How to Create a Purchase Order

In Precoro, you can create a Purchase Order from a Purchase Request or manually create an original Purchase Order.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• What is a Purchase Order Document

• How to Create a New Purchase Order Manually

  • Create a New Document and Fill Out the Necessary Fields

  • Add Items to the Document

  • Write Notes and Comments

  • Upload Attachments

  • Proceed with Editing or Confirming

  • Download and Print

  • Sending Purchase Order to Supplier

• How to Repeat the Purchase Order

• How to Delegate a Purchase Order to Another User

• How to Reject Items in Purchase Order
• Budget Breakdown in Purchase Orders
• Pay for Purchase Orders with a Credit Note Balance
• Use the Revision History Function

What is a Purchase Order Document

A Purchase Order is a source document the purchasing department uses to place an order for goods or services for a supplier. In other words, this is the contract that a buyer drafts to purchase goods/services from a seller.

A Purchase Order is an essential document because it clarifies the order details, such as the cost, quantity, order date, shipping date, shipping terms, etc. 
The more detailed the information described in the Purchase order, the more effective the procurement process will be.

By using Precoro's Purchase Orders, one can solve the following problems:

• Expedite the order-making process using catalogs.

• Record all the pre-submitted requests for purchases from different departments.

• Track and manage orders for the company.

• Plan for future deliveries by referring to existing submitted orders for all types of purchases.

• Control the company's costs and budget and identify any unexpected enterprise expenses.

Best Practises to Use Purchase Order Document

A purchase order is created by a purchase manager or office manager, depending on the company's specific purchasing process. A Purchase Order can be created either from scratch or by using a pre-existing Purchase Requisition. 



The client sets up the hierarchy of approvals for controlling the needs of goods vendor selection in accordance with the PO and the appropriate budget. If this process is set up in Precoro, every Purchase Order must be approved at all hierarchy levels. Once all approvals have been made, the PO can be sent to the supplier for fulfillment.

In the steps below you will learn how to create a new Purchase Order manually:

Create a New Document and Fill Out the Necessary Fields

Open the Purchase Order module in the left-side menu and click the Create button.

Choose the required delivery date, location/shipping address, supplier, and Purchase Order currency. Fill out other necessary Document Custom Fields and once done, click the Create button.

When adding the Supplier on the document creation page and editing the supplier with the Draft status, you can either choose the existing Supplier from the drop-down list or create a new one by clicking the Add new Supplier button.

Also, users with the Supplier Management Role can access the Supplier’s page directly via an active hyperlink.

Add Items to the Document

• Click the Add Item button to add items from the catalog to your order. You can use filters such as keywords, suppliers, categories, etc.

• If you do not have a catalog of items, use the Add empty row button to insert the details for the item you want to order manually. In this way, you can add the cost of some services and include it to the PO total (as a delivery service or custom rounding).
  
  
• Use the Import Items and Update Items options to upload and change data in bulk via Excel, consult the step-by-step articles on how this can be done.

To edit the added items you have to take a document for Revision.

You can also edit the Item SKU and Item Name fields on the In Revision status even when an Invoice or Receipt is created for the item.

Note that you can enter the negative item values in Purchase Orders. Please learn how this functionality works here.

You can also Approve and Confirm documents with zero total value for the whole document and also send them to integrated partners. Proceed to this article and learn more about Using the Free of Charge function.

Write Notes and Comments

You can Add Notes to the purchase order (e.g., some informative details about the delivery time, etc.). These details will be displayed in the printed document version and will be visible to the vendor.

You can also Add Comments for internal communication between users in your account. Tag the person using “@” and type their email address. Then, enter your comment and add it. The tagged person will receive an email notification with your comment in their mailbox and reply to you in the same document. The information from the Comments field is not printed on the documents and is visible only to the users of your profile.

Upload Attachments

Add related attachments to your Purchase Orders to easily access and check them in one document.

For this, there are two fields:

• Add Internal Attachments — they will be available for the users and sent to approvers along with the PO PDF. These attachments will not be visible to the vendors.
• Add External Attachments — the files you attach in this section will be sent to the vendors along with the PO PDF. They will also be available for the users’ reference. 

You can navigate directly from your Purchase Order to related Invoices / Receipts / Requisitions to find attachments added to the corresponding documents and all other necessary information on the items in the related documents like Items Custom Fields.

When creating a Purchase Order from Purchase Requisitions connected to a Request for Proposals, you can see related attachments. 

It is displayed the following way: Directly from the Purchase Order, click the Show Requests button to see attachments from the Purchase Requisition. Then, you can click on the related Request for Proposal to see attachments from the RFP.

Proceed with Editing or Confirming

You can also edit the location/shipping address or supplier on your Purchase Order when the document has a Draft or In Revision status.

 

Check the info and click the Confirm button. The PO status will be changed to Pending in case you have to get approval before sending the PO to the supplier.

At this stage, you can make changes to the PO by clicking the Revise button. 

Before editing any fields, please read this article: Field Logic Behavior After Edit and Revise actions in documents.

Download and Print

If you need to download the PDF/XLSX PO version when it is pending approval, ask your admin to activate this feature in the Basic Settings → Documents Setup → Purchase Order → Order Printing Configurations. Check the Download while Purchase Order pending box and press Save.

How to Delegate a Purchase Order to Another User

If you have created a Purchase Order and want to make another person responsible for this document follow the steps below:

1. Open the needed document.

2. Click the Edit Purchase Order button on the right action panel.

3. Select the necessary Purchaser in the corresponding field from the drop-down list.

Before changing the purchaser, please note:  

• Only users with Configuration roles can edit the purchaser field. 
• You can pass the document to the users with the Purchase Order role as well as with access to the Location and Department/Project selected in this Purchase Order.

You cannot change the purchaser for the Purchase Order with the Matching status.

How to Reject Items in Purchase Order

If the Supplier cannot deliver the goods you ordered in full and you do not expect them to deliver the remaining amount later, you can mark such items as Rejected.

This way, you can properly complete the Purchase Order document.

To do that, open the Purchase Order, press the edit action in the item, and enter the quantity of the Rejected ones:

You can enter the number of Rejected items for the Purchase Order on Draft, Approved (when taken for Revise on In Revision), and Pending statuses.

Budget Breakdown in Purchase Orders

When you have added a Budget and activated a Budget Breakdown function to your Purchase Order document you will see the Budget Breakdown button below the item lines.

Please note that the Budget Breakdown button will display in documents on Draft, Approved, and In Revision statuses.

Pay for Purchase Orders with a Credit Note Balance

You can pay for Purchase Orders with the Credit Note balance directly on the Purchase Orders page in the same way as you do on the Invoice page.

In the Payment Type field, select the Credit Note type of payment, and you will see system-generated information on the current Supplier credit balance.

These payments will be recorded in the Purchase Order and displayed in the Previous payments in the Invoice.

Revision History Function

Use the Revision History button to track all the changes by following their Statuses, Creator, and Reviser.