A Better Way to Access Orders

Question: I have been using the order numbers that QuickBooks auto-assigns for sales orders (SO), purchase orders (PO) and invoices numbers. Is there a better way?

Answer: Yes. When I was a distributor, I quickly learned how often I had to access different orders during the course of a day. And thus, being able to quickly find these orders saved a lot of time.

I adopted a consistent numbering system. I made sure the SO number on customer sales orders and the PO number on supplier purchase orders matched the number I assigned for the order.

I see that some distributors let the invoice number auto-generate to have a count of the orders invoiced. I can see some value in this, but, to me, a consistent numbering system provided more value. Whenever I needed to find a file I could go to the "Find" button at the top of each form, enter the order number, and have access to both the customer and supplier side details quickly and easily.

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