I have noticed that in viewing Sales orders ( SO-A) some sales orders have totals and others do not.  
 
It appears that if you enter a sales order when the items are in stock, a total will appear in the viewing of the listing of sales orders.
 
If the items on order are not in stock, the sales order treats them as back orders and the total does not display in SO-A.
 
However, a listing of open sales orders does show open sales orders with a total, whether the items are in stock or not.
 
I have a management report where I show weekly the new sales order totals.  I used to get this information by simply adding up the new sales orders as viewed in SO-A.  Now orders where the items are not in stock show up with a zero total.
 
It I wanted to get an idea of what our potential backlog of orders is, I can no longer get this information by viewing in SO-A.  I now have to get this information by running an open order listing report ( SO-O) for the new sales order received during the week.
 
I guess my preference would be to see the sales order total in AO-A.  I suspect there is a reason why ithe program only shows a total if the items are in stock.  Can you let help me understand this reason.
 
respectfully,
 
John Howard

Actually, if you want a report of new orders, SA-A is the best report because it includes open orders, new orders that have already shipped but were newly entered within the date range specified, and if you have the IS Tech updates, it also includes changes to older sales orders (prior to the range) that were updated within the date range so you get your full report of changes to backlog & orders.