How orders flow

Your stores order stock from your stockhouse, and you accept, ship, and invoice every one of those orders from a single board. This page explains what a franchise order is on your side and how it moves; the step-by-step guide covers how to drive it.

One queue, two sides

A franchise order is not a form you fill in — it's a hand-off between the buyer and you. The buyer builds it and submits it; you confirm, ship, and bill it. As it moves, its status passes back and forth between the two sides, and both sides see the same status, so you always know whose turn it is:

1. The customer builds a Draft — their working copy, on their side. You don't see it yet.
2. They submit it — it lands in your queue as Pending.
3. You confirm it — the order becomes Accepted.
4. You ship it from the stockhouse — now Shipped, and this is the moment your stockhouse stock is deducted.
5. They receive it — Delivered, recorded at the quantity that actually arrived.
6. You bill it — Invoiced, on the quantities they received plus your delivery fee.
7. You close it — Completed, which posts the delivery fee to the customer's Transportation expenses.

The first two steps happen on the customer's side and the middle four are yours; only receiving (step 5) returns to them. You spend most of your time on Pending → Accepted → Shipped and then Invoiced → Completed.

When an order doesn't run straight

The path above is the common case, but three things can bend it. Each is covered fully in the step-by-step guide — here's what they are:

• Revise — before you ship, you can change the quantities on an order when you can't fully stock a line or want to round an amount. On a store or partner order the change is proposed and waits for the buyer to approve or reject it; on a public-form order it just applies.
• Discrepancy — when the customer receives less than you shipped, they record the shortfall and the order is flagged as a discrepancy. You settle it when you invoice, and BuddyStall bills only what actually arrived.
• Cancel — either side can call an order off while it's still in flight. Cancelling is terminal: the order stops where it is and nothing further moves.

Where orders come from

Everything lands on the same board, but an order can reach you from three kinds of buyer — and the board tells them apart with a badge:

• A franchisee store — a store owner on BuddyStall ordering for one of their branches. This is the common case; the board shows the store and owner name.
• A partner supplier buying from you — one of your partner suppliers can also be a customer of your stockhouse. These carry a Partner badge and are billed to the partner, not to a store owner.
• A store not yet on BuddyStall — a franchisee who hasn't adopted the app can still order through your public order form. These carry a Form badge and record the contact details the buyer typed in.

Shipping deducts your stockhouse stock

Most steps just change whose turn it is, but shipping touches your central inventory: when you mark an order Shipped, every line is taken out of your stockhouse inventory at once. If a line doesn't have enough on hand, the order can't ship until you restock — so accepting an order isn't a promise your shelves can keep it, shipping is.

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