This guide walks you through the process of creating a sales order (SO) in Katana, covering everything from manual entry to integrating ecommerce sales channels. It offers step-by-step instructions on adding customer details, selecting items, and ensuring inventory availability to streamline your sales management efficiently.
If you are selling online, you can automatically sync your Sales orders from e-commerce platforms (e.g. Shopify).
For multichannel sales, you can manually create sales orders and manage them all from one platform.
Creating and delivering Sales orders:
Enables checking and managing Sales items availability for customer orders
Triggers relevant inventory movements for items
Allows you to manage optimal stock levels because open Sales orders increase the Committed quantities for items, which are added to the calculation of Calculated stock quantities in the Inventory tab.
Create your first sales order
You can create a new SO by clicking on the global "+" sign and selecting + Sales order. This will create an SO card.
Tip: If you often receive SOs by email, use KAI (Katana's AI-powered Sales Assistant), to automatically create SOs from emails. Learn more.
General info on a sales order
Information you will find with the SO card:
*Customer
The name of the customer purchasing the item.
Customer reference #
The customer reference number on an SO is a unique identifier provided by a customer to link the order to specific records or transactions for easier tracking and communication.
*Sales order #
The unique identifier for the SO. This is auto-generated but can be edited.
Example: SO-1, SO-2
*Delivery deadline
A customizable date showing when SO items need to be delivered to a customer.
The date will be red if one or more item is unavailable, the product Production deadline is later than the SO deadline, or if the SO deadline has passed.
*Created date
The SO's creation date. By default, it matches the day it was added, but it can be manually adjusted.
*Currency
Choose which currency the order uses. By default, it will use the currency from your Settings. (Users on the Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus plans can use multi-currency).
Bill to
This address is associated with the person who will be paying for the order. The customer's billing address is the default.
Ship to
The physical address where the order is delivered. The customer's billing address is the default.
Ship from (Only visible if there's more than one Location on your account)
This field lets you select which location the SO is shipped from. Sales items availability is shown based on the stock availability of the selected location.
Ingredients Availability and Production status are only displayed if you have chosen your production location. When an SO is Packed or Delivered, the stock movements are applied to the selected location.
If the items on the order are coming from more than one location, this field will read Multiple locations
* = Required fields
Line items
Each SO needs at least one item added.
*Item
The item being sold. You can select an existing item and its variants or create a new one by typing in the item name and selecting Create new "item name" from the dropdown. Read more about creating a product.
Note: The field value is a combination of Variant Code, Item name and Variant Option values (e.g. "[P-1] MyProduct / White").
*Quantity
Amount of item being sold. The Unit of measure for the item can be set and edited on the item card (a maximum of 5 decimal places is allowed).
*Price per unit
The customizable default sales price (excluding taxes) for an item.
Discount
The discount percentage applied to a sales order line item.
Total price
A non-editable calculated field showing the (Quantity x Price per Unit [excl. taxes]) minus any Discount
Tax %
The applicable Tax rate (e.g. VAT, GST) for the item. Select a tax rate from the dropdown menu. Adjust the Default Tax rate and edit, create and delete Tax rates from Settings screen > Tax rates.
Location
If you have multiple locations on your account, you can choose them here and receive corresponding availability.
* = Required field
Sales items availability
The Sales items availability column shows you if the required items for an SO are In stock, Expected, or Not available. Based on the status, you can decide which actions to take next.
Read more about Sales items availability.
Ingredients availability
The Ingredients availability column displays the stock status for ingredients required to make the ordered products. Ingredient requirements for products are based on the Product Recipe / BOM, which could include both materials and subassemblies.
The Ingredients availability status can display either In stock, Expected or Not available, which you can use to decide your next action.
This column is especially relevant for businesses that are Making-to-Order as they give the user immediate information about the availability of ingredients required to make the products ordered.
Read more about Ingredients availability.
Production status
Click on the + Make button in the Production column on an SO to create a manufacturing order (MO) for the required products. You can choose to Make in batch, Make to order, Buy, or Outsource.
Make in batch - if you want to make more products than the SO requires.
Make to order - if you want to make the exact amount of products required for the SO.
Buy - if you want to create a purchase order to order the item.
Outsource - if you outsource some or all of the manufacturing of the item, you can create an outsourced purchase order.
For both make options, an MO for the required products will be added to the Schedule tab in the Make screen, but the characteristics of the MO are different when you are making in batch vs. making to order.
Read more about Making in batch and Making to order.
After creating an MO, the Production status will show whether the production is Not started, Work in progress, Done or Blocked. Click on the production status if you want to navigate to the related MO.
The Production status will show Not applicable if:
You added more than one location to your account and the SO's Ship from Location has no Make possibilities (i.e. a sales location instead of a production location).
The Make option for the product isn't checkmarked, meaning you have chosen to purchase the product from suppliers, and the production status is not relevant.
Additional info regarding sales orders
You can add comments to any SO, such as specific instructions to sales personnel, fulfillment or delivery details, reference numbers, references to the location of relevant files, etc.
To insert a line break in the comments, press Shift + Enter.
Sales order line attributes and metadata
You can add additional customization details to a SO line item.
For each attribute, you can add:
Name
Value
If you choose to make a product using the Make-to-Order functionality, these labels are also displayed on the MO. These attributes can be added and edited before a MO is created.
Line item attributes can also be imported from e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce — read more. Only attribute values can be edited.
Names for line items which have been imported from e-commerce platforms cannot be edited. However, edits done on a SO in Katana don't sync back to e-commerce platforms
Delivery status
Each SO has a Delivery status which can be changed from the Sell screen. Status updates trigger specific changes in the inventory.
Read more about Sales order Delivery statuses.
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