Introduction to Orders for Vendor and Internal Sourcing

An order is the paper trail for filling an event's needs. It says what you asked for, who you asked, what they said it would cost, what they billed, and what you paid, all in one place on the event.

Without it, that trail is scattered. The request goes out in an email, the quote comes back as a PDF in someone's inbox, the invoice lands with accounting, and the payment lives in a bank export. When the show is three days out and someone asks whether the lifts are actually confirmed, the answer depends on who you ask and which thread they found.

Why Orders Matter

Live events are bought in pieces and paid after the fact. A production can have a dozen vendors bidding on gear, crew calls going out to your own people, and invoices arriving weeks after load-out. The questions that matter are simple: is this need secured, what did we agree to pay, and what do we still owe. They are hard to answer when the facts sit in different places.

Orders keep those facts with the thing being bought. Every line on an order points at a resource need from your procurement, so the order knows exactly which need it is filling and by how much. Quotes, invoices and payments attach to the same order. The result is that the order's status, its money and its effect on coverage all come from the same evidence, and nobody has to keep a separate spreadsheet in step.

How Orders Work

External and Internal. Every order has a Source. An External order is sourced from a vendor: it runs quotes, invoices and payments. An Internal order is filled from your own crew and gear: there is no quote or invoice, and progress comes from who you assign and what they complete. The source picks which status ladder the order follows. It can only change while the order is still a draft or has been canceled.

Lines come from needs. An order line is a resource need and a quantity. You can build an order from a whole procurement in one step, pick needs one at a time, or quick-add a need you forgot. Money that is not a resource, such as a crew member's travel, goes on an expense line instead.

Status is earned, not picked. You only declare a floor: that the order is still a draft, that you sent it, that the vendor confirmed it, or that you walked away. Everything above that floor is earned from evidence. A quote on file makes an external order Quoted, choosing a quote makes it Awarded, an invoice makes it Confirmed, and payments that cover what is owed make it Paid. The status can rise above what you declared, but never falls below it. See the order status reference for the exact rules.

Signals advise, they never block. Missing paperwork and odd money show as small badges next to the status, such as Awaiting quotes, No invoice attached, Partially paid or Overpaid. They point you to what to look at. None of them stops you from doing anything.

Sent orders hold still. Once an order has been sent or confirmed, its vendor-facing content locks, so the document the vendor holds and the order in BackOps cannot quietly drift apart. To change it, you start a new revision, review exactly what changed, and mark that revision sent.

flowchart LR
    P["Procurement needs"] --> O["Order lines"]
    O --> Q["Quotes"]
    Q -->|"Choose quote"| A["Awarded"]
    O --> I["Invoices"]
    I --> C["Confirmed"]
    C --> PAY["Payments"]
    PAY --> PD["Paid"]
    O --> COV["Coverage"]

How Orders Feed Coverage

An external order's units count toward coverage, the measure of whether each need is secured. While the order is a draft its units are tentative. Once it is sent, quoted or awarded they are awaiting the vendor. Confirmed and paid orders secure them. Abandoning or canceling the order releases them, so the need shows as open again instead of quietly disappearing. Internal orders do not hold units on their own; their coverage comes from the people and gear you assign.

What Orders Do Not Do Yet

BackOps does not send orders to vendors. You download the request for quote as a PDF and send it yourself, then record that you sent it. There is no vendor portal, and orders do not yet carry types, attributes or roles for warehouse work such as bays, trucks or receiving owners.