How the whole thing connects — sales order to cash

This is the article to read if you want to know how a whole company runs on Brytebuild rather than what an individual screen does. One customer order, followed all the way to the money — naming the screen at each step, what it hands to the next one, and who normally does it.

Nine steps, three departments, one thread. Almost everything else in Brytebuild hangs off this spine — quality checks, costing, traceability and reporting all attach to steps in this chain rather than sitting beside it.

Why it is built this way: each step writes one fact and hands it on, so nothing is inferred twice. Demand is recorded once, the shortfall is calculated from it rather than guessed, material is committed at the pick and consumed at collection, and the finished item exists only once someone says the job is done. Every link is a deliberate handover — which is what makes the last question, what did this order earn, answerable at all.

A sales order under Sales › Sales Orders is what tells Brytebuild something is promised. On its own it changes nothing about your stock or your schedule — it creates demand. Turning demand into action is what the MRP run does, from Planning › MRP Runs.

The run looks at every promise, works down through each bill of materials, subtracts what you already have free and what is already on order, and lists the shortfall. For each shortfall it decides one thing: make it or buy it. The rule is simple — if the item has a bill of materials it recommends making it, and if it does not, it recommends buying it.

Converting a Buy recommendation creates a purchase order under Purchasing › Purchase Orders, already carrying the supplier, the quantity and the date the MRP worked out. You confirm it and send it.

When the van arrives, receiving against that purchase order is what turns it into real stock. Until goods are received the order is a promise from your supplier, and the MRP treats it as such — it counts as already-on-order, which is why running the MRP twice does not order the same part twice.

Converting a Make recommendation creates a works order under Production › Works Orders — the instruction to build a quantity of an assembly by a date. This is the object the shop floor works from and the object costs attach to.

Material reaches the job through a pick. A picking list can be raised against the works order from Warehouse › Picking, and stock is reserved when the pick is created and consumed when it is collected. That is the moment material leaves your inventory and joins the job.

If the build has a work instruction, the operator follows it step by step and records progress as they go. Completing the works order is what puts the finished assembly into stock — and from that point it is an item like any other, available to pick, sell or build into something larger.

Quality control is not a step in the chain. It is a gate you attach to a step, and it only exists where you have set up an inspection plan — no plan means the chain runs exactly as described above. Three of the six gates sit on the spine; the others cover situations off it.

With the finished item in stock, despatch is a warehouse job again. A delivery order under Warehouse › Delivery Orders records what physically leaves against which sales order, with packing beforehand if you pack to a list.

Invoicing closes the loop from Sales › Invoices. An invoice is generated from the sales order — either against one despatch or against the whole remaining order — reviewed as a draft, then issued. Once issued it is fixed, and any correction is made with a credit note rather than an edit. Payments recorded against it feed straight into receivables.

In a small shop one person may do several of these. Write down who has each one anyway — an unowned step in the middle of the chain is where the whole thing stalls.

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