Taking orders

Somebody wants gas. Who it is for, what they want and how it is being paid for, written down once and used by everything that happens next.

An order against a customer, or against a name and an address

Most orders go against a customer you already have. Search for them and the rest follows: their doors, so you can say which one, and the rates you have agreed with them. Somebody with no record yet is a one-off delivery, a name and an address typed in, which is the order that arrives after the round has been written out and would otherwise go in the margin of the sheet.

Each line is a product and a quantity. The price comes from the rate agreed with that customer, or your list price where there is no agreed rate, and the line says which of the two it used so nobody has to remember. Overrule it on the line when this one is different. Totals are before VAT, as every price in Bottle is.

The regulars, written for you

The pub that takes four every other Tuesday and the site that takes two a month are usually on a whiteboard, and the whiteboard is why the drop gets missed the week somebody is off. Written down once in Bottle, those orders get written automatically a few days before they are wanted and turn up in the planner like any other order.

Weekly, fortnightly, every four weeks or monthly, counted from the first delivery so a Tuesday arrangement stays on Tuesdays. One falling on a day your business is closed is written for the next day you are open. The price used is the one agreed on the day the order is written, so a rate rise applies from the next delivery without anybody editing anything. Pause it for the winter and start it again, or end it for good.

Cylinders coming back

Once a customer is chosen, the order shows what they are holding now and what they will hold afterwards. Cylinders to collect start as a swap, one empty back for each full going out, never more than they actually hold. Change it whenever it is not a swap, such as a pub clearing its cellar. An order can be a collection on its own, with nothing going out, which costs nothing, raises no invoice and goes on a round like any other stop.

Whatever the paperwork says, the driver confirms what actually came back at the door, and that is what reaches the stock ledger.

How it is being paid

Three ways, and a new order starts on whatever that customer's terms say.

• Pay later, on account. Nothing to collect at the door. It is invoiced once delivered, or picked up by the customer's next period invoice.
• Online by card. Taking the order raises an invoice numbered in your own sequence and emails the customer a link that pays it. An order paid this way is not planned onto a round until the money is in.
• Cash, taken by the driver at the door.

How soon, in your own words

You write your own service levels: same day, next day, two to three days, whatever you offer, each with the earliest and latest day it means and a charge if there is one. Days you are closed are skipped, so next day taken on Christmas Eve is the next day you actually deliver. Pick one when taking the order and the customer is told what to expect. Change a service level later and orders already taken keep the days and the charge they were sold under.

The customer knows where it is

Every order gets a reference of ten letters and digits, printed in two halves and missing the characters that look like each other, so it survives being read out over the phone. With their postcode it opens a tracking page: the day, a two-hour window once the van is out, how far down the round they are, and a way to say where to leave it if they are out. Customers never need an account.

When it changes, and it will

The call that comes ten minutes later saying it is the yard, not the pub, changes the order rather than replacing it, so the prices agreed on its lines survive. An order can also grow at the door: where a driver hands over more than was ordered, the lines change to match at that customer's price and any payment link for the old figure is cancelled. That never happens to an order already paid for.

Marking an order delivered fixes its lines, because what was delivered is a record rather than a draft. Cancelling keeps it on the books marked cancelled, because an order that vanishes is an argument nobody can settle.

Orders from other software

Anything holding permission can take an order, not only a person in the app. That is how a shop or an assistant can put orders straight into Bottle, through an API key scoped to exactly what you allow. If you run a WooCommerce or Shopify shop, Bottle can also pull your catalogue in rather than anybody keying it twice, taking VAT off as it goes where your shop's prices include it.

What happens next

An order wanted on a day is the raw material for planning a round. What comes back from the door feeds invoicing and the stock ledger.