Purchase orders can be created specifically for a project or service order, or multiple projects or service orders. You can also order products from your catalog, such as items you keep in stock that aren't project or service-order-specific.

The instructions in this article are for creating a single purchase order for a single vendor. If you wish to create multiple purchase orders for multiple vendors, use the Bulk Create feature.

To create a purchase order:

1/ Click Start > Purchase Orders > Manage Purchase Orders.

You will see Purchase Order Explorer.

2/ Click the New button.

This will open the New Purchase Order form.

The form will show the following tabs.

The General tab is where you will select a vendor, status, shipment preference, terms, etc. In this example, the Number field is grayed out because it is set to auto-generate a number.

The status list for purchase orders is not editable; there are only three available statuses: Draft, Issued, and Canceled.

Once you use the Item Receipts feature, the status can no longer be edited and will display "Partially Received" or "Received."

The primary contact for the project will be displayed here. You can edit this if needed.

The Address fields will prepopulate with the vendor's address, and the "ship to address" field will populate with the address you have set as your "Default Shipping Address" in your Company Information settings. 

You can modify these manually, or you can use the links provided:

On the Notes tab, you can add notes to the purchase order. These notes are not printed on the report; they are internal notes.

The Items tab is where you can add products, labor items, or items from an allowance, either from a project, service order, or for creating purchase orders from the catalog.

Click Add Projects to select as many projects as you want to add to the purchase order.

All projects are displayed by default, but you can choose to set your prefilter options for specific project statuses.

The projects will be listed in the left pane. Select a project, click Add Project Items, and choose either Summarized or Units.

The difference is whether or not similar items (same Manufacturer:Model) will be grouped or listed separately.

Clicking Add Project Items will open the Add Items dialog.

If you have already assigned a vendor to the purchase order, the items are prefiltered to the items in the project that are assigned to the vendor. You can change this filter on the left side of the interface.

This is the "Units" interface for adding items. It lists each item as a separate line item.

Use Shift or Ctrl on your keyboard to select the items you want to add to the purchase order, then click the Add and Close button. 

The items will be displayed on the Projects tab.

At the bottom of the tab, you will see the totals for the selected projects and the totals for the entire purchase order.

If you add products to the purchase order, the unit cost within the project will be different from either the unit cost in your catalog or the purchase cost (if one is set) in your catalog.

There are perfectly fine reasons for having a unit cost for products within a project that differs from the Cost fields in your catalog, including special pricing for buying X units. This is just a warning to help ensure nothing is mispriced within the project.

You can select multiple products simultaneously and choose which cost you want to use via the Update button.

You can also add items to a purchase order from service orders. Click the Service Orders tab and then the Add Service Orders button.

By default, all service orders are displayed, but you can set your prefilter options for specific schedule statuses.

The service orders will be listed in the left pane. Select a service order and then click the Add Service Order Items button.

Click the Catalog tab and the Add from Catalog button, then select whether to add products, labor items, or bundled cable.

This will open a slightly different dialog depending on which option you choose.

Here, you can select items from your catalog to order. Once you've made your selections, click the Add and Close button.

Once products are added to the purchase order, you can adjust the quantities.

If you decrease the quantity of items added from a project, you will see a prompt similar to the one below.

Purchase orders utilize the Unit of Measure field for products and will automatically adjust the quantities for products where a unit of measure has been set.

The field used on purchase orders to determine your price per unit is named "Unit Price." This "Unit Price" field is generally the "Unit Cost" field for products in your projects, service orders, or catalog, so there is a slight difference in pricing terminology.

When adding products from projects or service orders, the price that is used on the purchase order for the product depends on whether or not you have specific fields populated in your catalog.

If you have populated the "Purchase Cost" field for a product, that value will be used for the unit price on the purchase order.

Suppose the "Number of units in Order UOM" is populated. In that case, it is ignored for calculating the unit price for products on a purchase order when the Purchase Cost field is populated.

If the Purchase Cost field is not populated, the "Number of units in Order UOM" value will be used to do math with the unit cost set for the product to determine the unit price for the product on the purchase order.

When the "Purchase Cost" field is not populated, and the unit cost for a product in the project or service order is different from the unit cost in the catalog, when products are added to a purchase order, you will get the following prompt displaying the difference. The items will be prechecked, and you will have the option to "Use Catalog Unit Cost."

Make your choices and click OK.

Ugh...

If you have chosen not to automatically add Use tax via your Purchase Order settings and want to apply tax to the purchase order, you can use the Add button to add existing taxes already set up in SI or the New button to create new tax rates.

You will then need to return to the Items tab and assign the tax(es) to the items. You can do this by selecting some or all items and clicking the Update Items button.

Then click the Tax option and select a tax rate from the dropdown.

You can also use the dropdown menu for individual items if you prefer.

You have options on what you want to do next. You can save and close the purchase order if you wish.