Holding/releasing sales orders and order lines

Hold functions

The following describes the different ways of holding orders/lines. (Click on the applicable link to expand/collapse the section). Also, refer to Impact of hold below to understand how the different functions affect the process.

Automatic hold

There are several reasons why the system automatically puts an order or order line on hold and denies further processing. These reasons are identified by the system through order held reason codes. (See Work with order held reason codes for more information about reason codes.)

Some of these reasons could be, for example:

The debtor’s open balance is over the credit limit. (Note: This reason also applies to order lines). Note: An order or order line that has been released, or not at all held, will be checked for credit control again when printing the pick list, if credit control handling (CR-PL) has been activated in the Function control file.
The credit stop code for the debtor indicates that orders being entered should be put on hold. Note: The Credit stop code handling provides the possibility to control how the credit check on debtors and their sales orders is performed.
At least one line on the order should create a manufacturing order. This only applies if Manufacturing is installed and activated.
The sale has fulfilled the criteria of a sales restriction. (Note: This reason also applies to order lines.) See About sales restrictions for more information.

Batch order hold/release

To ensure that the past due invoice information in the Work with held sales orders routine is timely, there are two functions that either hold or release orders based on changes in your debtors’ orders and A/R status – such as new orders or paid invoices – since the last time this routine was performed. Designed to be run on a periodical basis, preferably nightly, the Batch order hold and Batch order release routines function in essentially the same way. During the evaluation process, the system compares the credit profile’s maximum overdue days/amount combination to the credit time axis, which contains the debtor’s overdue A/R balance.

For the hold function, if the overdue balance exceeds the debtor’s thresholds, (as defined in their assigned credit profile), the order is put on hold until the overdue A/R balance is resolved.
For the release function, the system checks held orders and if the overdue A/R balance that created the holds has been resolved, then the holds are released.

See Run the Batch order hold routine and Run the Batch order release routine for instructions on how to run these routines.

Manual hold

You are able to manually put a sales order or an individual order line on hold for any reason. For this purpose, user-defined order held reason codes must exist in the Work with order held reason codes, and you need to manually define the applicable code on order header level or on line level. (See Work with order held reason codes for more information about reason codes.)

Impact of hold

The only thing you can do when an order has been put on hold (on order level), besides releasing it, is maintain the order. The system blocks all other routines that change the status of an order from further processing.

If individual lines on a sales order have been put on hold (on line level), then you can still continue the process of other lines on the order which are not being held.

This can be illustrated as follows:

Routine	Held on order level	Held on line level	Comments
Print sales order confirmation	Stopped from being printed.	Can be printed.	Line level hold: Held reason codes are displayed on the confirmation list for those lines being held.
Print sales order pick list	Stopped from being printed. Tip: If an order/order line has been manually released, it is possible to print the pick list for the order/order line on the same day as the release without credit check, if activated. This could be useful if you have been in contact with the debtor and you have agreed to make an exception and place the order and continue the sales order process.	Can be printed.	If a credit check is to be performed during pick list printout, orders or order lines which have previously been accepted might at this point be held due to an exceeded credit limit. Or, if the debtor has settled the balance and the credit limit is no longer exceeded, held orders or lines could at this point be released, and the process may continue.
Pick list confirmation routines (i.e. Work with pickings and Pick confirmation flow)	Stopped from being further processed.	Non-held lines on the sales order pick list can be confirmed.	N/A
Print transport note	Stopped from being printed.	Non-held lines on the transport note can be printed and further processed.	N/A
Print invoice	Can be printed if the order type is defined with print pick list set to YES, i.e. the order has passed the pick list process where a possible credit check has been performed. Stopped from being printed if the order type is defined with print pick list set to NO, i.e. the order has not passed the pick list process where a possible credit check could have been performed	Can be printed if the order type is defined with print pick list set to YES, i.e. the order has passed the pick list process where a possible credit check has been performed. Stopped from being printed if the order type is defined with print pick list set to NO, i.e. the order has not passed the pick list process where a possible credit check could have been performed.	Status must be 45.

Enquiries

Order held reason codes enquiry contains all of the reason codes (system- and user-defined) that have been loaded and set up in the system
Credit stop codes enquiry contains all credit stop codes that have been defined in the system.
Sales order enquiry contains information about all sales orders that have been entered in the system and also hold information.