What Is a Sales Order Line?

A sales order line is one row on a customer's sales order: a specific product, a requested quantity, a unit price, and a due date. The order header groups the customer and the paperwork; the lines carry the demand. When the order is confirmed, each line becomes firm demand the plant is committed to deliver.

This entry defines the sales order line and shows how it reads inside EDGEBIC by User Solutions. For the wider index of terms, see the manufacturing glossary; for the wider order document, see EDGEBIC sales orders explained; and for the demand type it represents, see firm demand in planning.

How it works

A sales order is two levels. The header names the customer and holds order-wide details. Beneath it sit the lines, and the lines are where the real demand lives. Each line names one product, a requested quantity, a per-unit price, a due date, and a quantity shipped to date. The line, not the header, is the unit of demand.

Two rules give the line its planning meaning. First, only lines on a confirmed order count as firm demand. A draft order's lines are excluded, because a draft is not a commitment, and a cancelled order's lines stop counting. Confirming the order is what turns its lines into independent demand that the projection and master schedule must plan against.

Second, timing comes from the line's own due date, not the header's requested date. The header may carry a delivery ask for display and defaulting, but each line's due date is the bucket key that places its demand in the right period. That is why two lines on one order can plan into two different weeks: each rides its own date.

A concrete example

A customer sends one purchase order for three products. It becomes a sales order with a header for the customer and three lines. Line 1 is 100 of Widget A, due July 15, at 4.50 each. Line 2 is 40 of Widget B, due July 15. Line 3 is 200 of Widget C, due August 5.

While the order sits in draft, none of these lines register as demand, because a draft is not a commitment. Once you confirm the order, all three become firm demand. Lines 1 and 2 bucket into the week of July 15; line 3 buckets into the week of August 5, three weeks apart, even though they share a header. The plant now plans 100 A and 40 B for mid-July and 200 C for early August, each from its own line and date.

If the customer later ships part of line 1, the shipped quantity rises and the open balance falls, but the line remains the record of what was ordered and when it was due.

How EDGEBIC uses it

In EDGEBIC, a sales order line names a product, a quantity, a unit price, a due date, and a quantity shipped, all under a parent order whose status governs whether the lines are firm. Confirmed-order lines are the firm-demand source for the inventory projection and the master production schedule, replacing older ways of inferring firm demand from open orders. Each line's due date is the bucket key, so the demand lands in the period the customer actually needs it.

A line's open balance, the ordered quantity minus what has shipped, is what remains owed to the customer, and it is that open balance that the projection nets against supply. As shipments post, the open balance falls, and the line's demand on the plan shrinks accordingly.

To see the whole order and its lifecycle, read EDGEBIC sales orders explained. To follow the fulfillment side of a line, continue with shipped quantity on a sales order line and the origin tag it produces, demand source.