The whole flow

One enquiry, followed all the way to the money.

Most factories run on six systems that don’t speak to each other, and a lot of re-typing in between. This is the same job done once. Below is every stage of it — 13 of them — what happens at each, and what it leaves behind for the next one.

Part 1

Win the work

From a message on a phone to a confirmed order, without anything being typed twice.

01Sales

The enquiry arrives

Everything a buyer sends you — on IndiaMART, by email, over WhatsApp or through your website — lands in one queue instead of four.

In the roadmap:CRM and enquiry management

What happens

The enquiry is threaded under the buyer, and a second message about the same job joins the first rather than starting a new one.
Someone owns it and a 24-hour clock starts; the inbox sorts by what is about to go cold.
Attachments are read for you — a drawing, an Excel schedule of quantities, a photo of a handwritten note, an email in Hinglish — and become line items with material, finish, specification and target price.
Every field it filled in points back to the line it came from, so you can check it in a second.

What it leaves behind

An enquiry with priced-out lines
A customer record, created if it is new
The original files, kept against the enquiry

02Estimation

Costed, quoted, followed up

A quote built from your own rates, checked by whoever has to check it, and chased until the buyer answers.

In the roadmap:Estimation and quotation

What happens

Each line is costed on your rate card: material, process time, bought-out parts, overhead and freight — or off the bill of materials when the part already has one.
You set the margin; the quote shows what it does to the price as you move it.
Below your floor, the quote can't go out until the person who approves margins approves it.
It leaves on your letterhead with GST worked out correctly, as a tracked link you can see the buyer open.
Revisions keep their history, and any two can be put side by side to see exactly what changed.
Polite follow-ups go out on a schedule and stop the moment the buyer replies.

What it leaves behind

A numbered quote and every revision of it
The margin approval, with who gave it
A share link, and a record of each time it was opened

03Sales

The order is confirmed

The accepted quote becomes an order in one step — same lines, same prices, same taxes.

In the roadmap:Sales order management

What happens

The buyer's own purchase-order number and date sit on the order, so their accounts team can find it.
Delivery is scheduled by line, in full or in lots, with a promised date on each.
Advance, part-payment and credit terms are recorded here and carried to the invoice.
An order acknowledgement goes back to the buyer.

What it leaves behind

A sales order with a delivery schedule
An order acknowledgement
A link back to the quote it came from

Part 2

Work out what it takes

What the part is made of, and when every piece of it has to happen.

04Engineering

What it is made of

The bill of materials and the route through the shop — the two things everything downstream is calculated from.

In the roadmap:BOM and product engineering

What happens

Bills of materials go as many levels deep as the product does, with wastage on each line and alternatives ranked behind the first choice.
The routing lists the operations in order, the work centre or machine each runs on, and how long setup and running take.
Drawings, specifications and revisions live on the item, so the floor and the buyer see the same sheet.
A change to a released part goes through engineering change control: what it affects — open orders, stock, quotes — is worked out before anyone approves it, and the change carries the date it takes effect.

What it leaves behind

A multi-level bill of materials
A routing with times and work centres
An approved engineering change, with its impact listed

05Planning

Planned against real capacity

What to make, what to buy, and whether the shop can actually do it by the promised date.

In the roadmap:Production planning

What happens

Material planning explodes every open order through its bill of materials, takes off what is in stock, what is already on order and what is already being made, and proposes the shortfall.
Each proposal is offset by its lead time, so it tells you the date to act, not just the quantity.
You turn the proposals you accept into work orders and purchase orders; the rest you leave.
Jobs are then scheduled onto the real calendar — your shifts, your holidays, one job at a time per machine — so the plan is one the shop can keep.
The Gantt shows the loaded weeks, and the capacity view names the work centre that is the bottleneck.

What it leaves behind

Planned orders, with the date each must start
Work orders and purchase orders raised from them
A schedule per machine, and a load per work centre

Part 3

Buy it and make it

Suppliers, the store, the shop floor — and quality standing between each of them.

06Purchasing

Bought properly

A requisition becomes a comparison, a comparison becomes an award, and an award becomes a purchase order.

In the roadmap:Procurement

What happens

Anyone can raise a requisition; it waits for approval before it can be sourced.
One request for quotation goes to several suppliers, and their prices come back into a single comparison — landed price, lead time and payment terms side by side.
You award the lines, to one supplier or split between two, and the purchase order writes itself from the award.
Where a rate contract already exists, you skip the whole loop and call off against it at the agreed rate.
Spend is checked against the budget for that category before the order is released.

What it leaves behind

A requisition and its approval
A quotation comparison, kept as the reason for the choice
A purchase order, and a supplier scorecard that remembers how it went

07Stores and quality

Received, inspected, put away

Nothing reaches the shop floor unchecked, and nothing sits in stock without a place and a number.

In the roadmap:Inventory and warehouse Quality management

What happens

Goods are received against the purchase order, in the supplier's unit; the store keeps it in yours.
Incoming material goes on quality hold. The inspection plan says what to measure, on how many pieces, and within what limits.
You accept, reject, or accept with a deviation that someone has to sign for. A rejection raises a non-conformance, which carries a disposition and, if it keeps happening, a corrective action.
What is accepted is put away into a bin, under a lot, heat or serial number that follows it from here on.
Freight, duty and clearing are spread over the receipt, so the stock is valued at what it really cost to land.

What it leaves behind

A goods receipt, with the quality decision on it
A non-conformance and its corrective action, when there is one
Stock in a bin, under a lot or serial number, valued at landed cost

08Production

Made on the floor

The work order is the unit of everything — material, time, machine, scrap and cost all hang off it.

In the roadmap:Shop-floor production Maintenance management

What happens

Releasing the work order moves its sales order to in production; nobody sets that by hand.
Material is issued against the job from the store, in lots, and what comes back unused is returned to stock rather than written off.
Operators run the job from a kiosk on the floor: start, pause with a reason, log good and scrap quantities with a reason, finish.
Machine downtime is logged as it happens, against the reason the operator picks, and feeds the availability part of overall equipment effectiveness.
In-process inspection stops a bad batch at the operation that made it, and rework is a job of its own, costed of its own.
Sub-assemblies go back to the store; only finished goods land in finished goods.

What it leaves behind

A completed work order with time, material and scrap on it
Stock movements for every issue, return and output
A shift report of what each machine and person did

Part 4

Ship it and bill it

Out of the gate with the right papers, and on the buyer's account the same day.

09Dispatch

Picked, packed, dispatched

From a day's dispatch plan down to a signature at the buyer's gate.

In the roadmap:Dispatch and logistics

What happens

The dispatch plan shows what is ready and due, and you pick the day's loads from it.
A pick list tells the store which lot and which bin, so the stock ledger and the shelf agree.
What is picked is packed into boxes, pallets or crates, each with its own number and contents.
A delivery challan is raised under Rule 55, numbered consecutively by the financial year the challan is dated in.
Transporter, vehicle, freight and the trip are recorded; several drops can ride on one trip.
Proof of delivery closes it — who received it, when, and any shortage they noted.
Anything with a serial number registers its warranty as it leaves, so it is already known when the customer calls.

What it leaves behind

A pick list, a packing list and a delivery challan
A trip with its drops and freight
Proof of delivery, and warranty registered by serial number

10Accounts

Invoiced

A GST tax invoice off what actually went out, not off what was ordered six weeks ago.

In the roadmap:Finance and accounting

What happens

The invoice is raised from the dispatch or from the order — in full, part of it, or against a milestone.
Tax is worked out by place of supply, so it splits into central and state, or stays integrated, without anybody choosing.
The document rounds to the rupee the way a GST invoice must, and the difference is accounted for rather than hidden.
E-invoice and e-way bill data is prepared in the form the portals want.
Issuing the last invoice on an order moves it to invoiced by itself.

What it leaves behind

A numbered GST tax invoice
E-invoice and e-way bill data, ready to file
A balanced journal, posted the moment it is issued

Part 5

Count the money

Every document posts its own entry, so the books are never a separate job at month end.

11Accounts

The books keep themselves

Double-entry that follows the documents — nothing is typed into a ledger by hand.

In the roadmap:Finance and accounting

What happens

Issuing an invoice, taking a receipt, approving a supplier's bill, paying them, raising a credit or debit note and finishing a work order each post their own balanced entry.
Nothing is ever edited away; a wrong entry is reversed, and both halves stay visible.
A supplier's bill is matched three ways — against the purchase order and against what was actually received — before it can be approved.
Your bank statement is imported and matched against receipts and payments, and what doesn't match is shown rather than swallowed.
Trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet, party ledgers and ageing come straight off the entries, at any date you ask for.

What it leaves behind

A trial balance that balances by construction
Profit and loss, and a balance sheet
Party ledgers, ageing, and a reconciled bank account

12Management

What the job actually cost

The quote said one thing. The floor did another. This is the difference, with its reasons.

In the roadmap:Costing and profitability Management dashboards

What happens

Material issued, hours booked, machine time and overhead are collected against the job as they happen.
Quoted against actual, line by line, with the variance split into what was used and what it was bought at.
Margin by order, by product, by customer and by salesperson, from the same numbers the books use.
Contribution and break-even, so you know which work is worth quoting for again.

What it leaves behind

An actual cost per job
Quoted-versus-actual with variances
Margin and contribution by order, product and customer

Part 6

Keep the customer

The sale isn't the end of the record — the serial number you shipped is the start of the next one.

13Service

After the sale

A serial number is enough to know what it is, who has it, and whether you are paying for the repair.

In the roadmap:Returns, warranty and service

What happens

Type the serial and the system says what was shipped, to whom, on what date, and whether it is still covered.
A service job carries a response and resolution clock from the moment it is raised, and shows which jobs are about to breach it.
Spares used on a job come out of stock and are either covered or charged.
Annual maintenance contracts plan their own visits and tell you when they are due for renewal.
A return comes back under an authorisation, is booked in by its condition, and is settled with a credit note or a replacement.

What it leaves behind

A warranty record per serial number
Service jobs with their clocks and what was found
Maintenance contracts, visits and returns with credit notes

Off the main line

The branches that leave the line, and come back to it.

Not every factory needs all of them. Each one switches on where it belongs and is invisible until you use it.

Job work

Branches off made on the floor

Material goes out to a job worker on a returnable challan with the 180- or 365-day clock running on it. What is at each job worker is visible at all times, ITC-04 is produced for the half year or the year, and the order cannot close until every line sent is consumed, returned or written off as waste.

Dealers and distributors

Branches off the order is confirmed

A dealer is onboarded with their documents, given their own price list and credit limit, and handed a link to a portal of their own — their catalogue at their price, their orders, their ledger and their claims. They report what they sold on, you set targets and run schemes, and the accrual settles as a credit note. Field staff have beats and visits.

Marketplaces and your web store

Branches off the order is confirmed

Each channel gets listings with the quantity you are willing to sell there, and a single address any connector can post orders to. An order that arrives twice is only taken once. Settlements come back against it, so you can see what each channel really earns after its commission.

Machines and maintenance

Branches off made on the floor

Plans fall due by date or by run hours and raise their own job with a checklist. Breakdowns are reported from the floor, spares are issued against the job, and availability, performance and quality come together as overall equipment effectiveness per machine.

The people doing it

Branches off made on the floor

Employees, attendance taken on the floor, leave, overtime and piece-rate incentives from the work actually logged, a payroll file for whoever runs your payroll, and the safety incidents and training records an audit will ask for.

Underneath all of it

Three things run under every stage above.

One stock ledger

Every receipt, issue, return, transfer, dispatch and adjustment is one entry that is never edited. Balances are worked out from the entries, never stored and corrected. Lots are allocated soonest-expiry first, then oldest, and from any lot you can see both the goods it went into and the goods it came from.

Books that follow the documents

The entry belongs to the document that caused it, not to a data-entry clerk. That is why the trial balance always balances, why a correction is a reversal, and why you can close a month without a week of reconciliation first.

Who did what, and who may

Roles decide what each person sees and can do. Approvals sit on the documents that need them. Every change is recorded with the person and the time, and your data is fenced off from every other company on the system twice over — once in the application and once in the database itself.

You do not have to set all of this up before you start.

On day one you can answer an enquiry with nothing in the system at all. The catalogue, the bills of materials, the price lists, the bins and the chart of accounts fill themselves in as you work, and each stage above only appears once the one before it has something to hand over. Nothing on this page is a form you must finish before the product is useful.

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