Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Order Management Coordinator

🎯 Role Definition

The Order Management Coordinator is responsible for the end-to-end administration of customer sales orders and fulfillment activities to ensure accurate, timely delivery and exceptional customer experience. This role coordinates with sales, warehouse, logistics, billing, and suppliers to process orders in the Order Management System (OMS) or ERP, resolve order exceptions, manage backorders and returns, and continuously improve order-to-cash workflows. The ideal candidate combines strong operational discipline, excellent customer-facing skills, and competency with order systems, EDI, and reporting to maintain high SLA and KPI performance.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Customer Service Representative (Order Entry)
Logistics or Warehouse Coordinator
Inventory Analyst / Materials Coordinator

Advancement To:

Senior Order Management Coordinator / Lead
Order Management Supervisor / Team Lead
Supply Chain Analyst / Planner
Operations Manager (Fulfillment / Customer Operations)

Lateral Moves:

Customer Success Manager
Procurement Specialist / Buyer
Transportation or Carrier Operations Coordinator

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Accurately receive, review and enter customer sales orders into the Order Management System (OMS) or ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle, NetSuite), validating pricing, product codes, availability, shipping terms and billing information to meet SLA targets.
Proactively manage order exceptions and changes by coordinating approvals, communicating updates to sales and customers, and ensuring updates are reflected in the OMS and downstream systems.
Monitor inventory allocation and product availability across warehouses; coordinate allocation decisions with inventory planners and warehouse leads to minimize backorders and maximize fill rate.
Coordinate with warehouse and fulfillment partners to schedule pick/pack/ship activities, validate shipment contents, and ensure on-time dispatch and carrier handoffs.
Track shipments and provide timely carrier status updates and trace attempts; act as escalation point for delayed, lost or damaged shipments and coordinate recovery actions.
Manage backorder processing and release cadence, working closely with procurement, production planning and sales to prioritize high-impact orders and reduce customer impact.
Process order cancellations, returns and credit requests (RMA), ensuring compliance with return policies, exchanging documentation, and coordinating refunds or replacements with billing.
Validate and process EDI transactions (850, 856, 810, 855) and troubleshoot EDI errors with trading partners and internal IT teams to maintain seamless automated order flows.
Prepare and reconcile daily order reports, open order aging, backorder lists and KPI dashboards (OTD, fill rate, order cycle time) and distribute meaningful updates to stakeholders.
Investigate and resolve pricing, taxation, billing and invoice discrepancies with Finance and Sales Operations, ensuring accurate invoice issuance and supporting month-end reconciliations.
Maintain master data quality for customers, ship-to addresses, price lists and product catalog entries; request and implement updates with minimal disruption to order processing.
Facilitate cross-functional order reviews and S&OP input sessions to highlight product shortages, lead-time constraints and high-priority customer commitments that affect fulfillment.
Communicate proactively with customers and internal account teams for order confirmations, shipment notifications, delivery estimates, and to manage expectations on partial shipments or delays.
Ensure compliance with trade, shipping documentation and export/import requirements for international orders including commercial invoices, packing lists, HS codes and incoterms.
Implement process improvements and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to streamline order handling, reduce errors and accelerate order-to-cash cycles, including automation opportunities.
Serve as escalation liaison between Sales, Customer Service, Operations and IT to drive root-cause resolution for repeat order issues, system bugs or process gaps.
Support billing and collections by providing order documentation, proof of delivery and anomaly explanations to Finance to expedite payment and resolve disputes.
Conduct periodic audits of orders, shipments and invoices to validate process adherence and data integrity; document findings and follow through on corrective actions.
Train and mentor new team members on order entry standards, system usage, exception handling and customer communication protocols to maintain consistent performance.
Maintain and improve SLA and KPI targets (e.g., order accuracy, order cycle time, fill rate, on-time delivery), preparing performance reviews and recommended action plans.
Coordinate with carriers and 3PL partners for rate quotes, service levels, and routing guidance to balance cost and delivery performance.
Manage special order requirements such as kitting, drop-shipment, bulk shipments, or vendor-managed fulfillment and coordinate logistics execution end-to-end.
Support continuous improvement initiatives such as Lean or Six Sigma projects to reduce touchpoints, errors and lead times in the order fulfillment process.

Secondary Functions

Generate ad-hoc reports and analytics to support Sales Operations, Finance and Supply Chain Planning with timely insights into order trends and exception patterns.
Own the documentation and version control for order management SOPs, process maps and training materials to ensure knowledge retention and regulatory compliance.
Participate in testing and rollout of system upgrades, patches or new integrations (OMS/ERP/EDI/WMS) to validate order flows and reduce production issues.
Assist in root-cause analysis and corrective action plans for repeated order or fulfillment issues; coordinate cross-functional owners and timelines.
Support departmental budgeting and forecasting by providing historical order velocity, seasonality and backlog visibility to planners.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Order Management System (OMS) proficiency — experience with NetSuite, SAP SD, Oracle Order Management or comparable systems.
ERP transactional experience (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite) for order entry, inventory and invoicing workflows.
EDI knowledge (850/810/856/997) and hands-on experience with EDI exception handling and trading partner communications.
Strong Microsoft Excel skills (VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, PivotTables, data cleaning) for reporting and reconciliation tasks.
Familiarity with CRM platforms (Salesforce, HubSpot) to coordinate order-related customer interactions and account updates.
Basic SQL or data-querying ability to extract order and fulfillment datasets for analysis (preferred but not always required).
Experience with shipment tracking platforms and carrier portals (UPS, FedEx, DHL, regional carriers) and BOL / shipping documentation handling.
Knowledge of inventory allocation, safety stock, backorder management and demand-supply coordination.
Understanding of invoicing, billing dispute resolution and order-to-cash financial impacts including credit holds and collections support.
Experience supporting international shipments, customs paperwork, Incoterms and HS code validation.
Familiarity with WMS (Warehouse Management Systems) processes and interactions with pick/pack/ship operations.
Reporting and KPI development experience — building dashboards and presenting performance metrics to stakeholders.
Experience with process improvement methodologies (Lean, Kaizen, Six Sigma) to optimize order flows.

Soft Skills

Exceptional attention to detail and commitment to data accuracy across order and billing records.
Clear, professional written and verbal communication skills for direct customer contact and cross-functional collaboration.
Strong problem-solving and analytical mindset to investigate exceptions, identify root causes and propose sustainable solutions.
Customer-focused orientation with the ability to manage expectations, negotiate solutions and maintain positive relationships.
High organizational skills and the ability to prioritize multiple competing tasks in a fast-paced environment.
Proactive ownership and accountability for resolving issues end-to-end and escalating appropriately.
Collaborative team player who can work effectively with Sales, Warehouse, Finance, IT and external partners.
Adaptability to changing priorities, seasonal peaks and evolving system/process improvements.
Time management and deadline-driven performance to meet SLAs and reporting schedules.
Coaching and mentoring aptitude to train new hires and standardize team practices.
Conflict resolution and stakeholder management skills to navigate cross-departmental tradeoffs.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

High School Diploma or GED with relevant operational experience; or
Associate degree in Business, Supply Chain, Logistics or related field.

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Operations Management or equivalent.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Supply Chain Management
Logistics & Transportation
Business Administration
Operations Management
Information Systems / Business Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 1–4 years of hands-on order entry, customer service, logistics or operations experience.

Preferred:

2–5 years of direct order management, fulfillment coordination, or sales order processing experience in a distribution, manufacturing or retail environment.
Demonstrated experience with an ERP/OMS, EDI, and inventory or warehouse interaction.
Exposure to cross-functional projects, process improvement initiatives or order-to-cash optimization.