This method of creating a purchase order will order items when the demand is higher than the current stock level, but will take other open purchase orders into account unless you specifically tell it not to in Step 7.
For example, if an item has one in stock and three are reserved for customers, but one already is on another open purchase order, the system will take that into account when calculating the incoming purchase order and will recommend that only one is ordered.
Creating a purchase order to fulfil customer orders
1) Within the Back Office side menu, select Purchasing & Transfers, then Purchase Orders.
2) Click on the blue New button in the top left.
3) Choose Customer-Specific from the Purchase Order Type dropdown:
This will create a purchase order for each supplier that you select in step 6, for any items that are outstanding on customer orders.
4) You'll then be asked to choose the supplier type – this mainly refers to items that are available from multiple suppliers. If an item on an order is available from multiple suppliers, you can choose whether you want it to be ordered from its Primary Supplier, or if you want the system to find the cheapest supplier available for the item.
5) Select your store from the Purchasing Store(s) drop-down list:
6) Select the suppliers you would like to order from – you can select from one to all:
If any of the suppliers you select don't have any items on outstanding orders, then it won't create a purchase order for that supplier.
7) On the Allocations & Item Restrictions tab, you can use these tickboxes to make sure that you don't create duplicate purchase orders for items that are already on a purchase order or transfer.
For example, if you leave the 'Do not order item quantities which are already on a purchase order' option ticked, then items will not be ordered if there is sufficient stock already expected on an existing purchase order. If there isn't enough stock expected on an existing purchase order, then a new purchase order will be created with enough stock to cover the customer order. For example:
a) If a customer orders 5 of an item, and 2 are already on a purchase order, an additional 3 would be ordered.
b) If a customer orders 5 of an item, and 5 are already on a purchase order, no additional items would be ordered.
The above explanation also applies to the transfer option – if sufficient stock is already on a transfer, then items will not be ordered.
8) If you like, you can restrict an order to only look at a certain Department or Category, or a particular Brand, using these options:
9) On the Forward Order Setup tab, you can add some additional settings to the items on your Purchase Order. For example, you can make the items on this Purchase Order available for preorder on your Ecommerce site:
10) On the Additional Information tab, you can change the title of the purchase order, and give it a supplier reference and a comment – these are optional. You can also override the due date for when you expect the shipment to arrive.
11) Click on Create Purchase Order(s) in the bottom right to create your purchase order. One order will be created for each of the suppliers you specified at Step 6.
If there are no items needed from any of the suppliers you select, you'll see a message like this in the bottom right:
Viewing and editing a purchase order
1) If you only chose 1 supplier when creating the purchase order, you'll be taken directly to that purchase order, which will be automatically populated with any items from that supplier that are needed to fulfil customer orders.
If you chose multiple suppliers, you'll see the purchase orders that have been created, and you can double-click on one to open the grid, as above.
2) You can use this grid to check the supplier stock, update the quantity you want to order, see the quantity on other orders, and update cost or pricing information for each of the items. Or you can remove an item from the purchase order by clicking on the red rubbish bin icon on the left.
Items out of stock with the supplier?
If any of the lines on your purchase order are showing as Out of Stock (or with a red dot on smaller screens) next to the Supplier Part Code:
You can remove all of them from the purchase order by clicking on Actions, then Remove Out of Stock.
3) If you want to see which customer orders will be fulfilled from this purchase order, click on View Customer Orders:
4) To add more items to your purchase order, you can use the Search and Select Items button, the Scan or type to search field at the top, or the Search SIM option to find more items. Click here for more help with adding items to a Purchase Order.
Any changes you make to the purchase order will autosave, so we'd recommend giving it a final check once you've finished.
5) Once you're happy with the purchase order, click on Mark As Placed.
6) If you wish, at this point you can make further edits to the purchase order, either by changing quantities or by adding or removing items. You will see the Mark As Placed button has now been replaced by a button marked Receive Stock. Clicking this button will open the purchase order at the Goods In stage, where you can then receive the items into stock.
