A dining table in March, chairs in May
A customer orders a dining table from one supplier, six chairs from another and a sideboard from a third. The table arrives in March. The chairs are on a longer lead time, due in May. The sideboard is somewhere in between. The customer does not want to eat standing up for two months, so she asks for the table now. The office agrees, books the delivery, and marks the order as delivered. Two months later, the chairs arrive and sit in the warehouse, because the order says 'delivered' and nobody is looking for it.
The customer rings in June to ask where her chairs are. They have been in your warehouse for three weeks.
Why multi-supplier orders go wrong
- Order status is tracked for the whole order, not per line.
- Each supplier's confirmed date is held separately, if at all.
- Part deliveries are agreed by phone and not recorded clearly.
- Goods arriving for a partly delivered order are not matched to it.
- Customers are not asked early whether they want one delivery or several.
What goes wrong
| Situation | Result |
|---|---|
| Part delivery agreed by phone | Remaining items forgotten in the warehouse |
| Whole order waits for the slowest item | Customer waits for everything, frustrated |
| Two deliveries not planned | Two crew runs where one would do |
| No line status | Staff cannot answer 'what is still to come' |
How we track orders line by line
- Every customer order line is linked to its supplier purchase order line and carries its own status and expected date.
- The order shows at a glance which lines are in, which are due and when, and when the whole order is expected to be complete.
- At the point of sale or when dates are confirmed, the customer is asked whether they want one delivery when everything is in, or items as they arrive. Your rules decide whether extra deliveries carry a charge.
- When a line arrives for an order that has had a part delivery, it is flagged as 'remaining items ready', and the customer gets a message to book the next delivery.
- The warehouse sees, for each item received, which customer order it belongs to and whether the rest of that order is in, so goods are stored together.
- A daily report lists orders with items in the warehouse and nothing booked, which catches anything that slips.
The same order, done right
The customer is asked at the point of sale how she wants her dining set delivered. She chooses two deliveries: table as soon as possible, then chairs and sideboard together. The table arrives in March and she books it straight away. When the sideboard arrives in April, the system notes it is waiting for the chairs. When the chairs arrive in May, she gets a message to book the second delivery. Nothing sits forgotten.
Planning for the slowest item
The order view also helps at the point of sale. If one item has a much longer lead time than the rest, the sales person sees that the whole order will be waiting for it, and can suggest an alternative with a shorter lead time if the customer wants everything together. Over time, the data shows which suppliers most often hold up complete orders, which helps when you choose ranges to feature.
Storage and payment follow the same line-by-line logic. Balances can be requested per delivery if you split payments, and goods waiting for the rest of an order are shown together in the warehouse view, so they can be kept in one bay and loaded together.
Signs your multi-supplier orders need this
- Orders are marked delivered when only part has gone.
- Remaining items have sat in the warehouse unnoticed.
- Staff cannot say which items on an order are still to come.
- Part deliveries are agreed by phone without a record.
- Customers wait for everything because of one slow item.