Quotes and special orders

Two things every venue does on paper and then loses track of: pricing a job before the customer commits, and ordering something in for one person. Both now live in Back Office → Quotes & orders.

26.1 Quotes

A quote is a price in writing — a year-end function, a catering job, a bulk order. Raise one, send it, and it either becomes a sale or a recorded loss.

• Nothing is held. A quote reserves no stock and takes no money. You can quote the same last case of wine to five different customers, which is the point: quoting must never make you unable to sell.
• Lines don't have to be products. "Waiting staff — 3 for 5 hours" and "Venue hire, Saturday" go on as free text with their own prices. You don't have to invent menu items for labour.
• Prices are locked when you write them. Put the platter on at R150 today and it stays R150 on that quote even if the menu price goes up next week. Leave a line's price blank and Aura fills in the current price at that location — airport prices for an airport quote — then freezes it.
• A deposit percentage ("we take 50% on booking") prints on the document. It's a policy figure; no money moves until the quote becomes a sale.

The life of a quote. Draft → Send → Sent. From there: Accepted, Declined (with a reason — that's what makes the win/loss report worth reading), or Withdraw.

• You can still edit a sent quote. Revising a number and re-sending is what a negotiation is. Once you mark it Accepted the figures are locked — a change after that needs a new quote, which is exactly the paper trail you want if there's an argument later.
• Expiry looks after itself. Set "valid until" and the quote reads Expired the day after, with no housekeeping. Nothing in Aura silently honours a dead price: accepting or converting an expired quote is refused, so re-dating it is a decision someone makes on purpose. The list shows "expires in 3 days" rather than a status code, because that's the sentence that prompts a phone call.

Turning it into money. Raise the order creates a normal open sale at the quoted prices, which you settle on the till like any other bill — stock, VAT, loyalty, receipt, all as usual. The total charged matches the quote to the cent, including any discount you gave. A quote can only ever become one order, however many times the button is pressed. A customer who walks in with a printout and pays can be converted straight away; you don't have to mark it accepted first.

26.2 Special orders

A customer wants something you don't stock. Take the request, get it in, ring them, hand it over.

Raise it with the customer attached (that's the whole feature — knowing who to ring) and describe what they asked for in their words. You don't need a catalogue item; most special orders are for something you don't sell, which is usually why they're special.

Price it and Aura raises the sale behind the scenes. For a catalogue item, leave the price blank and it uses your price at that branch.

Take a deposit and it goes straight into the till that took it — it shows in that register's cash-up and in the day's Z-report, exactly like any other payment. No notebook, no envelope, no "ask Thandi, she took it". Aura won't let a deposit exceed the balance, and won't let you change the price once a deposit is paid (that would quietly move the amount the customer agreed to).

Then: Placed with supplier (link the purchase order so receiving the stock shows you who's waiting) → It has arrived → Collect & pay.

• "Customer told" is separate from "it has arrived", because those come apart — goods can sit for a day before you get hold of someone. Arrived but we can't reach them is the state that actually needs chasing, and the list says so.
• Collection takes the balance only. The deposit is already on the sale, so the till asks for what's left while the receipt shows the full price.
• You can't cancel once it's arrived. The goods are in the building and bought for one named person. Either they collect, or you refund the deposit and put the item into stock — both real jobs. Cancel earlier and Aura tells you exactly how much deposit you still owe back, and keeps the record of it, because the drawer really was short that money.

26.3 Uncollected goods

Quotes & orders flags anything that's been on the collection shelf more than a fortnight, with the money tied up in it. This is worth checking monthly: goods bought for one customer who never came back are invisible in normal stock reports — on the shelf they just look like stock that isn't selling.