rest remain on hold, keeping the customer within the $100,000 credit limit.