Order lifecycle
Every status an order passes through, who moves it on, what each signer checks, and what happens when the books leave the warehouse.
An order goes from a rep's draft to a dispatched consignment, and three different desks act on it. This page is the full description of that path. The Orders page covers raising one, and Dispatch covers packing one.
The path
The name under each badge is who moves the order on from there. PART DISPATCHED happens only when the warehouse sends part of the order and the rest is still owed. The last consignment is the last step: nobody signs it off afterwards. An approver can send it back as REJECTED at either signature, and it can be CANCELLED at any point before anything is dispatched.
The order is invoiced only as it is dispatched, consignment by consignment, and only an order that has cleared both signatures can be dispatched. So nothing is billed that the warehouse never packed, and what is billed is what was packed.
Statuses
The badge text below is exactly what the app shows.
| Status | What it means | Who acts next | What they can do |
|---|---|---|---|
| DRAFT | Raised and saved, not yet submitted. Still yours to change. | The rep who raised it | Edit order, Submit for approval, Cancel order |
| PENDING | Waiting on the rep's manager. | A manager above the rep, or an administrator | Approve (naming who packs it), or reject |
| WITH ADMIN | The manager has approved it. Waiting on an administrator's final approval. | Any administrator | Approve, or reject |
| APPROVED | Approved by an administrator, but nobody is named to pack it. You only see this on orders approved under the older one-signature flow. | A manager | Assign to dispatch |
| ASSIGNED | With the named dispatch employee, waiting to be packed. | That dispatch employee, or an administrator | Record the dispatch |
| PART DISPATCHED | Part of it has been sent and invoiced. The rest is still owed, and follows on this order when the stock arrives. | That dispatch employee, or an administrator | Dispatch the balance, or Close the balance. The rep and their manager can close it too. |
| DISPATCHED | Every book has been packed, handed to the carrier and invoiced, or the balance was closed. This is the last step. Nothing more happens to the order. | Nobody | |
| COMPLETED | Dispatched, and signed off by a manager before the dispatch became the last step. It means the same as DISPATCHED. | Nobody | |
| REJECTED | Sent back by the manager or the administrator, usually with a note. | The rep who raised it | Edit order, Resubmit for approval, Cancel order |
| CANCELLED | Stopped before anything was dispatched. It will never be dispatched or invoiced. | Nobody |
The final approval normally moves the order from WITH ADMIN straight to ASSIGNED, because the dispatch employee was already named at the manager's approval. The order's history shows both steps.
The progress tracker
Every order page opens with a strip of five milestones. Steps behind the order are filled in and stamped with the time, the one it is waiting on is ringed, and later ones are empty. Each step has two captions: one for when it has happened, and one for while you wait for it.
| Milestone | When it has happened | While you wait for it |
|---|---|---|
| Order placed | Submitted for approval | Not submitted yet |
| Manager approved | Validated by the manager | Waiting for your manager's decision |
| Admin approved | Approved by an administrator | Waiting for an administrator to approve |
| With dispatch | Assigned to the dispatch team | Waiting to reach the dispatch team |
| Dispatched & invoiced | Packed, handed to the carrier and invoiced | Waiting for the dispatch team to pack it |
Once the order is dispatched, every step is filled in. While it is PART DISPATCHED, Dispatched & invoiced stays the current step.
The strip adds a line under some steps: who approved it, Waiting on and the approver it was sent to, Waiting on an administrator during the final approval, the dispatch employee's name under With dispatch, and the courier, docket number and invoice number under Dispatched & invoiced. For an order sent in parts, that line says how far it has got instead, for example "5 of 10 books sent in 1 consignment".
A rejected or cancelled order shows the step it stopped at as broken. The strip reads the whole history, so an order cancelled while it sat with the warehouse still shows every step it passed before that. A cancelled order also says This order was cancelled and will not be dispatched.
The order page also shows Waiting on in its details: the approver it was sent to while it waits for the manager, or "an administrator" while it waits for the final approval.
1. Raise and submit
Any employee can raise an order. It starts as DRAFT, and only the person who raised it can change it or submit it. Each book is priced at its catalogue list price, and the discounts you give move it from there, to no more than the discount cap in all: 40% unless an administrator has changed it under Settings. A title that has been withdrawn from the catalogue can't be ordered.
An order can't be submitted until the dealer's order is attached: a screenshot of the WhatsApp message or email it came in, or the PDF. The approvers check the books against it. A draft can be saved without it.
Before it goes, the rep checks the order against the dealer's order once more: the school, every title and every quantity are listed beside it, and Submit for approval waits for the rep to tick that they match. Changing any of them clears the tick.
Submit for approval sends the order to your approver, by email and in the bell. Your approver is the first manager up your reporting line, or the administrators if you have none. The line at the foot of the sidebar, Approvals go to …, names them. See Approvals and the reporting line.
If the order is billed to a name you typed rather than picked, submitting it also puts that name in front of the administrators as a new billing party. See Bill to and ship to.
2. The manager's approval
The rep's manager decides whether the order is sound, and who will pack it.
| Where | What the manager sees |
|---|---|
| Approvals → Orders, then Review on the row | Packed by, Note (optional), Approve, Reject |
| The order page, under Awaiting your approval | Packed by, Note (optional), Approve order, Reject |
| The Android app, Approvals → Orders | The same decision on the phone. See Approvals on the app. |
What to check before approving:
- Disc. is every discount on the order together, as a share of the list price: each book's own discount and the additional one.
- Value is the order's total.
- Bill to carries a New billing party badge when the rep typed a name that is not on the dealer list.
- Ship to carries a Custom delivery address badge when the books go to a name and address the rep typed rather than a school. Nothing on the register vouches for that address, so the approvers are the only check on where the stock goes.
Packed by is required to approve. The manager knows both the patch and the warehouse, so naming the dispatch employee here means an approved order never waits for somebody to remember to hand it over. If the list is empty, the order page says No dispatch employees exist yet — add one in Admin → Executives with the DISPATCH role.
Approving moves the order to WITH ADMIN. The rep is told their manager approved it, and the administrators are asked to approve.
A manager can't approve their own order. It goes to their own reporting manager, and SalesYatra says so if they try: "You cannot approve your own order — it goes to your reporting manager."
3. The administrator's final approval
The final approval is a company control, so it goes to the administrators as a group. Any administrator can give it, and the first one who does closes it for the rest.
| Where | What the administrator sees |
|---|---|
| Approvals → Orders to approve (administrators only), then Review | The manager's figures plus To be packed by, Note (optional), Approve, Reject |
| The order page, under Awaiting your final approval | Who approved it and who will pack it, Note (optional), Approve order, Reject |
| The Android app, Approvals → To approve | Approve, Reject |
Approving does three things at once:
- It releases the order to the dispatch employee the manager named, so it goes straight to ASSIGNED. That employee is told the order is theirs, with a link to their dispatch queue.
- It adds a typed billing name to the dealer list, so the next rep can pick it.
- It tells the rep the order is approved.
A manager who opens the order in the meantime sees Waiting on an administrator: it goes to the warehouse the moment an administrator approves it.
4. Dispatch and invoice
Only the dispatch employee the order was handed to, or an administrator, can record its dispatch. They do it from Dispatch → To pack with Dispatch & invoice on the order's row, or from the order page with Record dispatch.
The dispatch records:
- Invoice from, the firm whose invoice it is
- Courier / transporter and Docket / AWB number
- Boxes, the number of packages
- Dispatched on, and optionally Expected delivery and Remarks
- How many of each title went out. Each title starts at the quantity ordered, and the warehouse lowers any it ran short of.
A dispatch must contain at least one book, and no title can go out in more copies than are still owed. Send what the shelf has: anything short stays owed on the order (see Sent in parts).
What recording the dispatch does
In the same step, SalesYatra:
- Takes the books off the warehouse stock. If this dispatch takes a title below its low-stock level, the administrators are told.
- Raises the invoice from the firm the warehouse chose. The dispatch employee picks Domato Book Co. or Dominions under Invoice from. That firm bills every book in the consignment from its own numbering, and its name, address and GSTIN go at the top of the invoice.
- Prices them from what was packed. Each line is billed at the price and discount on the order, for the quantity packed in this consignment. A title that didn't ship at all is left off. So a full dispatch bills exactly what was agreed, a short one bills only the books that left, and the consignments of an order sent in parts together bill what was agreed.
- Uses the order's parties. The invoice names the billing name, address and delivery address on the order the administrator approved, not whatever the register says today. Any freight on the order goes on the first consignment's invoice, and only that one.
- Emails the invoice to the rep as a PDF, because the rep is the one collecting the money. If the firm sends documents to parties, the school or dealer gets its copy too.
If every book has now gone, the order moves to DISPATCHED, and the invoice number appears beside the order number. That ends the order: no manager is asked to sign it off. If books are still owed, it moves to PART DISPATCHED instead. See How the books work for how an invoice posts to the books.
Sent in parts
When the warehouse is short, it sends what it has. The order stays open for the rest:
- The first consignment is invoiced for what it carried, and the order becomes PART DISPATCHED.
- The order stays in the dispatch employee's To pack queue, marked Balance, showing only the books still owed.
- When the stock arrives, they select Dispatch the balance. It goes as the next consignment, with its own courier, docket, bilty, invoice and PDF, emailed to the rep like the first.
- Once the last book has gone, the order becomes DISPATCHED.
For example, an order for 10 books at ₹10 each totals ₹100. The warehouse has 5, sends them, and invoices ₹50. The rep's Orders shows the order as "5 of 10 sent" with "5 to send · ₹50.00". When the rest arrives, the second consignment is invoiced for the other ₹50.
The rep doesn't raise a new order for the balance. Their Orders page shows what is still to come across all their orders under Pending with dispatch: how many orders, how many books, which titles, and what they are worth.
If the balance will never be sent, the dispatch employee, an administrator, the rep or a manager above them selects Close the balance on the order's page and says why. The order becomes DISPATCHED at what has gone, and the rep is told if someone else closed it. Nothing already invoiced changes.
A dispatch can't be undone from the order. The invoice has been raised and mailed, so any correction goes through the billing desk. If books come back, see Returns.
5. After the dispatch
No more steps. The dispatch is the order's last step, and no manager signs it off. There used to be a sign-off, but it could change nothing: the invoice had already been raised and mailed when the boxes left.
What does follow is the bilty, the transporter's receipt for the boxes. The transporter hands it over only after the boxes are booked, so the dispatch employee attaches it later, from Dispatch → Dispatched or the order page: its number and a photo or screenshot of it (see Attach the bilty). Each consignment has its own bilty. The order's status doesn't change. The rep is emailed the number, the order page shows it on the consignment's card with the picture, and the history adds Bilty attached. Until it arrives, the card says it's still to come.
Orders dispatched short before an order could be sent in parts were closed at the dispatch, and the school's balance went on a new order. The warehouse's Shortfall tab still lists their missing books, as dispatched short and closed.
Reject or cancel
| Reject | Cancel | |
|---|---|---|
| Who | The manager at the first signature, or an administrator at the final approval | The rep who raised it, or a manager above them, or an administrator |
| When | While the order is PENDING or WITH ADMIN | Any time before anything is dispatched. After that, close the balance instead. |
| What happens | The order goes back to the rep as REJECTED, with the note if one was given | The order stops for good as CANCELLED |
| Afterwards | The rep can edit it and Resubmit for approval. It starts again at the manager, and needs both signatures again. | Nothing. It can't be reopened. |
| A typed billing name | Leaves the list awaiting approval. Resubmitting proposes it again, as corrected. | Is removed from the list awaiting approval |
Where the cancel buttons are:
- The rep sees Cancel order on their own order while it is a DRAFT or REJECTED.
- A manager or administrator sees Cancel this order on the order page while it is PENDING, APPROVED or ASSIGNED.
Both ask you to confirm: the order stops there and can't be dispatched or invoiced, and this can't be undone.
Editing
Only the rep who raised the order can edit it, and only while it is a DRAFT or REJECTED. Once it is submitted, it belongs to the approver, and SalesYatra refuses an edit: "this order has already been submitted and can no longer be edited". To change a submitted order, ask the approver to reject it back to you.
Handing the packing to someone else
The dispatch employee is named at approval, but a manager can change the name while the order is with the warehouse and not yet dispatched: someone went on leave, or the wrong person was picked. On the order page, under With the dispatch team, select Hand to somebody else, pick the employee and select Reassign. The new dispatch employee is told the order is theirs.
Orders signed off under the old rule
Orders a manager signed off before the dispatch became the last step show COMPLETED. That means the same as DISPATCHED, and both read as done everywhere. Orders that were still waiting for a sign-off became done when the rule changed, with nothing for anyone to do.
An old sign-off email or bell notification opens the order itself.
Good to know
- Who can open an order. The rep who raised it, the dispatch employee it was handed to, any manager above the rep, and the administrators.
- Returns come later. Books a school or trade party sends back are recorded from that party, not against an order, and once they are credited the school's Dues show it. The order page's Books returned shows only the older returns recorded against that order. See Returns.
- The phone needs a signal for orders. The Android app queues visits when you're offline, but not orders, because the server prices and numbers them. See Working offline.
- The order PDF is on the order page as PDF once the order is past draft.
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