What Is a Sales Order Status in Production Planning?

A sales order status is the lifecycle stage of a customer order, from Draft through Confirmed, Shipped, and Closed, and it decides whether the order counts as demand to build against. The stages run from a tentative draft, through a firm confirmation, to dispatch and final settlement, with cancellation as the exit at any point. More than a business label, the status is the switch that tells the planning system which orders are real: only confirmed orders become firm demand the plant plans production around.

This entry defines the sales order status and shows how it behaves inside EDGEBIC by User Solutions. For the wider index of planning terms, see the manufacturing glossary, and for the individual order lines it governs, read what is a sales order line.

How it works

A sales order begins as a Draft while the customer is still negotiating. Nothing about a draft is binding, so the planning system leaves it alone. When the customer commits, usually when a purchase order arrives, the order becomes Confirmed, and this is the pivotal transition: the order's lines now count as independent demand, the real customer pull that the master production schedule and material planning build against.

From there the order moves toward fulfillment. Shipped means the goods have physically left for the customer. Closed means the order is fully fulfilled and invoiced, the complete financial end of the transaction. Both are past the point of driving new production, because the demand has been satisfied. Cancelled is the withdrawal, and it removes the order from demand entirely.

The reason the status matters so much to planning is that it separates what is owed from what is speculative and from what is already done. A draft might never become an order; a shipped order is history. Only open, confirmed demand should pull production, and the status is exactly how the system tells those apart, so a planning run builds what is genuinely still owed rather than chasing negotiations or reproducing shipments.

A concrete example

A customer emails to discuss five hundred custom brackets. While terms are still being agreed, the order sits as a Draft in the system, visible but inert; no planning run will try to build it. The customer then sends a purchase order, and the sales order flips to Confirmed. At that instant its line for five hundred brackets becomes firm demand, and the next planning run nets it against stock and proposes a build for whatever is short.

The plant makes the brackets, and the truck leaves: the order becomes Shipped. Once the invoice is settled, it becomes Closed, fully done. From the moment it shipped, the order stopped pulling production, because the demand had been met. Had the customer backed out before production, the order would have been Cancelled and dropped from demand. At every step, the status told the plant exactly whether to plan around this order or leave it be.

How EDGEBIC uses it

In EDGEBIC, confirmed sales order lines are the real firm-demand source for planning. When an order is Confirmed, its lines feed the master production schedule and inventory projection as independent demand, so the system nets them against on-hand stock and scheduled receipts and raises builds for the shortfall. A Draft order carries no planning weight; a Shipped or Closed order has been fulfilled and no longer pulls production; a Cancelled order is removed.

This makes the status a genuine control, not decoration. Moving an order from Draft to Confirmed is what turns a conversation into demand the plant plans around, and moving it to Shipped is what tells the system the demand has been met so it stops appearing in future runs. Because the transitions are explicit, the demand the planner sees always reflects the true, open commitment rather than a mix of speculation and history.

Paired with the individual order lines, each carrying a product, quantity, due date, and shipped quantity, the header status gives a clean two-level picture: the header says where the whole order stands, and the lines say exactly what is owed and how much has already gone out. To see those lines, read what is a sales order line, and for how much of a line has already shipped, read what is shipped quantity on a sales order line. For the committed build plan confirmed demand feeds, see what is a master production schedule.