ERP module
Take orders from quotations, emailed purchase orders, sales reps and your online store, reserve the stock, deliver in one shipment or several, and invoice exactly what went out. Order management is one module of Episcript's custom ERP software, working from the same customer, stock and invoicing records, and AI features can be added to read the purchase orders your customers email in.
Built in Singapore for wholesalers, distributors and trading companies that sell on account.
Order lifecycle
Every sales order is entered once, then confirmed, allocated, delivered and invoiced from that same record.
Convert a quotation, key a phone order or bring in an order from email, a sales rep or the online store.
Check the price list, credit limit and stock, then send the customer an order confirmation.
Reserve stock line by line and hold any shortfall as a back order on the same line.
Pick, pack and print the delivery order, in a single shipment or several.
Invoice the quantity actually delivered, and close the order when the last line ships.
Order entry
Orders rarely arrive the same way twice. One customer emails a purchase order as a PDF, another phones the sales desk, a third orders through your online store at eleven at night. Each one becomes the same kind of sales order here, with the customer's prices, terms and delivery address already filled in.
When the customer accepts, the quotation becomes a sales order with every line, price and discount carried across. Change a quantity before confirming and the quotation keeps its original figures for the record.
Pick the customer and the order opens with their price list, payment terms and usual delivery address. Products are found by code, name or barcode, which keeps a forty-line phone order moving while the customer is still on the line.
The customer's purchase order is attached to the sales order it becomes, and its PO number prints on the delivery order and invoice for their accounts team to match. AI can be added to read the PDF and prepare the order lines.
Reps raise orders on a phone or tablet at the customer's premises and check stock before promising a delivery date. The order reaches the warehouse while they are still on site.
Where the ERP also runs your online store, web orders land in the same order queue as the ones your team keys in, checked against the same stock and priced from the same catalogue.
Trade customers log in, reorder from their own order history and see the status of every open order. The routine "has it shipped yet" calls stop reaching your sales desk.
Stock allocation
A customer orders 200 cartons and you have 140 on the shelf. The module reserves the 140 against that order, lets the warehouse ship them, and keeps the other 60 as a back order on the same line. Nobody has to remember it, and nobody invoices for 200.
Fulfilment
Once stock is allocated, the warehouse works from the order itself rather than from a printout someone retyped. The pick list, the delivery order and the driver's confirmation all come from, and return to, the same order lines.
Lines are grouped by bin or shelf, and the picker walks the warehouse once. Scanning each barcode confirms the right item and quantity before the carton is sealed.
Each delivery order lists only the lines in that shipment, with the customer's PO number and delivery address, numbered in your own sequence.
Plan the day's deliveries by date, driver or area, and see which orders are packed, loaded and out for delivery without walking to the loading bay.
The driver records the recipient's signature or a photo on a phone, and the signed delivery order is filed against the sales order, ready for the day a customer disputes a shortfall.
Order control
Most order problems start before anything ships: the wrong price on a contract customer, an order accepted from an account already over its limit, a delivery date promised without a stock check. These checks run while the order is being entered, not at month end.
Each customer can carry its own price list, volume breaks and agreed discounts, picked up as the lines are entered. A price change dated for next month waits until then.
An order that would take an account over its credit limit, or one placed while invoices are overdue, is held for approval instead of going to the warehouse.
Discounts beyond a set level, orders below your margin floor and other exceptions go to the manager you name, who can approve them from a phone.
Open, allocated, picking, delivered and invoiced orders are counted on one screen, with anything late or on hold listed first.
Order confirmations, dispatch notices and delay notices go to the customer by email or WhatsApp, from templates you approve, at the moment the order changes.
A return is booked against the original order and delivery, goes back into stock or a quarantine location, and the credit note follows from the same lines.
Order to invoice
The invoice is where many order systems hand over to a different piece of software, and where quantities get typed in a second time. Here the invoice is raised from the delivery itself, for the quantity that actually went out, at the price on the order. A partial delivery produces a partial invoice, and the back order is invoiced when it ships.
Billing runs in the ERP's invoicing and payment module, which issues GST tax invoices, records PayNow, card and bank payments against them, and posts across to Xero or QuickBooks where your accounts are kept. Your finance team stops reconciling a delivery spreadsheet against the invoice run every month.
Capability
AI features for order management are scoped with you and built in their own phase. Each one works with information already held in your ERP, and your staff confirm anything that changes an order before it goes further.
AI reads a purchase order a customer has emailed, matches each line to your product codes and prices, and prepares a draft sales order for your staff to check and confirm.
A WhatsApp or email agent answers "where is my order" from the order record: what has shipped, what is on back order and the expected date. Anything it cannot answer goes to a person.
AI flags orders that do not fit the customer's usual pattern, such as ten times the normal quantity, a new delivery address or a price below cost, before they are released.
AI reads order history by customer and product and forecasts what is likely to be ordered in the coming weeks, giving purchasing time to buy before back orders build up.
Ask "which orders for this customer are still part delivered" and AI turns the question into a list from your own records, ready to export or act on.
AI drafts the delay notice or the back order update from the order details, and your staff edit the wording before it is sent.
How it fits
Order management is one module of the ERP rather than a separate product, and it works because it reads from the modules around it. The customer comes from the CRM, the stock from inventory, and the invoice goes to invoicing, all on the same database.
Enquiries and quotations are won in the CRM, and the accepted quotation becomes the sales order without anyone typing it again.
Available, allocated and incoming stock are read warehouse by warehouse as each order line is entered, and every delivery writes its stock movement.
Delivered quantities are invoiced at the order price, and payments received clear the balance the order left on the customer account.
The orders you place with suppliers live in purchasing. Back orders that need buying in are passed across, and goods received are allocated to the customers waiting for them.
Where an order is made to order or needs installing, it can raise a work order or a job, and the delivery waits until that work is signed off.
Xero or QuickBooks for the accounts, email and WhatsApp for customer messages, and any other system you rely on, scoped around what you already use.
Weighing it up
A shared spreadsheet, or a standalone order app beside the accounting software, handles a small order book well, and plenty of businesses run that way for years. The strain shows when stock, deliveries and invoices sit in three places and someone has to reconcile them by hand.
How order management inside a custom ERP compares with spreadsheets and a separate order app.
| Point of comparison | EpiscriptOrder management in your ERP | Typical setupSpreadsheets and a separate order app |
|---|---|---|
| Taking an order | Quotations, emails, sales reps and the online store all feed one order record | Keyed into the sheet or app, often more than once |
| Stock availability | Checked live and reserved when the order is confirmed | Checked against a separate stock list, if it is current |
| Back orders and partial deliveries | Tracked line by line until the last unit ships | Tracked in notes and memory |
| Delivery orders | Printed from the order lines with the customer's PO number | Typed up separately for each shipment |
| Invoicing | Raised from the delivered quantity, in the same system | Retyped into the accounting software |
| Customer status questions | Answered from the order record, by staff or a WhatsApp or email agent | Answered by someone checking each system in turn |
| AI features | Scoped with you and built to work with your own order data | Whatever the app offers in general |
| Cost | Quoted per project and eligible for government grants | Little to start, paid for later in subscriptions and staff time |
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Questions
Order management software records each sales order and carries it through stock allocation, picking, delivery and invoicing. Inside an ERP it does this on the same database as your customers, stock and accounts, which means delivery orders and invoices come from the order lines instead of being typed again. Episcript builds it as one module of a custom ERP.
Wholesalers, distributors, trading companies and manufacturers that sell on account, take repeat orders and deliver in more than one shipment. It suits a small business as well as a larger one, because the first phase can cover only order entry, stock and invoicing, and the module grows as your order volume, warehouses and sales channels do.
Each order line records the quantity ordered, allocated, delivered, invoiced and still outstanding. Ship what is in stock and the remainder stays on the same line as a back order, allocated when goods arrive in the priority you set. Every shipment gets its own delivery order and invoice, and customers are billed only for what they received.
AI purchase order reading can be built as its own phase. It reads the PDF or email, matches each line to your product codes and prices, and prepares a draft sales order. Your staff check the draft and confirm it, and the customer's PO number is carried onto the delivery order and invoice for their accounts team.
No. This module manages the orders your customers place with you. The orders you place with suppliers belong to the procurement module, which handles purchase requests, approvals and goods received. Where a sales order needs something made or installed, it can raise a work order or a job in the same ERP, and delivery waits until that work is complete.
The ERP connects to Xero and QuickBooks for accounting and to WhatsApp and email for customer messages, and web orders from an online store run by the ERP land in the same order queue. Other systems you already rely on, such as a courier service or an existing website, are scoped as integrations once we know what each one makes available.
It is a module of our Custom ERP Software rather than a separate product, because it relies on the customer, stock and invoicing records around it. Businesses often start with order entry, inventory and invoicing as the first phase, then add purchasing, a customer portal or AI features later, each with its own quote.
The price follows the order sources, warehouses, approval rules and integrations your business needs, and we quote against a written scope. Our solutions are eligible for government grants, and we prepare the quotation and supporting documents around what the scheme asks for. Hosting, by Episcript or in your own environment, is set out in the agreement.
The timeline follows the scope of the first phase, and you receive a written schedule with the quotation. Customers, products, price lists, stock balances and open orders move across from spreadsheets or your current system. We map and clean the data with your team, run a test import for you to check, and switch over at a quiet point in your order cycle.
Access is set by role: a warehouse user sees what to pick without seeing margins, and a salesperson can be limited to their own accounts. Every change to an order is logged with the user and the time. Together with your own policies, these controls support your PDPA obligations for the customer contact details held on each order.
Related builds
The full system: CRM, inventory, purchasing, invoicing, projects and more on one database.
Read more Invoicing softwareGST invoices, payment records, reminders and statements, raised from the orders you deliver.
Read more Procurement softwarePurchase requests, approvals, supplier orders and goods received, feeding stock back to waiting orders.
Read more Custom CRM softwareEnquiries, quotations and the sales pipeline, up to the accepted quotation that becomes an order.
Read moreNext step
Distributors rarely lose an order outright. They lose the back order nobody remembered, the invoice raised for the full quantity when half was delivered, and the hour a day spent answering "where is my delivery". Book a demo, bring a few real orders including an awkward one, and we will run them through the order management module with you.