A special order is how you order a product from a vendor for a specific customer when it's not in stock — Rundoo ties the customer to a purchase order, tracks it through ordered → received, and rings it up when the customer comes to pick it up. The coupling between a customer's sale and the vendor PO is what Rundoo calls Linked Sales and Orders — one line on the counter side, one line on the buyer side, kept in sync as the PO moves from ordered to received. Deposits for Special Orders is the optional front-end: a percent of the total captured up front when the customer commits, so you aren't floating the cost until pickup.

In the POS > Transactions > Special orders tab, every special order lives once it's created. The buyer's cross-customer view — every outstanding special-order line across all open POs — lives in POS > Orders > Special order products.

Special order vs. will-call

These two get mixed up at the counter constantly, so it's worth a minute.

• A special order is for a product you don't have. The line gets onto a vendor PO, tracks through the PO lifecycle, and rings up when it lands.
• A will-call is for a product you do have. You pull it off the shelf, set it aside, and hold it for the customer until they're ready.

If the product's on the shelf, it's a will-call — see Drafts, quotes & will-calls. If you have to order it from a vendor first, you're in the right place.

Step 1: Open the Special orders tab

In the POS mode, open Transactions and switch to the Special orders top tab. Every open special order for the current location is listed here — customer name, vendor-side order IDs, status, and total — with a location picker and a filter strip at the top.

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If the tab is empty, either your store has no open special orders right now, or the Location: filter is narrower than you want. The Location: control above the table lets you switch stores or pick All locations.

Step 2: Start from a sale with an out-of-stock product

Special orders start as a sale. Open Transactions > New, attach the customer, and add the product the customer wants. If the product has zero on-hand, Rundoo shows a yellow banner on the line — "You have 0 of this product available and are trying to sell 1" — with Return and Edit actions.

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💡 Attach the customer first. A special order with no customer attached has no one to notify when it arrives — and no one to pick it up.

Step 3: Save the sale — and confirm the negative-inventory prompt

With an out-of-stock line in the cart, click Save Draft, Quote, or Will call — whichever matches how the customer's committing. Rundoo pops a Confirm transaction details dialog: "There are some products in your cart that have insufficient inventory. Inventory will go negative for these products on completion of this sale." Click Confirm to save and flag the line for ordering.

The saved order appears under the Special orders top tab. The detail view shows the customer on the left, the line with its Special Order status in the center, and the totals on the right.

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