Purchase Orders

Note: Don’t see this yet? Purchase orders is currently in Limited Availability (LA) for some of our customers. We’ll monitor your feedback and make improvements as we prepare for general availability.

Purchase orders are used to track and manage orders to outside organizations. In web view, you can create two types of purchase orders:

  • Regular – With regular purchase orders, line items on regular purchase orders are posted, increasing the encumbrance balance.

  • Blanket – An order for a large quantity of an item (more than is currently needed). The order is a commitment to purchase, typically made to obtain a volume discount or ensure you receive hard to get items. You can generate regular purchase orders from the blanket purchase order until the blanket order is satisfied.

    Note: You do not post blanket line items. Use blanket line items and the post status and post date as defaults for the regular purchase orders generated from the blanket order.

Tip: In database view, you could create template purchase orders, a vendor-specific purchase order default record. With a template purchase order, you can save all order information for future use, including line items, custom fields, and notes. In web view, you can still view your template purchase orders and can create regular purchase orders from these template purchase orders by copying them. For more information, see Copy previous purchase order.

To add or view existing purchase orders, navigate to Payables, Purchase orders. You can also add and manage a vendor’s purchase orders from their record. For more information, see Vendor Record.

Tip: If you don't know the exact number of a purchase order, you can search for a partial number and select it in the results.

You can copy a previous purchase order to save time when you create a new purchase order. After you select the type of purchase order, select Copy previous purchase order when it appears. If you don't have the option to copy, enter the remaining details to save the purchase order.

All information, including line items, is copied except for the purchase order number, order date, status, attachments, notes, and receipts.

Tip: You can’t copy purchase orders for different vendors. You can only copy them for the same one.

You can generate a regular purchase order from a blanket purchase order. The original blanket purchase order is automatically updated to reflect the purchased items until you fulfill the blanket purchase order. After you select the type of purchase order (which must be Regular to generate from a blanket purchase order), select Generate from blanket purchase order when it appears. If you don’t have the option generate from a blanket purchase order, enter the remaining details to save the purchase order.

When you create a purchase order, you can enter line items under Line items. A line item is an individual charge for an item such as a product or service. There are three line item types:

  • Quantity/price – Quantity/price line items are based on price and quantity for goods and services.

  • Flat amount – Flat amount line items have a fixed price.

  • Comment – Comment line items are useful for attaching information to a purchase order. For example, if an item cannot be backordered, you could create a comment line item stating “No Backorders”.

After you select the line item type, you can enter information for the line item, such as misc code ID, description, unit of measure, quantity, unit cost, extended cost, post status, and post date. If you entered values in the Quantity Ordered and Unit Cost fields, the Extended Cost field displays the total cost of the line item.

To edit more details for the line item, including line item distributions, select Edit in the Details column. For more information, see Line Item Distributions.