Determining the handover: quotes & orders
The quote or the order are commonly the points where the workflow at Salesforce’s side ends and where the steps in the process are taken care of by the ERP.
Disclaimer: this is of course very dependent on the kind of business you are running. Salesforce also provides full quote-to-cash solutions, entirely built on the Salesforce platform. Dependent on your business needs, this could be a great solution. It can be very convenient to have the entire flow incorporated in a single system. On the other hand, some businesses have specific needs which can be handled in a more suitable way by systems which are specifically tailored towards them. ERP can be a good example of this.
Let’s assume the quote or order is the cutoff point where the ERP handles the next steps in the process, we still have some different options:
- Do we create quotes & orders in Salesforce or is the order created directly in the ERP?
- Will some orders be created directly in the ERP, without an opportunity and a quote in Salesforce?
Regardless of which cutoff point we’ve chosen, we’d like to create some automated processes when the deal is closed and send the sold goods and services to the appropriate object in the ERP. For instance: when a quote is signed by the customer, automatically execute these actions:
- Create an order & order lines in the ERP system, containing all of the information which was offered in the quote.
- Set the opportunity to closed won
- In case this is the first deal with a prospect, update the type of the account from prospect to customer
After the order is created in the ERP, it can take care of the next steps in the process and manage different aspects for which the ERP is specifically designed e.g.:
- Order management
- Production
- Inventory tracking
- Delivery
- Invoicing
Typically, the Salesforce flow stays in the lead until closing the deal, including the creation of the quote. This poses some additional challenges. In order to do so, it could be necessary that all product and pricing logic has to be present in both Salesforce and the ERP and is preferably only managed in one of those systems. This requires synchronization of the product master data as well. Yet another important decision that needs to be made.