The ratio between online/in-person sales for most of the businesses were changing in recent years. In some Retail businesses based mostly in-person stores, COVID-19 brings to our mind the expression "From Zero to Hero to online business" as a large part of the physical stores were closed several months.
A lot of companies focus their energy to have the online channel open in record time: a new own online store, using leading marketplaces like Amazon or Ebay.
But and there is always a But, the second step is also very very important: to redesign the internal processes to support the business processes flow for a online business model.
Typical Challenges:
Warehouses/3PLs for Physical Stores / Online (Same or Different)
Carriers for Physical Stores / Online (Same or Different)
Online B2B model is not Online B2C model (Sales, Warehouse, Finance perspectives)
On this post, it be explained how Dynamics 365 Business Central can support the Online B2C typical model where the customer pays partial/fully the Sales Order submitted as a Deposit.
Typical Flow for Online B2B model: Sales Order uploaded, Sales Order workflow approval, Sales Order Released, Sales Order Shipped, Sales Order Invoiced and lastly Invoice Payed.
Typical Flow for Online B2C model: Sales Order approved, payed and submitted, Sales Order Shipped & Invoiced.
To support the payment before Release, Shipment and Invoice, Dynamics 365 Business Central has the functionality called Pre-Payments.
The complete overview of the standard functionality is available here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/business-central/finance-invoice-prepayments
If you are new to this functionality, please follow the learning path here:
Simple as this and No Code needed.
Same functionality is also applicable to Purchase Orders.
Try yourself.