Special orders are a great way to order out-of-stock items for your customers. For example, a customer may want a specific item that only your location carries in stock and would be willing to wait for more quantities to arrive.

Similar to layaways, you create a special order by first going to Sales > Special Order. Then, simply attach a customer to the register and add the items that they would like to order to the SPECIAL ORDER tab of the register.

You can also special order individual items that are out of stock during a sale by selecting Special Order from their Move To drop-down (1). Alternatively, you can special order all items in a sale by selecting the Special Order All button (2). Both these workflows move the item(s) from the SALE tab to the SPECIAL ORDER tab.

No matter which workflow you choose, no payment is required for a special order. Whether you require a deposit or not is entirely up to you. You don't even need to select Payment > Finish Sale when creating a special order unless your customer would like a copy of the receipt for their records.

Once you create a special order, you can easily add it to a purchase order from the Special Orders submenu.

Then, contact your customer once you receive their item and add it to your inventory.

When your customer comes in-store to pick it up, it's at this point that you need to complete their special order. To do so:

1. From the main menu, select Sales > Special Orders.
2. Attach your customer to the register.
3. Select Complete next the item(s) they want to buy. This moves the item(s) from the SPECIAL ORDER tab to the SALE tab.
4. Finish the sale as you would with a typical sale.

Lastly, from Inventory > Special Orders, you can see a list of all your special orders, update their statuses, open them at the register, delete them and much more.

For more information, please see:

• Creating a special order
• Checking the status of a special order