Delivery Order

Last updated: June 20, 2026

A delivery order records goods physically leaving for the customer and moves stock out of inventory. It is a logistics document, not a financial one: it carries no totals and posts nothing to your accounts. Its concern is quantity and traceability, what went out, in what state, to whom, from which warehouse, so that fulfilment is accurate even when an order ships in several drops.

What you will learn
  • Why the delivery order holds quantities, not money
  • What its screen captures, including the recipient and location
  • Its pick-pack-deliver lifecycle
  • How partial deliveries and serial capture work
The sales document chainQTNQuotationSOSales OrderINVInvoiceDODeliveryDelivery tracks quantities; the matching amounts live on the order and invoice.
A delivery is generated from an order, and can itself generate an invoice simplified mockup

Anatomy of the screen

  • Order reference – the source sales order whose lines this delivery fulfils.
  • Customer and recipient – the customer, and the recipient actually receiving the goods, who may differ from the attention person on the order, plus the delivery address.
  • Document block – code, date, project and the warehouse location the goods leave from.
  • Items – the deliverable lines, matched to the order's outstanding deliverables, showing quantity delivered against quantity ordered. Where serial or batch tracking applies, those numbers are captured here as goods go out.
  • Instructions, notes and attachments.

How it behaves

Lifecycle

A delivery runs Draft, Verify, then Processing (the pick and pack stage), Delivery (in transit), and Complete; it can be Cancelled. The stages mirror the physical handling of the goods.

Quantities, not totals

A delivery order has no subtotal, tax or total, because it is not billing anything. It records quantity delivered, and that figure feeds the invoice: when you later bill by amount, the prorating leans on what has actually been delivered. The split of duties is deliberate, the delivery answers “did it ship”, the invoice answers “what does it cost”.

Partial deliveries

One order can be satisfied by several deliveries as stock becomes available. Each delivery draws down the order's remaining deliverables, so the order always knows what is still owed. If a draft delivery already exists for an order, the screen warns you, to stop two people shipping the same goods twice.

Worked example

Acme's order is for thirty widgets but only twenty are in stock. You raise a delivery for twenty from the main warehouse, capturing their serial numbers as they are packed, and complete it; the order now shows twenty delivered, ten pending. When the remaining ten arrive you raise a second delivery, and the order is fully shipped.

Edge cases and good practice

  • Recipient is not the order contact. Set the recipient to whoever signs for the goods at the door, which is often not the buyer named on the order.
  • Capture serials at the door. Recording serial or batch numbers on the delivery is what keeps traceability intact downstream; do it as goods leave, not after.
  • Mind the draft warning. If the system flags an existing draft delivery for the order, reconcile it before raising another.

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