For UK distributors and manufacturers still on Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Dynamics NAV sales order processing: emailed orders as drafts.
In Dynamics NAV a sales order stays Open until someone releases it to the warehouse, so an Open order already works as a draft. Emailed orders can be read, checked against your NAV customers, items and prices, and created as Open sales orders through NAV's web services for your team to release.
Or send us one order and see what we'd read and flag, by the end of the next working day.
The problem
NAV's sales order window wants item numbers. Customers send descriptions.
Microsoft's own NAV 2018 guide to creating a sales order is a list of numbered steps: choose the customer, then for every line enter the item number, the quantity and any line discount. On an order desk the time goes on the lookups. Which item is "the usual wiper blades"? Which branch is "Leeds"? Is that the agreed price?
Orders keep arriving by email. Of the 108 UK distributors and wholesalers in our study of 209 supplier websites, 73% offer online ordering, and 48% of those still tell customers to phone, email or give the order to a rep as well (the research note). That is what the websites say, not a count of orders.
How it works
Dynamics NAV sales order processing from email, step by step.
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1
Read
Each order is read as it arrived: the email, an attached PDF or spreadsheet, a photo of a handwritten list. Customer, items, quantities, units, delivery date and the customer's PO number come out as lines.
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2
Matched and checked
The customer and each item are matched to your NAV records, using past orders to learn each customer's own names for things. Prices, line discounts and inventory are checked. Anything that doesn't match is flagged with the reason.
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3
Created as Open
The sales order is created in NAV and left Open. Your team reads the flags, edits what needs it and releases it as usual.
An order, for example
A garage group's order to a motor factor.
Comes in
Hi, order for the Leeds branch, PO LG-2207. 12 x 5W-30 5L, brake pads per the attached, plus the usual wiper blades. Thanks, Raj, Kirkdale Motors
Checked
- Customer matched: Kirkdale Motors, Leeds branch
- 9 lines read from the spreadsheet, item numbers matched
- "The usual wiper blades" filled from the last three Leeds orders
- Line discounts match the customer's agreed terms
- 5W-30 5L: 8 in inventory, 12 ordered
Waits for your approval
Sales order · Open · 11 lines · 1 short
Created in NAV with the PO number noted. Waits for your team to check and release.
Illustration with invented data. More on sales order processing automation.
Connecting to NAV
How we would connect to Dynamics NAV.
Based on Microsoft's own documentation for Dynamics NAV 2018, checked in October 2026. Older versions differ, and we'd check yours in the session.
- The route in
- NAV web services. NAV 2018 can publish pages as SOAP or OData web services, and a published page can create, read, update and delete records. Publishing the sales order page is how a new order would go in.
- The APIs
- NAV 2018 also has a set of REST APIs, sales orders among them. They stay off until someone enables them in the server administration tool and runs the API setup.
- Customers, items, prices
- Read the same way: customers, items and inventory, and each customer's sales prices and line discounts.
- Status
- A NAV sales order stays Open until someone releases it. Microsoft's documentation describes releasing as the signal to the warehouse that items can be picked, and that is where your team's approval sits. If you use NAV's approval workflows, the order waits at Pending Approval instead.
- A customised NAV
- If your NAV has been customised, we look at your sales order page and any added fields in the session, before the price is fixed.
What it costs you today
Count the keying hours first.
Illustration with invented data: 90 orders a day at 4 minutes each is 30 hours a week of keying, four fifths of a full-time week.
Put your own figures into the order desk calculator. It shows the hours and the pounds a year and doesn't guess at savings. If we work together, that figure is the baseline we report against, as order processing time and order errors.
What you get from us
In this order, with a fixed price before you commit.
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30 minutes
Call with you
Where orders pile up before they reach NAV, and which number that holds back.
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1 hour
Session with your team
We watch real orders go into NAV. The same day you get a one-page verdict: the workflow, the KPI it moves, today's baseline and a fixed price. Or a written no.
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A fixed number of weeks
Build
We build it and connect it to your NAV. Nothing is subcontracted.
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Every month
Run and report
We run it and report order processing time and order errors against the baseline. Stop at any report.
Questions
What people ask about Dynamics NAV order processing.
- Is Dynamics NAV still supported?
- Microsoft's mainstream support for NAV 2018, the last NAV version, ended in January 2023. Extended support runs to January 2028. Older NAV versions have their own dates on Microsoft's lifecycle pages.
- Should we wait until we move to Business Central?
- If the move is booked and close, yes. If it is a year or more away, the order desk is losing hours in the meantime. The reading and checking carry over, and only the step that creates the order is rebuilt.
- Will orders reach the warehouse before anyone checks them?
- No. Orders are created Open and stay that way until someone on your team releases them.
- What does it cost?
- The price is fixed and written on the one-page verdict after the session with your team, before you commit to anything. If we don't find anything worth doing, we'll tell you and leave.
Next step
Thirty minutes on your NAV order desk.
Tell us which NAV version you run, how orders reach you and roughly how many come in a day. Or send us one order first and see what we'd read and flag.
The Open Build. We’ll build one UK supplier an order desk system, free and in public, measured on its own numbers. Everyone who applies gets a one-page read of their own workflow. Applications close at 5pm UK time on Friday 6 November. See the Open Build.