Benefits of purchase orders
Purchase orders are essential for keeping track of items you order from Suppliers.
Purchase Orders can be utilized to keep track of items you’ve ordered, received, or plan on ordering.
Never lose track of an order status
Detailed purchase order documents allow you to track items you’ve ordered, received, or plan on ordering. Easily find orders by supplier, shipment location, purchase date, and more.
Prevent duplicate order entries
Erply’s smart partial fulfillments automatically alert you of missing or unfulfilled items on a purchase order. Convert purchase orders into purchase invoices for consistent records across your business.
Fulfill orders from multiple deliveries
Partial order fulfillment supports unique workflows across multiple warehouses. Save a partially fulfilled order, then complete it at a later time when shipment arrives. Orders can be modified by multiple employees.
Creating a new purchase order
In the back office, navigate to the Purchase module and select the + New Purchase order.
Click the Magnifying Glass icon to add any products that you need to add to your purchase order. New rows will automatically appear as needed.
Note: Items can be added by scanning a barcode or by typing the product name or code to populate the list.
Ensure your cost per item is set and the quantity you are ordering. There are other fields that maybe need to be filled, such as unit, tax rate, sales markup, or supplier quoted delivery date.
Save or confirm the purchase order when you’re finished. Your new purchase order will be located under the main purchase orders screen. You can even search and filter through all POs by status, number, date, etc.
Secondary purchase order options
Purchase orders can be received, downloaded, printed, and more from the main purchase order screen.
Click More on the main PO screen to get started.
Erply will open up a secondary window that will allow you to take immediate actions without needing to open up the purchase order.
Sending purchase orders
Press the print/email button on a purchase order to print, download, or email the PO.
Purchase orders can be emailed directly from Erply and can be sent from a specified email address.
Receive a purchase order
When the order arrives, you may locate the Purchase Order and open it to finalize the process.
In the back office, navigate to the Purchase module and select Purchase orders.
Erply will display a list of all purchase orders. Click on the purchase order that you want to received. All POs can be searched by order number, supplier, time frame, or all available filters shown below.
Once the purchase order is opened, select Receive PO from the bottom menu.
Erply will convert your purchase order into a purchase invoice.
The Invoice number field will now be visible. Enter the PO number or invoice number provided by your supplier.
Note: If the document does not convert to a Purchase Invoice, but converts to a Purchase Invoice-Waybill instead, read our Waybill article to see how to disable that.
Ensure the numbers of products orders and quantities which arrived from the supplier match up. If there are any differences, be sure to adjust them on the purchase invoice.
Press Confirm when complete. Erply will automatically add the delivered items to your inventory.
Partial orders: multiple deliveries for a purchase order
Purchase orders that contain products that have not yet been received will be listed as partially received.
Common reasons orders are partially fulfilled:
Missing items
Low supplier stock
Multiple deliveries required
To receive a partial order against the original purchase order, navigate to the main purchase order screen and select More on the order’s line item.
Click Receive purchase order. This time, only the undelivered items (which were not yet received from the original PO document) are displayed to be received.
Edit the purchase order as you would on the original document. Erply will assume the rest of the items arrived. Select Confirm when all changes have been submitted.
Reorder or remove missing items:
Erply allows you to quickly identify items that have not yet been received.
Search for a partially received purchase order (as mentioned above) and click More.
Select List of undelivered items.
A new window will display all missing products from the purchase order. From here, you can choose to create a purchase order or clear all undelivered items.
Create a new Purchase Order: This will create a new PO with the items/products on the undelivered list. If needed reference the How to Create a Product Order steps to create a product order.
Clear Undelivered Items: This function removes any items that were not delivered from the original Purchase Order. This will keep your Purchase Orders and Purchase Invoices matching if you do not need these missing items.
Frequently asked questions
I’m trying to create a PO for a vendor from a stock replenishment report, but I do not see a new PO for the vendor?
Check for unconfirmed POs for the same vendor. If you have an existing unconfirmed PO, the stock replenishment report will add to that one.
What is the difference between a Purchase Order and a Purchase Invoice?
PO is the order you need from the vendor (your order).
PI is the proof you received the order and you are being billed.
Please keep in mind that a purchase order does not bring stock into your warehouse, that will automatically happen after finishing the purchase invoice!