Introduction to the sales module
VentryHub's sales module takes you from a customer enquiry through quote, order, fulfilment, invoice, payment, and — where needed — return and credit note. Everything attached to a single customer transaction lives under one record so that the quote, order, fulfilment documents, invoices, payments, credit notes and returns stay in sync.
This article is a map of the module. Each section below describes one part of the workflow and links to the dedicated article covering it in detail.
Sale module user permissions
Access to the sales module is split across three permission groups so that quoting, fulfilment and billing can be delegated to different people:
- Sale — Quotes & Orders (
SaleQuoteOrderRO,SaleQuoteOrderFA) — create and edit quotes, orders and order adjustments - Sale — Fulfilment (
SaleFulfillmentRO,SaleFulfillmentFA) — edit fulfilment plans and fulfilments, and record pick, pack and ship - Sale — Billing (
SaleBillingRO,SaleBillingFA) — create invoices and credit notes, record payments, refunds and advance payments
Each group has a read-only (RO) and a full-access (FA) variant. Full access doesn't include authorising: each area has a separate Authorize/Undo permission (Authorize/Undo Sale Quote/Order, Authorize/Undo Sale Fulfillment/Return, Authorize/Undo Sale Invoice/Credit Note), and voiding and releasing credit holds have their own permissions too (Sale Void, Sale Fulfillment Void, Sale Invoice/Credit Note Void, Override Credit Hold).
Sales dashboard
The Dashboard tab is the landing page of the sales module. It shows headline KPIs for the current period, an AR aging summary, a sales pipeline strip (by stage and value), a fulfilment work queue, and attention cards for orders on credit hold, invoices to collect, and fulfilments at risk. Trend charts cover sales and gross margin, and a Top Sales Breakdown lists your biggest sales for the period.
See Using the sales dashboard (link pending: v1.1 article) for a walkthrough of each card and how to use the filter bar.
Quotes and orders
A sale starts as either a Quote or an Order. Quotes are used when the customer wants a price before committing; orders are used when they're ready to buy. You can create a quote, add lines, send it, then Authorize Quote to promote it to an order — or you can skip the quote entirely and create the order directly.
Quotes and orders share the same editor, customer and delivery details. Authorising a quote does not copy its lines into the order automatically — click Prefill on the Order tab to copy the quoted lines across. See Authorising a quote and converting to an order.
See Creating a quote, Authorising a quote and converting to an order and Creating a sale order directly.
Reversing a quote or sale
A quote can be withdrawn with Undo Quote (returns to editable draft) or Reject Quote (terminal). An authorised sale can be voided with Void Sale.
Order adjustments
Once an order is authorised, you don't edit it in place — you make an Order Adjustment, which is a separate sub-document that records the change, keeps the original order intact for audit, and flows through to downstream invoicing and fulfilment.
See Modifying an order with an Order Adjustment.
Credit hold
Credit hold is checked when you authorise a quote, order, order adjustment, fulfilment or invoice. Anyone with the authorise permission can click Authorize; if the customer's credit settings are breached, the document is parked at On Credit Hold instead, with a banner giving the reason. A user with Override Credit Hold can then click Release On Hold to authorise it, and the release is recorded in the audit history. See Authorising a quote and converting to an order.
Credit-hold rules themselves are configured in Credit management settings (link pending: admin article).
Fulfilling an order
VentryHub separates fulfilment into two layers:
- Fulfillment Plan — the "how we'll ship this" layer. The plan allocates lines to stock locations, splits lines across multiple shipments if needed, chooses ship-from locations and routes, and surfaces anything blocking allocation.
- Fulfillment Document — the actual work. One or more fulfilment documents are created from the plan and move through Order → Pick → Pack → Ship stages.
Keeping planning and execution separate means you can replan without redoing picking, and you can release many sales' authorised plans into fulfilment documents at once (see Workbench below).
See Planning fulfilment and Pick, pack and ship.
Fulfillment Workbench
When you need to turn many sales' authorised fulfilment plans into fulfilment documents at once — for example after a receipt lands or at the start of a shift — use the Fulfillment Workbench. It doesn't allocate stock (each sale's fulfilment plan does that); it decides which sales to release first. The workbench lets you simulate which sales can be picked from current stock, review which products are blocking which sales, adjust priority rules, then generate fulfilment orders in bulk.
See Using the Fulfillment Workbench.
Dropship
For items you don't hold yourself, you can set the sale to ship direct from the vendor. When you authorise the fulfilment plan, VentryHub creates a draft vendor fulfilment for each dropship vendor. Authorising that fulfilment raises the purchase order in the vendor's name, which then flows through the Purchases module. Dropship lines do not move through pick, pack and ship — you record the vendor's confirmation instead, and the vendor ships direct to the customer.
See Dropship sales (link pending: v1.1 article; needs backend verification before publication).
Invoicing and payments
An invoice tells the customer what to pay and when. In VentryHub you can create an invoice from a fulfilment (invoice what shipped), from the order (invoice remaining), or standalone. One sale can have one or many invoices.
See Issuing an invoice from a sale order.
Advance payments
If the customer pays before you invoice (deposit, prepayment), record it as an Advance Payment. When you later issue an invoice, the advance payment is available to allocate against the invoice total.
See Advance payments.
Non-inventory costs on invoices
Non-inventory costs are internal cost allocations — freight, duty, handling and similar — distributed across the stock lines on an authorised invoice. They affect the margin reported for the sale but create no accounting entries, and they are not a charge added to the customer-facing invoice total.
See Non-inventory costs on invoices.
Recording a payment
Payments against an invoice are recorded on that invoice with the amount, the date, and the Paid Via account (the bank account, customer credit or credit note you received it from). Payments live on the individual invoice. To apply one receipt across several invoices, use a Sale Bulk Payment.
See Recording a payment.
Credit notes and refunds
A credit note is used when something needs to come off the invoice after the fact — a wrong item, a damaged shipment, a post-sale discount, or an unwanted return. A credit note can be:
- A reduction only (no money back, no stock back),
- A reduction plus a refund (money returned to the customer), or
- A reduction plus a customer credit (held as a balance the customer can use on future invoices).
Each refund row is capped by the credit note total less other rows and, for refunds linked to a specific invoice, by that invoice's remaining due. See Refunds vs customer credits for the full rules.
See Issuing a credit note and Refunds vs customer credits.
Return disposition
When a credit note involves physical return of stock, you create a Return Stock Disposition to record receipt and inspection of the returned items — where they went, whether they were restocked, and in which batch.
See Return disposition.
Customer credits
Customer credit is money VentryHub owes the customer, redeemable against future invoices. Credits come from a credit note's Refund to Credit, from advance payments, or from money received under Banking → Money Received (for example an overpayment).
See Refunds vs customer credits.
Attachments and audit log
Every sale document (quote, order, fulfilment, invoice, credit note, return disposition) has:
- An Attachments tab for files — invoices, signed PODs, correspondence, inspection photos.
- An Audit tab that logs every change: who made it, when, and what changed.
The attachments and audit tabs appear on each document rather than just at the sale level, so you can see exactly what's attached to a specific invoice or a specific fulfilment.
See Attachments and audit log (link pending: v1.1 article).
Sales list and tabs
The sales module's list surface has six tabs across the top:
- Dashboard — KPIs and queues (above)
- Sales — combined list of all sales
- Quotes — quotes only
- Orders — orders only
- Invoicing & Payments — sub-tabs for Invoices, Payments, Credit Notes, Refunds and Customer Credits
- Fulfillment — all fulfilment documents
Each list has saved filters that can be shared with other users, column customisation, and export. Your last-used main tab is remembered per tenant.
See Working with the sales lists (link pending: v1.1 article).
Related modules
- Customers — customer master, addresses, contacts, credit terms. See Managing customers (link pending: customer module article).
- Products and Product families — SKU and variant masters that appear on sale lines. See Managing products.
- Purchases — where dropship purchase orders land.
- Integrations — Shopify, Amazon and other sales channels feed sales into VentryHub; Xero and QuickBooks Online receive invoices, payments and credit notes.
See also
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