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Overview of the order to cash end-to-end business process broken down into multiple process areas

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Applies to: Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Dynamics 365 Commerce, Dynamics 365 Finance

The order to cash end-to-end business process is broken down into multiple business process areas that are shown as subprocesses in the flow diagram. The following sections describe these business process areas.

Manage store operations

In organizations that have a brick and mortar retail store operations, you will need to manage the operations and setup of those stores before you can start selling products. Dynamics 365 Commerce includes functionality to help retailers manage thier day-to-day store operations including processes such as setting up the stores devices and hardware, managing the store staff and thier shifts, preparing the retail store for sales, and managing cash in the retail store.

Create and manage sales orders

Before you start selling your products and services to customers, it's critical that you establish your business pricing and contracts. Depending on the types of customers you sell to, the process steps and stakeholders vary. For example, in a business-to-business (B2B) model, sales managers may be responsible for establishing and communicating your prices. In a business-to-consumer (B2C) model, pricing might be defined by merchandising, sales leadership, or company policy and published on your website.

After you establish your prices and contracts, you can start recording your sales in Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Commerce, or Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, depending on your business requirements. The Dynamics 365 product family supports many sales models or channels, such as brick-and-mortar, e-commerce, call center, B2B, B2C, and more.

An organization may be geographically dispersed or have more than one line of business. For example, a retail organization may have a manufacturing plant to produce some items and distribution centers that combine manufactured and purchased items. An organization may offer services and sell products to support them or sell products and offer after-sales services. An organization may also trade products, services, and resources across companies. Dynamics 365 supports all these scenarios. Learn about intercompany planning in Supply Chain Management or how to manage intercompany transactions in Business Central.

Issue customer invoices

Organizations that sell products or services need to issue invoices or receipts for them. The process to generate an invoice or receipt varies. Dynamics 365 supports various formats and sales models, such as traditional invoices for B2B, receipts printed at the point of sale for brick-and-mortar sales, and online or email confirmations for orders placed through a website. Learn more at Invoice sales orders. For project-based organizations, Dynamics 365 Project Operations supports creating project invoices.

Record customer payments

Organizations that sell products or services must collect payment for them. Even non-profit organizations want to collect payments in the form of contributions from donors. Dynamics 365 support various techniques to capture payments, including online payments, in-person payments at the point of sale, and payments that your accounts receivable staff enter in back-office applications.

Many organizations and industries offer rebates to customers to establish long-term customer relationships, encourage customers to use buying habits that your organization supports, and increase overall sales. Dynamics 365 supports rebates in the form of both discounts off the original invoices and rebates and trade allowances on a periodic basis based on sales volume, for example.

Monitor customer credit and collections

Collecting payments is critical to maintain a positive cash flow. In B2B sales models, organizations must set credit limits, monitor balances against them, and collect overdue payments. In B2C models, payment is most often collected at the point of sale; however, there might be issues with payments after the fact, such as insufficient funds and requests for refunds. Dynamics 365 offers features for monitoring customer credit and collections, including managing credit limits, monitoring customer balances, and collecting payments for accounts that are past due.

Next steps

If you want to implement Dynamics 365 solutions to assist with your order to cash business processes, use the following resources and steps to learn more. (Links are added, when the articles are ready.)

  1. Manage store operations

  2. Create and manage sales orders

  3. Trade across companies

  4. Issue customer invoices

  5. Record customer payments*

  6. Monitor customer credit and collections

Contributors

This article is maintained by Microsoft. It was originally written by the following contributors.

Principal author:

  • Rachel Profitt | Principal Program Manager, FastTrack for Dynamics 365