Releasing Credit Held Orders

Credit held orders can be released manually through the Sales Order Maintenance conversation or automatically through the Automatic Order Release conversation.  Orders that fail credit checking are held only if the credit hold release flag indicates that they should be held.  This feature allows the system to create the picker and perform the subsequent shipping and billing of the released order as if no credit hold existed.  However, all appropriate exception reports are still produced.

The credit hold release indicator is maintained as a single value on Reference File category 412 -  Order Processing System Defaults.  When this yes/no indicator is set to "yes," credit held orders are released.

The credit hold release indicator is used to determine whether a particular order is to be picked.  If the order is held due to a credit exception and the indicator is set to "no," the picker will not be printed.  The order cannot be released until the hold code is changed in the Sales Order Maintenance conversation.

Considerations

Although the credit hold release indicator allows management to process orders with credit exceptions, it should be noted that all exceptions are processed in the same fashion.  Even though it may be desirable to release orders with minor credit violations, the use of this option will release all credit held orders, some of which may be uncollectable.

If this indicator is not used, orders with minor credit violations could be released by the credit department in Sales Order Maintenance.  This would be done at regularly scheduled intervals by applying predetermined criteria set by management to those credit exceptions included in the Credit Exception Report.

Automatic order release rechecks the credit criteria for the selected orders.  If the customer's credit position has changed so that the credit holds should no longer apply, then the order is released and a picker is produced.