Working with Purchase Orders

You can manage your purchase orders (POs) more efficiently with aACE's purchase order features.

Purchase Orders vs Purchases

Purchase orders reflect anticipated purchases, but do not impact accounting. In contrast, purchases are the records that actually impact the accounting system. After a PO is filled and the related purchase is logged, the expense is realized in the accounting modules. 

Purchase orders are used to replenish inventoried items, as well as manage manufacturer lot and serialized tracking numbers. While a PO is in Pending status, it does not affect inventory counts. When you move the PO to Open status, it generates inventory transactions.

This guide reviews primary features for working with purchase orders. You can also read more about the system preferences for purchase orders and about working with purchases.

List View

The Purchase Orders module list view helps you work with multiple records. You can update a PO's tracking status here by clicking the Tracking Status field for that line and selecting from the drop-down list. The record status indicators help you track priority records.

At the list view, clicking the item-level Go-to (>) icon displays the detail view.

Detail View

The Purchase Orders Detail tab provides an overview of the PO (e.g. date ordered, vendor info, shipping info, and items ordered). It also includes tabs for managing RFQs and a quick summary of related purchasing and receiving details.

The Management tab helps you review, track, and troubleshoot the PO using the three tabs: Overview, Purchasing, and Shipping & Receiving. See below for more detail.

Overview Tab

This tab provides a summary of your PO's progress. It also holds information that can help resolve questions, such as why a PO won't auto-close. Details about each item (e.g. quantities ordered, received vs purchased, plus values and amounts purchased / remaining) are used to validate when a record can be closed. For example, if the Received column does not show a quantity to be received, it may mean that the LICs are the wrong type (i.e. expense LICs instead of item LICs). 

You can apply payments from the Overview tab by clicking the Add icon () next to Payment Due.

Purchasing Tab

The Purchasing tab displays all related purchase records. Status indicators at the end of each row show which purchases need immediate attention. 

You can create a new purchase record that is automatically linked to the current purchase order: Click the Add icon () in the Purchases section. 

Shipping & Receiving Tab

You can view all related shipments in the Shipping & Receiving tab. This includes shipments to return product to the vendor. Status indicators for shipments show their delivery progress. After a PO is opened, the next workflow step is often to receive an incoming shipment. 

You can create a new shipment record linked to the PO: Click the Add icon () in the Shipments section. aACE auto-populates the shipment with information from the PO, but you can modify it as needed.

Creating and Editing Purchase Orders

You can create new purchase orders at the Purchase Orders module. Click New, then enter the required details (e.g. title, vendor, PO items, tax / shipping charges, etc) and other data. 

Most purchase orders will then follow one of these workflows:

• Print or email the PO — Click Print and select the desired option.
• Enter a payment — Click the Add () icon next to Payment Due to apply a cash, check, credit card, or other type of payment.

Purchase orders in Pending or Open status do not affect the accounting system. This means you can freely edit them, including changes to item quantities. When you edit an item on the PO, we recommend adding a Note () to the record, documenting the reason for updates. Basic details of all changes are also captured in the record log.

Closing Purchase Orders

You can manually close POs using the Actions options (). aACE can also streamline your workflows by auto-closing POs. Your system administrator can customize the validations in Procurement preferences which are used to evaluate when a PO should be closed automatically.

If a PO does not close as expected, the first step is to review the Overview tab (see above) and verify whether all LICs have been received and purchased.