In previous sections, you have learned how to create external and internal replenishment orders in the NCAS to request items from vendors and other warehouses. You will now learn how to fill online orders that are sent to your warehouse.

When customers have a need for items in your warehouse, they create orders in the NCAS. There are two types of online orders that you may receive at your warehouse via the NCAS: internal replenishment orders and usage orders. Internal replenishment orders, as you have already learned, come from other warehouses within your agency and work like a transfer. Item balances at both the sending and receiving warehouses are affected, but no expenses are charged. Like internal replenishment orders, usage orders are also online requests for items from your warehouse. However, a usage order differs from an internal replenishment order in that it always comes from a customer. In other words, the items are going to be used, not stored for resale, by the person ordering them. Thus, the customer is charged for items as the final user.

Note: As a customer, you may need to order items from a warehouse. To learn how to create and submit an online usage order to a warehouse, refer to the Usage Orders course. This section will only explain how online orders are processed once they have been submitted to a warehouse.

Overall, the steps for processing usage orders and internal replenishment orders are the same. Therefore, for the purposes of this section, the term “order” will be used to refer to both types of orders. When a distinction must be made between the two, it will be specifically noted. Otherwise, all the material in this section applies to processing both internal replenishment orders and usage orders.

This section will explain in detail how to process orders.
There are eight steps involved in processing orders:

1.	Allocating inventory to the order
2.	Printing pick lists for the order
3.	Picking inventory to fill the order
4.	Posting picking activity in the NCAS
5.	Closing pick lists once picking activity is complete
6.	Shipping orders to the customers
7.	Recording shipping activity in the NCAS
8.	Closing orders once the order has been shipped

Once the system performs the first step—allocating inventory—the remaining seven steps can be performed manually. The NCAS also provides the option of performing four steps automatically: posting picking activity, closing pick lists, recording shipping activity, and closing orders. You will learn how to process an order manually and then will discuss how to use the automatic options.

In addition to processing an order, you will learn how to:

• Process backorders
• Return inventory by pick list
• Understand item balance changes due to issuing activity