How Documents Flow Through Fast2Task
Fast2Task manages your business through documents: quotes, sales orders, purchase orders, work orders, shipments, invoices and more. Each document is useful on its own, but the real power is in how they link together. This article gives you the map; the linked articles cover each document in depth.
The three flows
Selling (money coming in):
Quote → Sales Order → Fulfillment → Shipment → Invoice
You quote a client, convert the quote to a sales order, fulfill each line (from stock, a purchase order, a work order, a kit, or as non-stock), dispatch the goods on a shipment, then invoice what you shipped. See Understanding Sales Orders.
Buying (money going out):
Purchase Order → Inbound Shipment → Receipt → Supplier Invoice
You order from a supplier, track the inbound shipment, receipt the goods into a stock location when they arrive, then record the supplier’s invoice against the purchase order. See Understanding Purchase Orders.
Making (turning materials into products):
Bill of Materials → Work Order → Materials consumed + Labour → Outputs into stock
A work order consumes materials (sourced from stock or purchase orders), records labour time, and produces finished products into stock. See Understanding Work Orders.
The flows connect to each other. A sales order line can be fulfilled by creating a purchase order (buy it in) or a work order (make it). A work order can source its materials from a purchase order. Fast2Task keeps all of these links so you can always trace a sale back through production to the original purchase.
Documents are linked, not copied
When one document leads to another (a quote becomes a sales order, a sales order line creates a purchase order), Fast2Task records a link between them rather than a disconnected copy. Each document shows its linked documents, so from a sales order you can jump straight to the purchase orders, work orders, shipments and invoices involved in it, and vice versa.
Draft and finalized documents
New documents start as drafts. A draft is a work in progress; you can freely change lines, quantities and prices. When a document is ready to act on (for example, a purchase order you’re about to send to a supplier), you Finalize it. Some follow-on steps, like receipting goods, only apply to finalized documents. If you need to make changes after finalizing, you can revert the document to draft.
Statuses
Each document tracks where it is in its life with a status. The early statuses are shared across document types:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| New | Just created, not yet actioned |
| Approved | Confirmed and ready to proceed |
| Scheduled | Planned for a future date |
| In progress | Being worked on |
| On hold | Paused |
| Cancelled | Abandoned, kept for records but no longer active |
The later statuses are specific to each document type: a sales order moves through Fulfilled → Packaged → Invoiced, a purchase order through Arrived → Receipted → Invoiced, and a work order through Completed → Closed. Each document’s own article covers its lifecycle in detail.
Document numbers
Every quote, sales order, purchase order, work order and invoice is automatically given the next number in its sequence when first saved; you don’t need to manage numbering yourself.
Nothing is lost
Every time a document is saved, Fast2Task keeps the previous version as a revision. You can view a document’s history and restore an earlier version if something goes wrong. While editing, you can also undo recent changes before saving.
Where to next
- Working with Document Lines: the line editor shared by all documents
- Fulfillment Sources Explained: stock, purchase order, work order, kit and non-stock
- Understanding Sales Orders
- Understanding Purchase Orders
- Understanding Work Orders