What sales order documents are
Sales order documents are PDFs your team produces from a sales order, such as an order confirmation, a delivery note or a letter of authority. Each one comes from an output template. Every template marked as a sales order template is offered on every sales order's Documents tab.
For how templates, pages and styles work in general, see Working with output templates.
1. Create the template
Go to Settings, Output Templates. Create a new template, or open an existing one to copy from.
Give it a clear name. This is what your team sees on the Documents tab and in the PDF's file name.
Tick Sales Order Compatible.
Choose a Style, and a Header and Footer page if you want them, then set the margins.
Add the template's pages in the order they should print. Each page starts on a new sheet.
Save.
You need permission to edit output templates to do this.
2. Put the order's details on the pages
Type these snippets into a page where the value should appear. They are filled in when the document is produced.
The order
$$sales_order_ref$$, $$sales_order_status$$, $$sales_order_created$$, $$sales_order_updated$$
$$sales_order_owner$$, $$sales_order_connector$$, $$sales_order_customer_po$$
The customer
$$sales_order_customer_name$$, $$sales_order_customer_company_registration$$, $$sales_order_customer_telephone$$
$$sales_order_billing_address_single$$ or $$sales_order_billing_address_multiline$$, and the same for shipping
Any of the customer's custom fields: [CF-key], using the field's key
Lines and totals
$$sales_order_items$$ (all lines), $$sales_order_product_items$$, $$sales_order_service_items$$, and the same with _package on the end to group package lines
$$so_items_with_imei_table$$ for a table of products with their IMEIs
$$sales_order_total_net$$, $$sales_order_total_tax$$, $$sales_order_total_amount$$, $$sales_order_total_discount$$, $$sales_order_total_recurring$$
$$sales_order_balance_paid$$, $$sales_order_outstanding_balance$$, $$sales_order_hardware_fund$$, $$sales_order_buyout$$
$$sales_order_shipping_method$$, $$sales_order_shipping_total$$, $$sales_order_shipping_weight$$
Your company
$$company_logo_lg$$ on a page; $$company_logo_sm$$ in the header or footer
Check the spelling of each snippet: one that is not recognised prints its own name in the PDF. Do not use square brackets [ ] in your text, because they stop the custom fields on that page from filling in. In the header and footer, only $$sales_order_ref$$ and $$company_logo_sm$$ are filled in.
3. Produce documents from a sales order
Open the sales order and go to the Documents tab. Tick one or more templates, then:
Preview: see the documents with this order's details, without saving anything.
Edit: change the wording for this order only, page by page, and click Save Page. The template itself is not changed. The Customised column shows which templates have been edited for the order.
Clear Customisations: undo those edits so the order uses the template again.
Generate: produce the PDFs. Each is saved in the order's files.
After Generate, click Email Sales Order Documents to send them with the PDFs attached. The email starts from the template set for the order's current status in Settings, Sales Order Email Templates.
A page edited for an order keeps that order's wording. If you later change the template, use Clear Customisations on that order to pick up the change.
4. Documents that need a signature
If your company has signable sales order documents switched on, a template can also be sent to a customer contact to fill in and sign online, for example a letter of authority. Send for Signature then appears next to Generate. See Setting up a sales order template for signature and Sending a sales order document for signature.
Who sees the Documents tab
Anyone who can open sales orders sees the Documents tab, unless they have the user role that hides it.
Tips
Test a new or changed template by previewing it on a real order before your team uses it.
Keep templates you no longer use unticked from Sales Order Compatible, so the Documents tab only lists the ones your team needs.
Design pages to fit an A4 sheet within your margins. Long tables carry on to the next sheet.