The products your customers want to purchase aren't always in stock, but you still want to be able to process the sale and order the stock to fulfill these.

Instead of turning the customer away, you can offer a special order, which is called an unfulfilled sale in Retail POS.

This allows the sale to be processed and marked as an unfulfilled sale while you source product(s) from your supplier(s) to fulfill the customer's order.

The customer can also choose to have the purchase delivered directly to them, or to pick up the purchase in-store at a later date.

When to use an unfulfilled sale for a special order

Product(s) out of stock

If a product is out of stock and you are unable to provide the customer with the product at the time of sale, you can still process the sale. 

The sale is processed as an unfulfilled sale and then the stock can be ordered from your supplier(s)

Once the stock arrives in-store, this can be allocated to the order and fulfilled through the customer's desired method (delivery or pickup). 

Creating an unfulfilled sale for a special order

1. Add the product(s) the customer wishes to purchase to the Sell screen. If the product(s) are out of stock, there are two ways to mark a sale as unfulfilled:
   • If you have the negative inventory warning enabled, the prompt to mark the sale as unfulfilled will be displayed. Click Mark sale as unfulfilled.
     
   • If this setting is not enabled, click More actions and select Mark as unfulfilled.
     
2. Select Delivery or Pickup, depending on the customer's needs, in the modal that opens.
   
3. Select an existing customer or add a new customer to the sale. Contact details from an existing customer will be prefilled and can be edited to suit the order. New customers will require a name, email, and phone number.
   
   

     Note

   If a customer was already added to the sale before selecting the Mark as unfulfilled option, these details will be prefilled.
   

4. In the Sales note, capture the customer's address for Delivery, or the desired date and time for Pickup. These details will be captured in your Sales history and on the customer's receipt.
   
5. Click Mark as unfulfilled. 
6. Once the sale has been marked as unfulfilled, you can choose to take full payment, partial payment, or no payment, depending on your in-store policy.
   
   

     Deposits

   To take a deposit for the sale, enter the deposit value into the Amount to Pay field and select the payment type. Once the payment has been processed, click Save sale.

   This payment will now be recorded as revenue received in advance until the sale has been fully paid. You will not be able to fulfill the order until it is fully paid.

   

7. If full payment is taken, click Complete sale to finish. For partial or no payment, click Save sale.
8. The order is now recorded in Sales history (Sell > Sales history) as Delivery, unfulfilled or Pickup, unfulfilled.
   

Ordering stock for a special order

Retail POS allows you to quickly identify which products require the stock to be ordered to fulfill unfulfilled sales and quickly add them to a purchase order.

1. Navigate to Inventory > Stock control and click Order stock. Enter the required purchase order information. 
2. To add products that are out-of-stock and have been sold as part of an in-store order (unfulfilled sale), click Add products from recommendations.
3. Choose the outlet to deliver to in the drop-down and click Next.

   

4. Choose what type of recommended products to order and click Apply filter.
5. The modal now displays all products that require stock to be sourced for unfulfilled sales. Use the checkboxes to select which products you wish to order and enter the amount desired in the Quantity field.
6. When all products have been selected and the quantities entered, click Add products to order. You can then complete your purchase order as per your normal workflow.

Fulfilling an unfulfilled sale for a special order

Once you have sourced product(s) from your supplier(s), these have arrived and you've received them in Retail POS, you can fulfill the order through the Sales history (Sell > Sales history).

To fulfill an order through the sales history, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Sell > Sales history
2. Locate the sale and click to expand
3. Select Mark as complete to change the status to Delivery, fulfilled or Pickup, fulfilled and complete the order.
4. You can now dispatch the sale for delivery following your normal delivery workflow, or contact the customer on the provided details to advise that the sale is ready for pickup.
   • For pickup sales, we recommend printing a copy of the sale receipt and attaching this to the items in order to quickly identify the order when the customer arrives for collection.