A purchase order (PO) is the official confirmation of an order. It is a document sent from a purchaser to a vendor that authorizes a purchase. In the previous lesson, we requisitioned materials by sending out RFQs (Request for Quotations) to a selection of vendors. We reviewed the RFQs that were returned to us and selected which materials we would like to purchase, from which vendors. We then formalized that selection by creating purchase orders.
Purchase orders may be directed to jobs or equipment or General Ledger accounts. Each Purchase Order is for one job only. If a purchase order spans more than one job separate purchase order entries are required. A single Purchase order may apply to multiple pieces of equipment or G/L accounts.
To review these purchase orders, navigate to [a] Payables, then [e] P/O Entry.
Here’s the two purchase orders we generated from our requisition.
Here’s the purchase order for the items we would like from Sleggs.
Printing the Purchase Order
If we print out the purchase order (using the ‘P’rint action, or <ctrl> P) it looks like this.
You can email that to the vendor. Maybe you find the wording in the middle of the purchase order a little stilted. Don’t worry, we can change it. In the attachments box, click on the critical information link.
The link takes you to the P/O Attachments Entry. Alternatively, you could navigate to [a] Payables, then [u] Set Up, then [c] P/O Attachments Entry. The attachment currently looks like this. If it’s already been sent out on a purchase order, you can create a new one to use.
If you click on the ‘Insert Logo’ you can select a graphic file that contains your logo, or any graphic of your choice, and paste it in.
Change the reference on your purchase order to this new attachment, and when you print it, it will look like this.
You can use different colours and fonts in your richtext attachments.
If you email this purchase order, it will be included as a PDF. The email itself will be based on the richtext email you’ve attached to the invoice.
Currently, it looks like this.
When the vendor receives the email, it’s formatted with your logo.
Terms and Conditions
Notice that there’s also a terms and conditions pdf attached. That is also a richtext attachment that you can choose to include with your purchase order.
The terms and conditions can be any legalese you require.
Purchase Order Actions
Add
Add a new purchase order.
Change
Change an existing purchase order.
- You can add any number of line items to a purchase order.
- Adjustments may be made to purchase order quantities. If a purchase order is partially invoiced, you can’t make the quantity purchased less than what has already been invoiced.
- Similarly, the dollar amounts can’t be less than what’s been invoiced.
- If you change a purchase order that has been printed or emailed, Abio will save a PDF copy of that version on the Revision tab. This gives you a reference of what the client has on their records.
Delete
A purchase order may be deleted if it has not been invoiced.
Fix
Purchase orders are recorded as committed costs on jobs and cost centres. Issued, invoiced, and outstanding purchase orders are also recorded for each vendor. If for some reason the amounts are incorrect, perhaps through the use of unaudited change actions (‘Z’ action), you can use this action to rebalance the related amounts.
History
In the normal course of events, the Clean Up function moves filled purchase orders to history. If a purchase order has been issued, but you subsequently decide to forgo the purchase, you can use this action to move the purchase order to history despite there being outstanding amounts.
Abio will adjust the purchase order to be complete and remove any committed costs from jobs and cost centres.
The print action produces a formatted copy of the purchase order for issuing to the vendor. As described above, the purchase order can be either printed or emailed.
If you make any future changes to the purchase order after this point, abio will save this version as a PDF on the Versions tab.
Inquire
The inquire action allows you to view a purchase order, but not make any changes.
Import
i’M’port action allows an Excel spreadsheet (MER) to be used to add line items to a purchase order. A purchase order entered from the import action must be targeted at a specific job or to non-job items (equipment and G/L accounts). Up to 9999 items may be imported at one time.
Template
Create a template based on this purchase order, either to allow you to create a new purchase order, or as a seed template for a requisition.
Purchase Order Fields
vendor – vendor code, this is a key field and may not be changed, it must be present and have a corresponding vendor record (valid in table vendor), attempting to tab through this field leaving it blank will bring a drop down list of valid vendors.
p/o number –this field is populated by the system – Job related purchase orders are assigned job number-zero filled next job P/O (Z5103-03584). Equipment and G/L related purchase orders are simply next company P/O number.. Once the purchase order record has been written this is a key field and may not be changed. The user has the ability to ‘reserve’ a PO number for a job through the Log Tab. A Log entry exists for all purchase orders. The log entry is either created by the user to reserve the p/o number or created by the system when a p/o record is applied.
type – may not be blank and must be one of:
- ‘R’egular purchase orders track both order quantities and order dollars
- ‘S’ubcontract purchase orders track only order dollars
job – must be a valid active job. To bring a drop down list of valid jobs enter any character in the field and then press the tab key or click on the field with the mouse. Each purchase order is for one job only. For purchase order’s that are job related, the line items must be posted to valid centres within that job and the cost types must be consistent with those centres. If a purchase order spans more than one job separate purchase order entries are required.
revision – this field is populated by the system. The original purchase order revision number is 0 (displayed as blank). Each time a purchase order is changed the revision number is incremented and a PDF for that revision is stored in the Revision tab. These files are not available for edit.
job req – this job requisition number is assigned by the user and must be unique within job.
vendor contact – populated by the system from the vendor branch entered contact information.
branch – vendor branch, if this field is blank the vendor main office is assumed.
PST exempt – must be ‘Y’es or ‘N’o – purchase order is PST exempt to the owner – used only as a flag for reporting purposes.
required for – name of the person the PO is for – this name will appear in the Ordered By field in the PO printout.
site approver – name of site approver.
required by – date the goods are required -must be valid date within last and next year.
management approver – name of management approver.
last revised – date the purchase order was last revised (this is also the date of the last PDF file created for the purchase order).
client approver – name of client approver.
last printed – date the purchase order was last printed.
issuer – userid of the person who added the purchase order.
snapshot date – system generated and contains the date the last time the purchase order was included in a job’s active snapshot. If the purchase order has been included in a snapshot it is no longer modifiable. Users with snapshot access may delete a purchase order that is part of a snapshot, this action will delete the amount in the purchase order from the job’s snapshot. These users also have the option to move a purchase order to ‘H’istory, at this time they have the option to delete the snapshot amounts or not. A user with snapshot update access when‘A’dding a purchase order to a job in a snapshot period is given the choice to either update snapshot commitments or not
issue date – the date this purchase order was issued, must be within last year or next 30 days.
shipping info – this field is applicable only to purchase orders pointed to a job.. If this purchase order is pointed to a job and this field is blank the shipping address information below will default to the job record address information. If a shipping location number is entered in this field the shipping information defaults from the shipping location entered. If this purchase order is pointed to equipment or a G/L account this field must be blank and the shipping information below defaults from the company record address information. Any defaults populated in these fields may be modified by the user.
ship address 1, ship address 2, city , province, postal – the information in these fields defaults as indicated in the shipping info information. the defaults may be changed by the user.
ship via – this field may be blank,a drop down list of valid vendors (carriers) is available by clicking on this field with the mouse.
site contact – if a shipping location number has been entered this field will default to the contact person indicated in the job shipping location. This field may be modified by the user.
phone – this field is part of the shipping information and will default as indicated in the shipping info field information. This field may be modified by the user.
Item Fields
act – to access this field on an existing purchase order item it is necessary to use the ‘C’hange action on the purchase order.
- ‘A’dd a new item
- ‘C’hange an existing item –
- ‘D’elete an existing item –
- ‘I’nquire
# – is system generated and indicates the item number.
description – must not be blank. This is the description of the item.
unit – must not be blank. Description of measurement for item entered.
area – if no job has been populated this field will be blank, if a job has been entered the area enteredmust be valid for the job entered. A drop down list of valid areas is available by clicking on this field.
centre -if no job is entered this field will be blank – if a job and area have been entered this must be a valid active centre for the job/area entered. A drop down list of valid centres is available and may be accessed by clicking on this field with the mouse.
job equip – may be blank, if a job/area and centre have been entered for this item, equipment entered in this field relates to job equipment and is used for reporting purposes only. If there is no job entered an equipment entry in this field will point the item to equipment and the g/l account for the item will default to the gl account assigned the equipment cost type entered. Clicking on this field with the mouse will bring a drop down of valid equipment types.
cost type – if the item is pointed to a job the cost type must be valid for the centre entered. If the item is pointed to equipment the cost type must be one of ‘F’uel, ‘M’ob/demob, ‘O’ther, ‘P’urchase or ‘R’epair/maintenance. If the item is pointed to a G/L account this field will be blank.
G/L account – If the item is pointed to a job the G/L account will be populated from the centre cost type entered, if the item is pointed to equipment the G/L account will be populated from the equipment cost type entered. If the item is to be pointed to a G/L account a drop down list of valid G/L accounts is available for this field.
div – this field allows reporting by division and is related to the G/L account entered – all G/L accounts above the division account floor entered in the Book entry require a division. A drop down of valid divisions for the gl account entered is available in this field.
tax – must be one of ‘G’ST, ‘H’ST, ‘P’ST or ‘N’o tax. On purchase orders pointed to a job the tax will default to the tax type of the job, if the purchase order is pointed to equipment or a g/l account the tax will default to the company tax type. The tax type may always be changed from the default to ‘N’one..
rent? – must be one of ‘Y’es – equipment is rented or ‘N’o. If this purchase order is being posted directly to a General Ledger account this field will default to ‘N’o.
pst? – must be one of ‘Y’es the owner is pst exempt for this item or ‘N’o.
ordered – number of units ordered (to 2 decimals)
invoiced – number of units invoiced (to 2 decimals) – populated by the system when the invoice item is applied.
received – number of items received (to 2 decimals) populated by the system when a receiving entry populated by this purchase order item is applied.
rate – rate per unit (to 4 decimals places)
extention – the total amount for this item (unit times rate)
o/s – the total of uninvoiced units times rate..
tag – free form – comment only.
delivery date – required date of delivery for this item.
requisition no – if this purchase order item was generated from a requisition this field will be populated by the requisition number.
job req no – job requisition number attached to this purchase order.
req item – if this purchase order item was generated from a requisition item this field will be populated by that requisition item number.
added by – userid of the person who added the purchase order item
on – the date the purchase order item was added.
Versions
You may need to make adjustments to a purchase order. If the purchase order has already been printed or emailed, Abio assumes it has been sent out to a vendor in it’s current form. That form will be recorded on the Versions tab with a date and time. You can reference past versions if there’s a dispute about quantity or rates.
Recall that we changed the embedded message in the purchase order we were working on. Because we had emailed the previous version, Abio saves it as a version before it registers your changes. If you look no the versions tab, you’ll see the version with the original message.
Supporting Documents
You may want to record communications you’ve had with your client regarding your purchases. Perhaps they’ve signed off on the purchase and you want to save the signed document. You can scan in the signed purchase order and save it with its record.
The interface for uploading documents is consistent across all the entry screens that allow it. You can get a more detailed overview on the process here.