Phreesoft Support Forum

dave i have a very strange request ( well by now u should no me and my strange requests ) i really need to sort something out for store away .. what im thinking is that if we do a sales order for a customer and the customer pays a deposit that monies must be like a credit to his account but remember the goods dont leave your store so u cant make an invoice , something like a pre payment ok . but the goods must or can only be invoiced out if the entire amount is paid .. may be in sales order manager the invoice button must only be displayed once the full amount is paid ... or if certain amount is paid and the invoice have more then one item then the value to that mount can be invoiced ... shooo this a real cracker ..making any sense . any suggestions ..store aways are good to have because most of the chain stores do store away's .

We call them layaway or Compra en Reserva (CR).

We have a document the customer must read and sign, terms of CR, so much money down, so much money a month, etc. or product is returned to inventory. Right now we use a spreadsheet for this calculation.

All CR's are invoiced (removed from inventory), customers then make deposits on their account until paid in full, then the products are released.

We treat them like a regular sale, except we have the customer sign an agreement and we hold the products until paid.

We do plan to add layaway to the Sales system one day, but for now we just add a notation in the PO (reference) column to sort by.

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Alvin

I agree with alvin, Once they start 'purchasing' the product you should remove it from inventory so you don't sell it to someone else. The way to handle this would be to post a sale and receive payment, through Banking -> Customer Receipts until it's paid off. You can receive partial payment in Customer Receipts that will track how much has been paid and you can release the product to them once the balance has been paid off.

Dave

dave and alvin sorry but i disagree .. store away or lay away are not regular sales. the goods have not left your store and you are the owner of it until fully paid for . what happens is that a customer gives a deposit and you make a laybuy or store away the stock is put in a holding container it is still part of your stock so when u do a stock evaluation or stock take it is still part of your worth , it has to be accounted for .. if you do what dave says the valuation is incorrect and to track the stock is risky coz its easier to steal because it has already been removed from stock . the better option then to do is to do a sales order coz then you can account for the stock and in inventory "on order" it appears there .. what we can do is maybe like i said earlier is to have a switch to say this is a store away and then only when the order is fully paid for must it be able to convert it to an invoice .. me personally i would never do a invoice because of its risk and how will we account for that stock.remember a normal sale a customer pays in lieu of the goods legally there is an exchange .. It happens many a times a customer pays the deposit and if your store away period is say three months and the customer doesnt come back now you have to pass a credit for that item . and if the customer comes back and say he doesnt want the item you have to return his monies less the penalty (handling fee). The ideal would be another heading like what we have sales orders sales quotes invoicing we should have a separate one for store aways ...

well I think we have two things here...

1. an agreement with the customer, legal for your business...
2. accounting - for net worth etc.

so when it comes down to accounting, the correct posts to the correct gl accounts is all that is needed.

you can have as many GL accounts as you want to track all kinds of assets and liabilities...


In our business we just make the sale like it is a credit sale, except we keep the goods until the invoice is paid. There is some reports that help manage these customers... the customer signs a buy agreement... we charge frees for invoices that are not paid, this covers the time to do the accounting, sale return, restock etc.

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Alvin

I agree, this needs to be kept as an inventory asset until paid off in full. Is it as simple as creating another general ledger account for this to keep it as an inventory item that is not regular stock but can be accounted for as an asset in inventory reports? Or possibly an extra field in the inventory table as a boolean IsLayaway ? y:n. If y then lock it as a layaway which is an inventory asset but removed from stock?

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I can see going either way but not sure if this feature is worth adding to the trunk. Perhaps as a add-on module or just handle it through adjustments to another account until it is paid off and delivered.

Dave

@dave
would it no be possible to do it as a sales order until fully paid for the stock can be put into another account as u suggested. the sales order should have a switch to say it is a store away