Adding or editing a purchase order

SECURITY  This page is governed by the Inventory security settings of the security level assigned to you. For this feature, you need Purchase Orders: Add permission.

NAVIGATION   > Inventory > Procurement & Delivery > Purchase Orders > click New or select Edit Purchase Order from the table menu

NAVIGATION   > Inventory > Procurement & Delivery > Purchasing & Fulfillment > select Create Purchase Order

In this section, you select the vendor and the shipping information. It should be completed before you add any purchase order items.

1. To open the page, use the path(s) in the Security and navigation section above.
2. Populate the following fields:

Field	Description
Vendor Name (required)	Select the vendor you would like to place the order with. Either start typing a vendor name and select a name from the list of matching names, or click the selector icon and select a vendor from the data selector. This field can be edited even after the PO has been saved or submitted. It becomes read-only once any units of any purchase order items have been received. If you change the vendor to one who is not currently associated with the product, Autotask will add the vendor to the product's vendor list. NOTE  If Multi-currency is enabled and at least one purchase order item is present in the Purchase Order Items table at the bottom of the page, you can only change the vendor to one who is associated with the same currency. Since purchase order item costs are now entered in the vendor's currency, allowing a change to a vendor with a different currency would raise questions as to how to calculate those values.
Vendor Invoice Number	Before the first purchase order item has been received: Type the invoice number provided by the vendor, if available. Any value you enter into this field will remain editable until at least one purchase order item on the PO has been received. After the first purchase order item has been received: When you receive the first purchase order item, the original value is cleared from the field, and it will now contain a read-only, comma-separated list of the vendor invoice numbers associated with the purchase order items. Each number will appear only once, even if it is associated with multiple purchase order items. The following rules apply: Vendor invoice numbers can be a string up to 50 characters long. An individual purchase order item may have zero, or multiple, vendor invoice numbers. All purchase order items received in one shipment will be associated with the same vendor invoice number. Clicking on the values in this field will open the Receipt History page. Refer to Viewing the receipt history and receipt details.
Template	Select a purchase order template or click the plus sign to create a new one. Refer to Managing purchase order templates.
External P.O. #	Type the external purchase order number, if used. If you would like to reference the purchase order number of the customer on whose behalf you are ordering the products, you may enter it here.
Terms	When this field appears on quotes and invoices, it informs the customer when you expect to receive the payment for their order. On purchase orders, it indicates the payment terms you expect to receive from the vendor. Select a payment term.
Tax Region	Vendor tax regions are used to calculate the sales taxes you expect to pay to them. The calculated tax amount only appears on the printed purchase order (similar to Freight), and represents the tax you expect to be charged. If you don't want to calculate the taxes you expect to pay for purchases, leave this field blank. If you want to display tax information on the purchase order you are sending to the vendor (tax region, tax category, separate line item for each tax), select the tax region that applies to your company, from the perspective of the vendor. This will allow you to show the amount of tax you expect to pay to the vendor on the PO, and ensure that the correct tax region is applied in places where you cannot make a manual selection, like the Purchasing & Fulfillment or the Inventory Items page. For more on how tax rates are calculated, refer to Configuring your tax table.
Display tax category	Select the check box to display the tax category name(s) on the purchase order.
Display separate line item for each tax	Select the check box to display each tax component of a tax category as a separate line item on the purchase order.
General Memo	Enter text to add general comments or information about the purchase order. Memo content appears in the Edit Purchase Order and the View/Print Purchase Order windows, and it is an available column on the Purchase Order Search page. NOTE  You can also add a separate memo for each purchase order item. Item memos are viewed separately and are not visible from the search results table.
Auto-fill order with (Auto-fill options are not available when ordering items directly from the Inventory Products tab)	Clicking on an auto-fill link will populate the Purchase Order Items table with all inventory products where On Hand quantity + On Order quantity < inventory product Minimum quantity for the inventory location. The Quantity field for the purchase order item is automatically set to the number required to cause the On Hand quantity + On Order quantity = Maximum quantity. If you select Items where Vendor is Default, only items where the specified vendor is the default vendor for the product will be added. If you select All Items associated with Vendor, all items where the specified vendor is associated with the product will be added. Auto-filled purchase order items can be edited and deleted like any other item.
Purchase For Organization	If you are generating the PO for a specific customer, start typing the organization name or click the selector icon. This will enable the Selected Organization option in the Ship to radio button. If you are adding the purchase order from the Purchasing page, this field is pre-populated.
Ship To, Address fields, Phone/Fax fields	Use the radio buttons to select a shipping destination for the purchase order items. Your selection will populate or clear the shipping address and phone fields below the radio button. If you select Home Office, the shipping address will be populated with your own primary address. If you select Other Address, the field will be cleared, and you must manually complete the address fields. If you select Selected Organization (only available if you selected an organization in the Purchase For Organization field), the shipping address will be populated with the customer's address, and the items will be drop-shipped directly to the customer. IMPORTANT  Your selection can be changed until the first purchase order item is received. However, this will not impact the shipping destination, unless the vendor is informed.
Shipping Type/Date	Optionally, select a shipping type from the drop-down menu. Refer to Adding and managing shipping types. You can also click the date selector icon next to the date field and select the expected shipping date. NOTE  To calculate taxes on shipping charges, the selected shipping type must have a material code assigned. The material code must have a tax category assigned. Tax is calculated based on the tax category associated with the shipping type's material code and the tax region specified on the purchase order. All these components must be in place or no tax will be calculated.
Freight	Enter the freight amount you will be charged for this order. If Multi-currency is enabled, this field will display the currency indicator in the vendor currency. The field is read-only if the vendor currency and the internal currency are the same. If the vendor currency is different, hovering over the currency indicator will display the amount in the internal currency, as calculated by the exchange rate for the currency pair.

NOTE  There is a limit of 300 items per each purchase order.

To add or edit purchase order items, do the following:

1. Scroll to the Purchase Order Items section of the page.
2. Click New to add a new purchase order item. A line is inserted into the table, and the OK and Cancel buttons are enabled. To edit an existing item, click anywhere on the line item you wish to update.
3. Complete the fields in the newly added line and click OK.

NOTE  You must click OK to save your changes on each line item.

Field or Feature	Description
Buttons
New	Click to add a new, empty, editable line to the top of the Purchase Order Items list. This button is only displayed for users with security levels that include permission to Manually Add Items to Purchase Orders (not Dashboard User), and is only enabled if the PO is not yet submitted.
OK and Cancel	Click OK to save new items added to the Purchase Order Items list and changes made to existing items. Click Cancel to remove a new row or to return an editable row to its original state. NOTE   You must click OK after making changes or additions to purchase order items, or changes will be lost when you save and close the window.
Apply Estimated Arrival Date	Click this button to apply an estimated arrival date to all items. If any of this purchase order’s items already have a different estimated arrival date, you can choose to update or keep the current estimated arrival date. Refer to Tracking the estimated arrival date.
Use Descriptions from	This field defaults to the one selected for the Default Description to use for purchase order items setting, but you can override it for the current purchase order and select a different option. Click View/Print Purchase Order to review the different options. If you selected Quote Item and the PO contains items that are not associated with a quote, or Charge and the PO contains items that are not associated with a charge, the description from the Product (Catalog) will be used. NOTE  If you use the Autotask QuickBooks Extension and transfer purchase orders to QuickBooks, this setting does not apply. Autotask products are mapped to QuickBooks inventory items. For purchase orders, QuickBooks uses the product description from its own inventory items. Autotask cannot customize the description on QuickBooks purchase orders.
Total Sale	Shows the total amount of the purchase order. If Multi-currency is enabled, the value is displayed in the vendor's currency.
Columns
Sales Order (Organization) (Procurement required)	If Procurement is enabled and the item is being ordered to fulfill a sales order, this column displays the sales order name followed by the organization name. If there is no sales order, the organization name is displayed. The sales order and organization names are links to open detail views if you have permission to access the sales order. The name is a link to open the sales order.
Ticket/Project/Contract (Procurement required)	If procurement is enabled and the item is being ordered to fulfill a ticket charge, project charge, or contract charge, this column displays the ticket number or project or contract name. If you have correct permission, the number or name is a link to open the ticket, project, or contract.
Product Name (required)	The name of the Autotask product to be ordered. This field is pre-populated when you open the PO from the Inventory Items page or when you have selected an Auto-fill option. When adding new items, begin to type a product name and select from the list that appears. Alternately, click the icon to open the product selector and select a product. This field is required. Note that if you have Inventory module Add/Edit Product permission, you can add a new product from the product selector.
Inventory Location (required)	The name of the inventory location with which the ordered item will be associated. Select from the drop-down menu of available inventory locations.
Quantity (required)	The quantity to be ordered. Type a numeric value directly in the field. If using an Auto-fill option or opening the PO from the Inventory Items list, the field is populated with the quantity needed to reach the maximum number of items. You can edit the field if needed.
Cost	The cost per item. This field defaults to the last cost that was saved for this item/vendor combination in the product record for the item. If needed, cost can be edited. If your Autotask instance has Multi-currency enabled, this field displays the currency indicator. The value you enter into the field is assumed to be in the vendor currency. NOTE   If you change the cost and the same product appears as a separate line item, the other line item cost will be updated. NOTE  If you do not have permission to view internal cost data, this field is not visible.
Cost (Internal)	This field is only displayed if Multi-currency is enabled, and is read-only. It shows the saved cost for each purchase order item in the internal currency, using the exchange rate for the currency pair at the time the PO item is created. The internal cost is updated whenever the purchase order is edited, unless the status is equal to Received Full. It does not get updated simply because the exchange rate is modified.
On Hand	This read-only field specifies the number of this item currently on hand in the specified inventory location.
Max (Maximum)	This read-only field specifies the maximum number of items that should be in inventory (combined total of On Hand and On Order) at the specified inventory location.
Min (Minimum)	This read-only field specifies the minimum number of items that should be in inventory (combined total of On Hand and On Order) at the specified inventory location.
On Order	This read-only field specifies the number of this item currently on order, including the items in the current purchase order. Note that for this field to be populated, the item must previously have been added to inventory.
Back Order	This read-only field specifies the number of this item that are currently on order but not yet received from purchase orders with a status of Received in Part. This number does not include the items in the current purchase order.
Already Reserved/Picked	This read-only field appears on stocked items, purchase order items, and product quote items that you keep in inventory. It specifies the number of items from the selected inventory location that were reserved on a quote or picked for a (ticket, project, or contract) charge. On some pages, you can click on the number to view details about the stocked items that were picked or reserved. For more information refer to The Reservation/Picked Details page.
Available	This field refers to stocked items, purchase order items, and product quote items that you keep in inventory. It specifies the number of units of this item currently available in the specified inventory location. Available = (On Hand - Reserved/Picked). If a quote is lost, the reservation is released and the stocked item reverts to a status of Available.
Auto-Filled	This read-only field displays a check mark if the listed item was added to the purchase order using the Auto-Fill feature.
Default Vendor	This read-only field displays a check mark if the vendor selected for the purchase order is the default vendor for this item.
Taxable	This read-only field displays a check mark if the item is a taxable product.
Add or Edit Memo and/or Estimated Arrival Date	For each item listed, displays a note icon or edit icon . If a note icon with a plus sign (+) appears, no memo or estimated arrival date has been added; click the icon to add a memo and/or an estimated arrival date for the item. For details on estimated arrival date, refer to Tracking the estimated arrival date. If an edit icon appears, a memo or estimated arrival date has been added; click the icon to view or edit the memo, or hover on the icon to view the memo as a tooltip. You can also view item memo content from the Print Quality Purchase Order view or from the Purchase Order History search results list.

4. Click OK to save any changes or additions to the list of purchase order items.

IMPORTANT  If a purchase order item is highlighted yellow, the vendor selected on the PO is not associated with the purchase order item's product. Consider ordering this item from a different vendor.

After you have added or edited all purchase order items you will want to save, and possibly submit, the purchase order using the action buttons at the top of the page.

Select one of the following options:

When Procurement is enabled, you can add a purchase order for multiple items at once from the Purchasing & Fulfillment page. Click the Create Purchase Order button to open the new purchase order. Refer to Creating POs from the Purchasing & Fulfillment page (Procurement required).

The right-click options on a purchase order item depend on the status of the PO.