Managing Purchase Orders
In this section, you can learn about the different methods of creating purchase orders and sending it to your vendors.
- Creating a New Purchase Order
- Creating Purchase Order from Contacts
- Creating a drop shipment
- Status of a Purchase Order
- Editing a Purchase Order
- Deleting a Purchase Order
- Multi-warehouse operations related to Purchase Orders
Creating a New Purchase Order
- Click on the quick create (+) icon next to the Purchase Orders tab or the +New icon placed on top of the purchase order window to create a new purchase order.
- You will be navigated to a new window for entering the details for the new purchase order to be created.
Primary Purchase Information
- Under the Vendor name field, you can either pick the vendors from the list you have already created or you can add a new vendor by clicking on the + New vendor option.
- After filling up the required details, click on Save And Select to add the new vendor to the purchase order being created.
- In the Purchase Order# tab, a purchase order number is generated by default.
- If you wish to manually enter a purchase order number:
- Click on the Settings icon next to the tab.
- A pop-up will appear where you can select between auto-generated estimate number or manual entry of purchase order numbers.
- Date tab is the date on which the purchase order is created.
- In the Expected Delivery Date tab, you can set the date by which the product should be delivered by the vendor to the you.
- In the Shipment Preference tab, you can choose or type to add the preferred method of shipment to be done by the vendor.
Item Information
- Items can be added from the list of items shown in the drop down that have already been created by you in your Zoho Inventory account.
- To add another item, click on + Add another line option.
- Enter the Quantity, Rate and Tax if applicable from the drop down.
- Tax drop down shows the taxes you created in the settings tab under taxes section and an option to add a new tax if applicable.
Discount Information
- Enter the discount rate (in currency or in percentage) provided by your vendor, if any.
- Click the Apply before tax option if the discount has to be applied before tax.
Note: Likewise, you can apply discounts on your bills.
Additional Information
- You can record Notes of up to 2000 characters and purchase Terms & Conditions of up to 5000 characters for the purchase order.
- Check the Use this in future box to use the terms & conditions in all future purchase orders.
- This will be carried forward while converting the purchase order into a bill.
- In the Deliver To tab you are provided with two options.
- To create a normal purchase order, choose the option Organization.
- To make a drop shipment check the box near Customer. To know more about drop shipments, click here.
- The address to deliver can be changed by clicking on the Change destination to deliver.
- Now click on the Save button to save the new purchase order as a draft.
Creating a Purchase Order from Contacts
- Navigate to the Contacts tab.
- Select a contact.
- Click on the New Transaction button and select Purchase Order from the drop-down.
- You will be navigated to the New Purchase Order screen.
- Fill up the necessary details.
- Click on the Save button.
- After creating the new purchase order, you will be able to find it as a draft under the Purchase Orders tab.
Status of a Purchase Order
These indicate the stages of progress a purchase order goes through. Lets take a look at what each status indicates:
- Draft - This status indicates, that a purchase order has been created and is yet to be sent to the vendor.
- Issued - This status indicates that a purchase order has successfully been sent to the vendor.
- Partially Received - This status indicates that portion of the list of items in the purchase order has been received by you/your organization from your vendor.
- Received - This indicates that all the items in your PO has been received by you/your organization from your vendor.
- Cancelled - This indicates that your purchase order has been cancelled.
Editing a Purchase Order
To edit a purchase order:
- Navigate to the Purchase Orders module.
- Select the preferred purchase order.
- The purchase order page opens up.
- Click the Edit button(Pencil like button).
- You will be directed to a edit purchase order page.
- Update all the necessary changes.
- Click the Save button to update your changes.
- Word to the wise: Be sure to mail the edited purchase order to your vendor after making the changes or he might fulfil the older unchanged order.
Important Note:
- Only Purchase orders in Draft or Issued status can be edited.
- In case of Issued purchase orders, if they have bills associated with them, then you can only increase the quantity of existing items or add new items to the order.
- You will not be able to remove or reduce the quantity that has already been billed.
- Workaround: If you need to reduce the quantity or remove a billed item from the purchase order, then the only way to do is, by deleting the bill associated with the order and try again.
- Once you are done with the changes, you can again convert the purchase order to a bill easily.
Deleting a Purchase Order
To delete a purchase order:
- Navigate to the Purchase Orders module.
- Select the preferred purchase order.
- The purchase order page opens up.
- Click on the More button.
- Select the Delete option from the More drop-down.
- A pop-up asking for confirmation will appear.
- Confirm your choice and the purchase order will be deleted successully.
- Note: Only Draft and Issued purchase orders without any bills and receives associated with it can be deleted.
Multi-warehouse operations related to Purchase Orders
If you’ve enabled multiple warehouse management for your organization, you’ll have additional steps and capabilities related to purchase orders. To know more, click here.