This article describes the steps required to create a Purchase Order using an order confirmation from a supplier.

If you place orders online with your suppliers, many supplier B2B websites will allow you to export a .csv file of the items you have placed on the order with them. Or if you've received a delivery note or an order confirmation document from your supplier, you can now use our Smart Import tool to convert this from a PDF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, HEIC, or XLSX file into a purchase order in Cloud POS.

How to import a Purchase Order confirmation

1) In the Back Office, from the menu on the left, expand the Purchasing & Transfers heading, then select Purchase Orders:

2) Click New in the top left of the grid:

You can also import a file into an existing purchase order

You can use the ‘Actions’ menu in an existing purchase order to import an order confirmation – you don't have to create a new purchase order every time:

 

3) Choose Import from Supplier Order Confirmation from the Purchase Order Type dropdown:

4) Select your store from the Purchasing Store(s) drop-down list:

5) Select the suppliers you have order from – you can select from one to all:

6) 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:

7) 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.

We've also made it possible to set the Due Date to be in the past – this is useful if you're creating a retrospective Purchase Order in the system after the stock has already arrived.

8) 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 5.

NOTE: If you want to create multiple Purchase Orders in one go, and then add items to them later on, you can tick the Create another box in the bottom right first.

9) From the following page, you can then click in the green box to open File Explorer and find the file you wish to upload from your computer, or you can drag and drop the file onto the green box. Note the information on the left of this page, which describes the format of the files you can import.

10) If the file is a .csv, it needs to contain the following columns: either Supplier Part Code, Quantity or Supplier Part Code, Quantity, Cost. Here is an example of a .csv file containing Supplier Part Code, Quantity:

If the .csv file also contains other information such as product descriptions, alias barcodes etc, then we recommend adding in column headers – this will help the Smart Import tool to correctly identify the information.

If the file is a PDF or an image file such as a PNG or JPEG, then as long as it contains the supplier part codes and quantities, the Smart Import tool should be able to read it.

Remember to check the PO against your order confirmation

The Smart Import tool uses AI to pull out the key information from your supplier's order confirmation, which it then turns into a purchase order. Whilst the AI is a really useful tool, it's not completely foolproof. That's why it's really important to double check the details of your purchase order before marking it as placed.

If the AI spots any clear errors in the purchase order that it creates e.g. if the costs and quantities don't match the totals, it will flag the discrepancy for you so that you can decide how to proceed:

 

11) If the supplier is one that you have a SIM license for, the top section of the screen will display this information:

12) The items you have imported will now appear in the Import Preview below:

Once you are happy with the information you see in the preview, you can proceed using one of the two options at the bottom:

• Overwrite and Import to Purchase Order – this will remove all lines that were previously on this purchase order and re-add the ones you have imported.
• Update Existing and Import to Purchase Order – this will edit the quantity and cost of any existing lines, and add any new ones.

13) The items from your order confirmation file will now have been added to the Purchase Order.

14) From here you can make any adjustments necessary – for example, you can add notes to specific item lines, and you can tweak the Due Date for specific items, for example if you know that they'll take longer to arrive from the supplier than the rest of the items. When entering the Line Due Date, make sure you include the full year.

If you can't see these columns, use the Manage View feature to add them to the Purchase Order grid.

NOTE: individual Line Due Dates are not currently reflected on Forward Orders, although we are working to develop this feature in due course. In the meantime you can use the API to set or update individual line due dates for forward orders.

15) Once complete, you can select Mark as Placed to raise the purchase order in the system. See the related articles for further information.

SIM Functionality in a Purchase Order

If you are raising a Purchase Order for a supplier for whom you have a SIM license, there is some additional functionality which can help you to add items to your Cloud POS database using SIM.

At Step 12, once you have uploaded your .csv file, Cloud POS will identify which supplier part codes already exist in your Cloud POS database.

If there are items which do not exist in your Cloud POS database but can be found in SIM, you will be given the option to import these items to your database using SIM:

All you need do here is select the correct Department & Category from the dropdown in the menu and the item will be imported from SIM and added to your purchase order.