Handle a supplier-to-site delivery without dropshipping

6 min read Updated 2026-08-31 WindoorERP 19.0

What this does

Dropshipping is the arrangement where your supplier delivers straight to your customer and the goods never enter your warehouse — attractive for a bulky item you would otherwise unload and reload, or for an accessory that ships from the manufacturer anyway.

It is not enabled on this platform. The Drop Shipping module is not installed, so there is no Dropship route, no Dropship operation type, no Dropship smart button on a sales or purchase order, and no Dropships menu. This article says what enabling it would add, and how to handle a supplier-delivers-to-site job with what you have today.

Before you start

Agree with the vendor, in writing, that the delivery goes to the customer's site rather than to your yard. Nothing in the system will tell them.
Agree with the customer who inspects the goods. On a direct delivery nobody in your company sees the item before the customer does, and on window and door work that is usually the reason not to do it.
Have the customer's site address to hand. You will type it into an email, not into a field.

Steps

01
Confirm the sales order as normal. A delivery order is created from WH/Stock to the customer — this is the document that proves the customer received the goods, and it is worth keeping even when the goods never sat in your stock.
02
Raise the purchase order to the vendor. Leave Deliver To on the warehouse's receipt type: the operation types that point at a customer location only exist once the Drop Shipping module is installed, so there is no alternative to choose.
03
Send the request for quotation by email and put the site address in the message itself. The email body is free text; the printed purchase order carries your own company's address, so the address has to be stated in words.
04
When the vendor confirms the goods have gone to site, validate the receipt and then the delivery order, both dated the day the customer actually took delivery. Stock passes in and out on the same day, the quantities reconcile, and the invoice can be raised against a delivered order.
05
On the delivery order's Note tab, record that the vendor delivered direct. The note prints on the picking operations sheet, so the next person to read the file knows why the goods were never seen on a shelf.

What enabling Drop Shipping would add

The module is small and its effects are specific. Installed, it would create, per company:

What appears	What it does
A Dropship route	Selectable on products, on product categories and on sales order lines. Ticking it on a product's Inventory tab is what makes that product dropship.
A Dropship operation type	A fourth kind of operation alongside receipt, delivery and internal transfer, with its own `DS/` reference sequence, running from the Vendors location straight to the Customers location.
A Buy rule on that route	Named Vendors → Customers. Confirming a sales order for a dropshipped product raises a request for quotation automatically; confirming that order creates the dropship transfer.
A Dropship smart button	On both the sales order and the purchase order, showing the count of dropship transfers and opening them. The sales order's ordinary Delivery count drops by the same number, so the two do not double-count.
A Dropships menu	Under Inventory ▸ Operations, listing every dropship transfer, with its own card on the Inventory overview labelled To Validate.
A Dropship Address field	On the purchase order, shown only when the chosen operation type delivers to a customer location, and filled from the sales order's delivery address.

Note

The enabler is a checkbox in Inventory ▸ Configuration ▸ Settings, under Logistics: Dropshipping. The same checkbox also sits in the Purchase app's settings. Ticking it installs a module, which is an administrator decision with fleet-wide consequences — raise it with the WindoorERP team rather than switching it on to see what happens.

Why the workaround is honest accounting

Receiving and delivering on the same day is not a fiction. The goods really did become yours and then the customer's; the only thing the two transfers misstate is the geography, and the note on the delivery fixes that for anyone reading the file. In exchange you keep the things that matter: a costed receipt against the vendor bill, a delivery document the customer signs, and a sales order that can be invoiced because it shows a delivered quantity.

What you do not get is the automation. Nobody raises the purchase order for you, nothing links the two documents, and if the vendor is late you will only find out because someone asks.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause and fix
There is no Dropship checkbox on the product's Inventory tab	Correct — it is a route, and the route ships with the Drop Shipping module, which is not installed.
No Dropships menu under Operations, and no Dropship card on the overview	Same reason.
Confirming a sales order does not raise a purchase order	Nothing on this platform does that automatically for a stocked product. Raise the purchase order yourself, or ask about the Replenish on Order (MTO) setting, which chains a sale to a purchase through the Buy route.
The purchase order print-out shows your address, not the site	The Dropship Address field that would change it comes with the module. State the address in the covering email instead.
Stock reports show the item passing through the warehouse	It did, as far as the ledger is concerned. That is the cost of doing this without the module, and it is why the delivery note matters.

Common mistakes

Validating the receipt when the vendor ships rather than when the customer receives. The delivery date is your evidence in a dispute; make it the real one.
Skipping the delivery order because the goods never touched the warehouse. You then have a sales order that cannot be invoiced on delivered quantities and a customer with no signed document.
Sending goods direct on an item the customer expects you to have inspected.
Assuming the vendor knows the site address because it is on the sales order. It is not on anything the vendor receives.

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