Before you begin using Order Entry, you should understand basic terminology and work flow used by aSa.Studio.

Key Terms

Order

A list of material to provide for a customer. An order is identified with two "names": the order number and the control code. Both are unique identifiers. Typically, the order number is numerical and Control Code is alpha-numeric, shorter, and easier to read on tags.

Control Code

A unique 3 or 4-character name for an order.

Product

A specific item that you sell or supply.

Product Class

A grouping of products that share the same units of measure and values for certain characteristics. Many aSa reports group information by product class.

Product Category

A grouping of products that share the same characteristic fields.

Job

A project for which you are supplying material. All jobs must belong to a customer.

Customer

A company for which you provide goods and services. The typical hierarchy is: Customer > Job > Order or (for walk-in orders) Customer > Order.

Master Order

A master order is a large list of items, such as the entire job or a portion of the job, that will later be split into "regular" orders when you are ready to process and ship. The system keeps track of which items have been included on orders and which remain. Creating a master order lets you focus on listing material without the need to consider building truckload size orders until a later time.

Processing

Processing is the aSa module used to generate tags and fabrication-related reports and instructions. In legacy versions of the aSa software, this module was called "Production."

HINT: Refer to the Glossary for additional terms and definitions.

Important Concepts

Business Organization

To accommodate businesses of all sizes and configurations, aSa allows you set up various levels within your organization. The levels are related to each other in a hierarchy.

  • Enterprise - only one for your entire organization
  • Company - unlimited companies per enterprise
  • Region - unlimited regions per company
  • Location - unlimited locations per region
  • Warehouse - unlimited warehouses per location; a warehouse is a facility from which you supply material, and each product that you define must be associated to a warehouse.

If you have a single-site location, or if you are a contract estimator or detailer, you would simply have a single enterprise, company, region, location, and warehouse.

Once defined, your organizational structure allows you to:

  • Isolate or share data among the different business units
  • Set up security for each business unit

Information Hierarchy

The following represents the typical way information defaults from the highest levels to the lowest in the system.

Environment >

Customer >

Job >

Order >

Line Item

Settings and values set up for your organization. Highest level and the most general.

Settings specific to a customer.

Settings specific to a project.

(Job may be omitted for non-job orders, such as walk-in or call-in orders.)

Settings and data for a specific list of material

One line of material entry data.

Lowest and most specific level.

Order Status

In the life cycle of an order, it can be assigned the following statuses. Most status changes happen automatically based on certain triggers in the system, but some can be changed manually.

  • Open - The order has been created and has not yet been included on a Processing run. 
  • Incomplete - The order has been started, but is not complete. Typically, an employee with appropriate permissions will change the status to Approval or Open to indicate that it can be scheduled or processed. 

Note: The default status for new orders is automatically set to Open or Incomplete based on your business practices. (This option is defined in System Default > Enterprise > Default New Order Status.) 

  • Approval - Depending on your business practices, you may or may not use this status. When used, a user with appropriate permissions changes the status from Incomplete to Approval. 
  • Processed - This status is automatically assigned by the program when all items on the order have been processed in the Processing module.
  • Shipped - This status is automatically assigned by the program when the order is placed on a shipping ticket, and the shipping ticket status is updated to Shipped. 
  • Closed - This status indicates that you are finished with the order. Based on your business practices, this may be when it is processed or it may be later when the shipping ticket is printed, when it is invoiced, or after material has been installed at the job site. Typically, the Closed status is assigned automatically based on System Manager > Workflow, but it may also be assigned manually using the Order Entry > Close Orders tool.
  • Cancelled - An order that was created is no longer going to be updated or processed. This status is manually assigned by the user.