BlogRunning the place
Confirmed, picked, posted: the words on an order
Start selling wholesale and the order screen fills up with words borrowed from warehouses and bookkeeping. They can sound like jargon, but each one marks a point where something changes hands, whether a promise, the plants themselves or the money. Knowing what each step means tells you what you have agreed to and what your buyer can rely on.
Unconfirmed and confirmed
An order arrives by phone, by email or through a shop. Until someone at the nursery has looked at it, it is unconfirmed, which means received but not yet agreed. Before you confirm, check that the plants are there and not already promised to someone else, that the size and price are right, and that you can meet the ship date.
Confirming is a promise. A landscaper plans a job around a confirmed order, books a crew and tells their own client, so it is worth confirming only what you are sure of. Confirm the same day if you can, and say so in writing, because a buyer who hears nothing will ring to ask whether you got it. Even while an order is unconfirmed, its plants should be held for it, so that nobody sells them while you are still checking.
Picking and the pick ticket
Picking is pulling the plants off the benches to fill the order. The crew works from a pick ticket, sometimes called a pick list, which is the order printed for the yard rather than for the buyer. It lists each line with the plant, size and quantity and where the plants stand. A good pick ticket is sorted by location so the crew walks the yard once, has a box to tick on each line and room to note anything short, and shows no prices, so it can travel on the truck. Keep the ticked ticket once the truck is loaded, because it records what actually went, and that is what the order should be posted with.
Pick close to the ship date rather than days ahead, since plants standing on a cart are not being watered. If something is short, tell the buyer before the truck leaves and offer a size up or a substitute. A call at seven in the morning is a nuisance, but finding out on site is worse.
Posting and unposting
Posting is the step that makes an order final. The word comes from bookkeeping, where posting means entering something into the books, and on an order it means three things at once: the plants leave your stock, the sale goes into your accounts and the invoice goes to the buyer. After that, the order is a record rather than a draft. Post once the order has actually left, with the quantities checked against the ticked pick ticket, so the invoice matches what arrived.
Unposting reverses a post. The plants go back on your stock and the order opens again, so a wrong quantity, price or customer can be put right and the order posted again with a new invoice. Use it for mistakes found soon after posting. A return weeks later is usually better handled as a credit, so the invoice the buyer already has stays as it was.
How Sprout handles each step
In Sprout every new order starts unconfirmed, and Home shows how many are waiting. Its plants are committed from the start, so nobody can sell them twice while you check. Confirm emails the buyer a confirmation. Pick Ticket prints the order sorted by location, size and plant, with a box on each row and no prices. Post takes the plants off stock, makes the order final and emails the invoice. Unpost puts the plants back on stock, still committed to the order, and the order goes back on hold to be changed, and posting it again emails a new invoice. A grower on their own gets the buttons in the order the work happens, and a larger crew gets everyone looking at the same status.