Sending Orders to Dock Blocks

1 Your private link

Dock Blocks sent you a link of your own. It identifies your company, so an order you send through it arrives already attached to your account, with your pricing and your contacts.

Keep it to your team. Anyone with the link can send an order in your name. If it goes astray, tell George and he will issue you a new one; the old link stops working the moment he does.

2 Get the order template

The link opens a page with the template on it. Download it as an Excel workbook or as a CSV, whichever suits you. In the workbook, the first sheet shows you how to fill it in and works through a short example; the order sheet behind it already has that example order typed in, so you can see what a finished one looks like. Replace those rows with your own. The CSV is the same order sheet with the same example rows and no separate instructions, so take the workbook if you want the guidance. Use a fresh copy of the template for each order rather than editing an old one. That way a previous order's rows cannot travel with the new one.

3 Fill it in

Three rules, and they are the whole of it.

One row per product.
Rows that share a PO number become one order.
Order-level figures go on the first row of that PO only.

So an order for two products is two rows with the same PO number:

PO	SKU	Qty	Shipping
PO-1001	DB-002	24	250
PO-1001	DB-004	4

Two rows, one PO, one order. The shipping figure sits on the first row and is left empty on the second, because it belongs to the order rather than to the line.

Use the SKU exactly as it appears on your price list. A SKU we cannot match is the most common reason an order comes back, and it is usually a digit or a dash.

4 Send it

Go back to your link, choose your filled-in file and upload it. The page checks the whole file before anything is created.

If something is wrong, the page tells you straight away, listing the rows and what is wrong with each. Nothing is created when that happens, so there is no half-finished order to undo. Fix the rows, upload the same file again, and carry on. George is told as well, so you may hear from him before you get to it.

When it goes through You get an email confirming we have it, listing the PO numbers and the number of lines in each. Your Dock Blocks contact will be in touch about scheduling. There is nothing further for you to do.

5 Three things worth knowing

A PO number can only be sent once. If you send a PO we already have, the upload is refused rather than quietly changing the order we are working from. If something needs to change after you have sent it, tell George rather than re-uploading; he will sort it at our end.

Several orders can go in one file. Give each its own PO number and they arrive as separate orders.

Order from the current price list. Your document carries the version of the price list it was built from, and an order sent on a superseded one is refused rather than filled at a price we are no longer quoting. George sends a fresh document whenever prices change, so work from the latest one he sent you rather than a saved copy. If an upload comes back mentioning the version, that is what happened, and George can send you the current document.

6 If you get stuck

George Scott at Dock Blocks looks after distributor ordering. george@dock-blocks.com. He can re-issue your link, correct an order that has already arrived, and answer anything about pricing or a SKU.