QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Invoicing for Backordered Products

Placing a product order to fulfill your customers' orders is known as a backorder. If backorders are a big part of your business, you should consider finding suppliers who deliver quickly, but you might also consider upgrading to QuickBooks Premier, which has a built-in backorder feature. Or, by combining a few of QuickBooks Pro's features, you can handle backorders with no trouble.

When you tell your customers that a product is out of stock, they might ask you to handle the backorders in different ways. Here are the most common requests for backorders:

• Remove the backordered items from the order. Customers in a hurry ask you to fill the order with only the products you have in stock. If they can't find the backordered products anywhere else, they can call in a new order.

• Ship all items at once. If convenience is more important than delivery date, you can hold the customer order until the backordered products arrive and ship the entire order at once.

• Ship backordered items when they arrive. Many customers request that you process their orders for the products you do have in stock and send the backordered products when you receive them.

If you remove backordered items from an order, you can ship the entire order and invoice the customer immediately. But when customers ask you to hold all or part of their orders until backordered products arrive, they usually expect you to invoice for backordered products only when you ship them. Meantime, you ...