B2B quoting, sales orders and purchasing
Automate the pricing and paperwork behind complex customer orders.
Your team chooses the customer, products and specifications. CommerceServer applies your pricing rules, calculates the quote and carries the agreed job into sales orders, invoices and supplier purchase orders.
Keep inventory on order, in transit, in stock or held for a customer connected to the same job. Staff review the decisions and record what happens; they don’t rebuild prices, documents and stock lists at every step.
No separate build fee. We build, operate and keep adapting your system as part of one monthly service.
One customer job · illustrative workflow
Track ordered → in transit → received, with customer holds retained.
A worked example, not a customer case study
Enter the carpet job once. Let the system do the repeated work.
A commercial interiors company needs two wool carpet pieces, each 12 × 18 feet, with a selected material and finished edges. The job also needs matching underlay from another supplier.
Sales selects the trade account, products and sizes. CommerceServer calculates 432 square feet—or 48 square yards—selects the configured trade-price quantity tier and works out line totals. Configured discounts, selected service charges, tariffs and applicable tax feed the customer total. Staff review the offer against internal costs instead of calculating each version in a spreadsheet.
Customer-facing offer
- Product and specification
- Two wool carpet pieces · 12 × 18 feet each · selected color and edge finish. Matching underlay for the same job.
- Quantity and pricing basis
- Two pieces; 432 square feet of carpet. Keep the physical piece count separate from the area used to price it.
- Customer sell price
- The account’s trade price, or a negotiated line price for this offer—not a change to every customer’s catalog price.
- Complete customer total
- Merchandise, the agreed discount, edge-finishing service, applicable tariff or surcharge, freight and tax.
Internal cost and purchasing
- Material cost
- Supplier A’s carpet cost and Supplier B’s underlay cost, using the appropriate cost units and quantities.
- Sell price beside cost
- Review the agreed revenue against the cost of supplying the job. Internal cost and margin do not belong on the customer’s quote.
- Supplier-specific instructions
- Material, dimensions, quantities, finish and delivery requirements for each supplier’s portion of the order.
- Separate documents
- The customer receives the sales offer and invoice. Each supplier receives its own purchase order with buy details—not the customer’s sell prices.
The sizes and supplier split illustrate the process. Staff choose and review the job; configured rules do the calculations. A negotiated price remains an explicit override, not a new catalog price for everyone.
Configured rules, calculated prices
Change the job. CommerceServer recalculates the quote.
A retail customer, trade account and distributor can have different price types. CommerceServer selects the matching product price and quantity tier, uses the line’s measurements for area pricing, and calculates the adjustments. Your team reviews the result and any negotiated override. Buy-side cost stays separate from the customer’s selling price.
Dimensions and materials
Select the material and enter the sizes. CommerceServer converts physical piece counts into the configured square-foot or square-yard pricing quantity, calculates extensions and keeps measurements and notes with the line.
Service charges and tariffs
Choose a saved fixed or percentage charge and the merchandise it applies to. CommerceServer calculates finishing, freight or tariff surcharges from that basis, rather than making staff repeat the calculation after every edit.
Discounts and customer prices
The account’s price type selects its catalog rates. Applicable configured discounts are calculated during repricing; a negotiated line override stays with this offer without changing everyone’s price.
Tax and the final total
CommerceServer calculates applicable tax and the final total, then subtracts money received to show the outstanding balance. Staff review the result before sending the offer; an invoice is not a payment receipt.
From offer to accepted sale
The quote becomes the work—not another re-entry task.
Send the customer a custom quote.
Select the account and contact, add the products and specifications, and review the complete offer. Deliver the customer quote as a document or through the customer quote-link workflow.
Customer-facing documents show the selling details. A customer link has its own expiry and revocation controls; sending it is not payment.
Carry the accepted quote into the sales order.
Keep the customer, agreed lines, prices, notes and applicable dimensions on the same commercial record. Staff review the offer, customer PO reference and payment terms before conversion.
The customer’s PO number is their reference for buying from you. It is not one of your supplier purchase orders.
Read the quote-to-order guide ↗Produce the customer documents and follow the remaining work.
Use the sales order and invoice documents for the customer transaction. Track payment and fulfillment separately: creating an invoice does not mean the customer paid, and a paid order may still need purchasing or delivery.
Read the payment and fulfillment guide ↗Purchasing belongs in the same process
One sales order can need more than one supplier PO.
Select the sales-order lines and remaining quantities to buy, choose the supplier and create a purchase order—or append to an appropriate draft. Carry the source specifications and links forward so purchasing does not reconstruct the customer’s job.
For our example, the carpet and underlay become two separate supplier orders. Each has its own supplier, costs, ship-to details and instructions.
Supplier A / Carpet
The made-to-measure material
Two wool carpet pieces, 12 × 18 feet each, with the selected color and required finish. Review the vendor’s product reference, cost basis and delivery instructions.
Supplier B / Underlay
The matching supporting material
The underlay quantity needed for the same job. Review this supplier’s product, costs and ship-to details independently of the carpet purchase order.
Review and place each purchase order, then print its supplier-ready document to send. CommerceServer retains the source-order links and specifications; staff do not retype them. Creating or printing a PO is not automatic transmission to a supplier.
Supply and customer holds stay connected
See what is ordered, on the way, in stock or held for this customer.
The carpet and underlay have separate supplier orders, but both remain linked to the customer job. CommerceServer tracks the recorded supply state and assignments so staff do not reconcile an order spreadsheet against a separate warehouse list.
When purchasing places the POs
The system records ordered stock against the supplier PO. For eligible whole-piece orders bought for a finalized sales order, it also assigns the incoming pieces to that source job automatically, up to its remaining need. Staff can review those assignments; replenishment stock is not silently assigned to a customer.
When the supplier ships
Staff record the shipped quantity, shipment reference and expected arrival. CommerceServer moves the existing ordered pieces to in transit without replacing their identities or losing the customer assignment.
When the warehouse receives it
Staff select the arriving pieces, receiving date and warehouse. CommerceServer records the receipt against the same PO and inventory items, preserving their connection to the customer order.
When stock is held for a customer
Recorded assignments distinguish stock held for this job from stock assigned elsewhere. Staff can select existing stock or measured pieces for an order; measured stock keeps its own sizes and available area. A price quote alone is not a stock reservation.
Shipment and receipt updates follow real events staff record. They do not imply automatic supplier confirmations, carrier tracking feeds or physical movement of goods.
Reuse the work that should stay the same
Build the next quote from your catalog and rules.
Your products, customer price types, supplier relationships and charge definitions drive the next calculation. Staff change the job’s quantities, dimensions, selected materials and agreed prices; CommerceServer recalculates and carries the reviewed details forward.
For orders that are different every time, the decisions change. The arithmetic, document copying and links between the sale, purchasing and inventory should not have to be rebuilt.
Built in, then fitted to your business
We operate the system and keep adapting it.
Quoting, customer documents, sales orders and supplier purchasing are part of CommerceServer—not a proposal to build a new backend from scratch.
We configure the products, pricing and workflow around how your team sells and buys. Changes to the system we run are included in the monthly service. Requests are worked in order, a set number at a time for your plan.
Buffaly is the engineering system we use to build and change the software. Your team works in the business system.
How the ongoing service works ↗Start with one representative order
Show us the quote—and what happens after the customer says yes.
Tell us what changes from job to job, how you price it and what your suppliers need to receive. Describe the process without sending confidential customer details.
Discuss your quoting and purchasing process ↗See how CommerceServer handles a complex quote from pricing to stock