Sending Price Confirmations and Back-Order Status

Rachel Tufono
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16 steps
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2 minutes

Icerausa

Gmail

Setting Up Your Email Reply

Have 2 browser windows open - side by side. Open the order entry in DB in one window. In the other window, in Gmail, reply all to the customer's initial email. If the customer emailed the order to you only, make sure to CC sales@icerausa.com. Type out your initial greeting / message.

Tip! Here's an example initial greeting / message that I use frequently that I encourage you to use as well: *[[Hello <enter customer name here>,]]* *[[Thanks for the order. Your pricing confirmation and back-order update are below. In-stock items are estimated to ship within 5-7 business days.]]*

Highlight and copy the pricing / quantity table in DB. Highlight only the header row to the order total row.

Press [[ctrl]] + [[v ]]to paste the pricing table from DB into the email reply.

Finding Back-Order Status

There are a few different scenarios we will go over in the next few sections, such as in-stock items, out-of-stock items with product inbound, out-of-stock items with no product inbound, out-of-stock items where the inbound quantity is not enough to fulfill all back-orders, and stock not available in default warehouse.

In the DB browser window, navigate to the Customer Back-Order module and change the view to Backorders by Item.

Press [[ctrl]] + [[f]] and enter the customer's PO # to search. Leave that search bar open with the PO # entered to easily navigate the back-order report for the rest of the update.

IN-STOCK ITEMS

For the first line item in our example, you can see that there is stock available in the customer's default warehouse (SEC). In looking at the back-order report for item # C-2620.01, we can see that the customer has 4 units on order over two line items, and their default warehouse is SEC. There are only 8 units total on back-order for SEC. Since SEC's inventory exceeds the back-order needs, we can conclude the item is in-stock and we will be able to fulfill their order within our standard lead times.

**Alert!** In some cases, the TOTAL back-order may exceed available stock across all warehouses. In that instance, it is best practice to check with your manager on the allocation schedule. Management may choose to fulfill orders from non-default warehouses to take care of customers that have been waiting longer.

Back in Gmail in your reply email, type IN STOCK for the items we just checked.

OUT-OF-STOCK - BACK-ORDER EXCEEDS INBOUND

Moving on to the next item in our example order, we can see that there is no stock available in the customer's default warehouse, and while there is product inbound (green highlighted area), it is not enough to cover the total SEC back-order quantity.

Since we don't have a firm idea of when this customer will receive this item, we will enter "BACK-ORDERED. ETA TBD" into the Notes column of the email confirmation we are composing.

Alert! In this example, the item that's unavailable is a toilet bowl. In most cases, when there's a toilet bowl on order, there will also be the toilet tank that pairs with it on order as well (and vice versa). If the ETA for one item in a set is TBD, then the ETA for the other should be TBD as well regardless of whether there is stock available or not. We usually do not ship only one part of a set since it's not usable on its own.

Tip! Inbound product, meaning product that has been loaded to a container at one of our overseas factories and on an ocean vessel headed to one of our North American warehouses, is often referred to internally as "on the water".

Alert! Sometimes when there are extended back-orders for several different SKUs, the management team will provide an additional back-order table for reference. If a back-order table has been provided, please make sure to reference the ETA timelines there before leaving a TBD timeframe in a confirmation.

OUT-OF-STOCK W/ PRODUCT INBOUND

For the next line item in our example order, there is once again no product available at the customer's default warehouse. However, this time the amount of product on the water is enough to cover the current back-orders. Click the inbound quantity (green highlighted area) to get details on the inbound shipment.

You should now be looking at the Activity Report in DB. The report will auto-populate with the activity for the particular item and warehouse you selected, in this case item # C-3255.01 activity for the SEC warehouse. We can see that there are 3 inbound shipments for this item. We know from the previous step that there are a total of 35 units on back-order for the SEC warehouse and that our customer is last in line. This means their product is on the 2nd shipment shown below, due to land in the US on 5/27.

Tip! When communicating with customers, it is best practice to pad ETAs by about a week to account for possible delays at port and inventory receiving time.

We can now update our email confirmation table with "BACK-ORDERED. ETA EARLY JUNE" for this item.

IN-STOCK AT ANOTHER WAREHOUSE

Moving on to the next line item, we can see that there is no stock available in the customer's default warehouse and none inbound. There is, however, 1 unit available at the CAR warehouse. This means that the customer will have to wait until we transfer the stock from the CAR warehouse to the SEC warehouse before we can schedule shipment of this item to them. Stock transfers are done ad hoc, but we generally assume a 4-6 week lead time for this scenario.

In our email confirmation table, we will enter "BACK-ORDERED. PENDING STOCK TXF, ETA 4-6 WEEKS".

Finishing Up

Once all line items in the order have been updated with an ETA or stock status, we can go ahead and send the email to the customer.

Done! We've sent our first price confirmation / back-order update. We can now move on to our next customer.