What is a Purchase Order Incoming (POI)?

POI is the abbreviation for Purchase Order Incoming and is used internally in the organization to create purchase orders. Per definition POIs do not go to an external supplier.

There are two ways to use a POI.

1. Order items from an internal inventory/ stock
You can order items from the inventory. For example, the client has a small storage area where things like pens, notepads, printing paper, etc., are stored. The items in stock can be ordered by using a POI. In this case, you will order internally from the inventory department.

2. Order items directly from a supplier
You can select items from a catalog of orderable items. These orderable items can be from multiple suppliers. The user creating the POI does not have to check which item is from which supplier.

• After the POI is submitted and approved, the POI will be divided into multiple POOs. One POO per supplier is created (manually or automatic depending on the purchase order type setting).

• For example, the user orders printing paper from supplier A, printer ink from supplier B, and staples from supplier C, all in the same POI. After approving the POI, a purchase order for supplier A, a purchase order for supplier B, and a purchase order for supplier C is generated (or manually created).

How to create a POI

You can create purchase orders by using the icon on the startBoard.

• Order from internal stock: If the inventory management module is activated, a POI creates an internal purchase order and orders from the available internal stock.

• Order directly from an external supplier: If no inventory management is activated, the creation of a POI is in fact used to order directly from the suppliers.

Create and submit the order

1. Fill in the subject of the purchase order;

2. Choose the purchase order type (if applicable).

   1. The purchase order type selected will determine the fields, functions, and parts of the process that will be activated.

3. Fill in the mandatory fields that present themselves after selecting the purchase order type. In our example, the building is a required field;

4. Add catalog items;

   1. This can be done by using the button or (if decided by the purchase order type) via an include on the bottom of the page.

      

   2. Use the search filter or click ‘Search’ to show all available items.

   3. Select the items that you want to order and click on “Add selected items”;

      

5. You can now adjust the quantity per item;

   

6. Click on submit;

In our example, the setting “Approval by manager depending on personal mandate amount” is set on the purchase order type “Cleaning supplies”. Our orderer does not have the mandate to approve such an expensive order, hence the manager of the orderer must approve this order before it can be sent to the supplier. A task will be generated for the manager to approve the order. Note: This is still in the POI process, and no individual POOs have been created yet.

Mandate approval of the POI

7. The manager can approve or reject the order.

   1. After approval, the items are ordered.

   2. When rejected, a task is generated for the requestor. This person can change the order and submit it again, or cancel the order.

What happens after approval of the POI?

What happens now mainly depends on the settings of the purchase order type.

• In our example, the additional approval step has not been activated, so the individual POOs are now created. For every unique supplier from the order list, a POO is generated.

• Also, since our purchase order type does not require manual processing, the order per POO is automatically sent by email to each individual supplier.

Details on your POI

• The linked POOs can be viewed by opening the POI you created.

  • Open your POI (for example via the “My internal purchase orders“ button on your startBoard)

  • Open the include ‘Linked outgoing purchase order’ include, see screenshot below.

Registering the delivery

• In our example the option of deliveries has been activated on the purchase order type “Cleaning Supplies” for the orderer (= the person who ordered the POI). This person now gets a task to register the delivered goods. A task per POO will be available in the task list of this user.

• The orderer has the option between “Order completely delivered” or “Close order (delivered incomplete)”. Both options will close the purchase order.

What is a Purchase Order Outgoing (POO)?

A POO stands for "Purchase Order Outgoing" and refers to orders that are sent to an external supplier. There are two ways to use a POO.

1. Order inventory items from supplier to restock inventory
When inventory items aren't in stock anymore, or they are below the minimum stock, the inventory items need to be ordered from the supplier in order to refill the stock. The purchasing/inventory department checks if inventory items need to be restocked. An automatic order advice (POO) can be generated for all inventory items where the stock is below minimum (more information about this via Inventory Management)

2. Order catalog items from a supplier
This form of purchasing is done by first selecting the specific supplier, thereby a list of order-able items from the specific supplier is available for purchasing. The POO can be created manually as a regular purchase order, automatically from a POI, or manually as a collective order, where POI items to be ordered can be added manually. The ordered items will not be kept in inventory.

Process of POO

Creating a POO

• After creating a new purchase order the subject and description can be entered. Also, the purchase order type must be selected. If the client only uses one purchase order type, the purchase order type will automatically be selected and will not be visible to the end user. After selecting the purchase order type, all the settings from the purchase order type will be activated within the process.

• Fields and functions on the page become visible depending on the purchase order type settings (supplier information, delivery information, financial information).

• Also depending on the purchase order type, the user can add catalog- and/or generic items to the purchase order. This can be done in the include at the bottom of the screen.

There are also certain parts of the process that can be activated depending on the purchase order type settings. If these parts of the process have not been activated, these steps will be skipped in the process.

Mandate approval and the additional approval step

• In case a mandate approval has been activated for the purchase order type, a task for the mandate approver will be generated (See the chapter about “purchase order types” for more information).

• If an additional approval step is also needed after the mandated approval, the relevant user receives the task for the additional approval.

• If the purchase order is rejected (via mandate approval or additional approval), the purchase order will go back to the requestor. If no approval is necessary, the tasks will be skipped.

Suppliers and deliveries

• After the purchase order is approved, the purchase order needs to be split per supplier. On the purchase order type the setting 'Processing internal purchase order' determines if the POOs are generated automatically after approving the POI or if POI items need to be manually assigned to POO(s).

• When the items need to be assigned manually, you can create a new POO for a specific supplier and mark it as a collective order. A collective order is useful when shipping costs apply. Within this collective order, the not yet assigned POI items from the same supplier can be added. The items within the POI will be linked to the items in the corresponding POO. After the POO(s) are/is sent to the supplier, the corresponding POI will go to the status 'Awaiting counter purchase order'.

• The delivery can be registered in both POO and/or POI. This is also depending on the settings within the purchase order type.

Deliveries possible:

• No goods recieval:
  The purchase order will be closed automatically.

• Order completely delivered:
  With one click, the complete order is delivered and closed.

• Partial delivery:
  On the Deliveries tab, the delivered quantities can be registered for each ordered item. After all items are delivered correctly, the purchase order status will be updated automatically.

• Close order (no more deliveries):
  The purchase order can also be closed manually without receiving any more items. In this case, the ordered quantities do not match the delivered quantities.

If the deliveries are registered in the POI, the counter's purchase orders (POO(s)) will also be delivered automatically. If the deliveries are registered in the POO(s), it is optional to also register the deliveries in the POI or not.

How to create a POO?

To create an “Outgoing purchase order” click on the tile “Outgoing purchase orders +” on your startBoard or navigate in the menu to “Purchasing” choose the option “Outgoing purchase orders”, and click the button “Create outgoing purchase orders.”

This purchase order is the order which is sent to the supplier. The POO can be created:

• Manually as a regular purchase order to the supplier
  If the purchase order is created manually, a similar process to the POI is used: Create - Add items - Submit - Mandate and/or additional approval -> Send order -> Delivery. Instead of searching within all possible items to order independently from the supplier, in the POO, the supplier must be set first. After that, the items from that supplier can be added.

• When selecting this option, the orderer has to first select the specific supplier before selecting from the item list from that specific supplier.

• Automatic from a POI (see this process on “How to create a POI”)
  If the POO is automatically created from a POI or used as a collective order (and thus, all items come from POIs), several steps will be skipped. For example the mandate and/or additional approval which are already executed in the POI(s).

• Manually as a collective purchase order, where the items to order can be added manually based on items in POIs
  Within the POO the same delivery options are available as mentioned above. A difference with the POI process is that the purchase order can be corrected after closing by the group which also registers the deliveries.

Which one to use?

Environment with an inventory

The POI is used for an end-user to order from the stock/inventory and the POO is used to order from the supplier. Both are used, POI as well POO.

An environment without an inventory

If there is no inventory setup in the environment but orders (only) catalog- and generic items from a supplier you will have two options:

1. Only use POO
   You will select a supplier and add the items. This can be used if the purchasing is done by one department or users know which items come from which supplier.
   

2. Use POI and POO
   You can select items from a total catalog, and the POOs are generated per supplier. This can be used if users are allowed to order items but you do not want them to search per supplier. The end user does not need to know which supplier the items come from and by bundling all items in one total catalog, the end user does not have to search through the item list for each individual supplier.

Purchase order types

Purchase order types are used to configure the purchase order process(es) the client wants to use. By default, one purchase order type “Catalog item order from supplier” is generated when the module is activated. A set of pre-defined settings is generated for this purchase order type. The settings determine what kind of fields are available to view/edit when a new purchase order is created. Moreover, the settings also determine if certain steps of the purchase order process are activated or if they will be skipped.

The client can create as many purchase order types as desired. The desired purchase order type needs to be set in each new purchase order by the user creating the purchase order. If only one type is applicable, this type will be automatically set and will not be shown to the user.

Create a Purchase order type

Navigate in the menu to “Purchasing” and choose the option “Purchase order types”

Use the button “Create purchase order type” to create a new purchase order type.
Fill in the required fields and press the “Save and return” button.

Settings on a Purchase order type

Based on the settings chosen per purchase order type (See chapter about Purchase Order types), there are several steps in the Purchase order process that can be activated or deactivated.

Mandate approval

Two types of approval steps can be used in a purchase order. Both types can be used together or separately.

The mandate approval step generates a task to approve or reject the purchase order. There are three options to determine who gets the task:

• 1. Always approve by the manager of the orderer:

  • The manager registered with the orderer gets the task to approve or reject the purchase order.

• 2. Approval by manager depending on personal mandate amount:

  • The personal mandate of the orderer is evaluated, and if the personal mandate is lower than the purchase order amount, the personal mandate amount of the manager is evaluated. The mandate approval continues to check each manager until the personal mandate amount is enough. The mandate budget for purchase orders can be set for a user on the contact person page.

    

• 3. Cost center approval:

  • On the cost center level, the mandated approval can be registered. Each contact has a threshold amount up to how much they need to approve the purchase order.

Additional approval

An (additional) approval can also be executed. A predefined group determines the users who will get the task to approve. The (additional) approval can also be set to take place only if the order amount is greater than a pre-defined amount. This makes it, for instance, possible to have every purchase order above 10.000 euros be approved by the purchase department (next to any mandate approval before that step).

Delivery

In some cases, it is possible to pick up orders (instead of having them delivered) at the location of the supplier. This can be indicated (for a POO). If this is allowed, it is possible to choose a sub-organization/department of the selected supplier to indicate that the items will be picked up there (this will also be shown on the PDF order form)

For both POO and POI, it is possible to determine if the delivery address is editable or not. It is also possible to indicate that the delivery address should be set based on a property. in that case, a property field becomes visible in the purchase order.

Per default, the delivery address is set based on the organization of the creator of the purchaser order. In a POI the delivery address can be hidden.

Goods receival

It is possible to register the receival of the items. If not, the process will end after the order is sent to the supplier.

In an inventory item purchase order, the register of the goods receival is mandatory since that is needed to keep the stock up to date.

For catalog and/or generic items, the option to register goods receival is optional. If this is set to yes, make sure to have at least one storage (warehouse), as this requires a storage (a dummy storage without any extra settings is enough)

The option to register the goods receival can also be specified per supplier. When ordering via a POI, the initial registration of the goods receival can be executed in the POI or POO. When registering the receival of goods via the POO, you can determine if the goods receival in the POI is executed manually or automatically. If done manually, the POI will go to the status "Counter order delivered" and the POI can then also be delivered. This can be used if the goods are delivered (via a collective POO) to a central point first and can be picked up later on by the creators of the initial POIs

The receival of goods can be registered by the creator of the purchase order or a pre-defined group (for instance a front desk group or the inventory manager group).

Supplier-dependent settings on the Purchase order type

Some of the settings on the Purchase order type can be specified on a supplier-dependent level. There is a set of matching settings on the contact page of the supplier that corresponds to the settings that are applicable. Suppose a setting on the purchase order type is set to “Supplier dependent”. In that case, the settings on the contact page of the supplier will determine whether or not a field or function is available or executed.

To access the supplier-dependent settings; Navigate to Contacts > Organizations > Select a supplier > Click on the “Related objects” tab > Purchase orders.