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acq:purchaseorders

Purchase Orders

This chapter describes how to create, activate, and receive purchase orders in the Acquisitions module. Other functions related to purchase orders are also covered.

Anatomy of a Purchase Order

  1. Purchase Order Information
  2. Actions Menu
  3. Batch Updater
  4. Line Items
  5. Direct Charges

Click to enlarge

Purchase Order Information

View History

The history of a specific purchase order can be viewed in two ways.

1. Open a purchase order.

2. In the top half of the purchase order, beside History, click the hyperlinked View.

Or, using the main Actions menu, select Actions→View PO History.

3. The history of the purchase order will display. Use the column headers to sort.

Purchase Order Notes

You can add notes to a purchase order. Notes can be viewed by staff and/or the provider. By default, notes are visible only to staff.

1. Open a purchase order.

2. In the top half of the purchase order there is a Notes field. The number of notes attached to the purchase order is hyperlinked in parentheses next to this field. Click the hyperlinked number.

3. Click New Note.

4. Enter the note. There is an option to make it available to the provider, however <font inherit/inherit;;inherit;;#ffff99>PINES does not send notes to vendors</font> so do not check the box adjacent to Note is vendor-public. [link] [check if this is true]

5. Click Create and your note will appear. Repeat the process to add as many notes as you require.

6. Click Return to return to the purchase order.

7. The number of notes in the hyperlinked parantheses next to the Notes field will increase to reflect the number of notes attached to the purchase order.

Split Purchase Order by Line Items

You can create a purchase order with multiple line items and then split the purchase order so that each line item is on a separate purchase order.

When a purchase order is in the status of pending, a link to Split Order by Lineitems appears in the bottom left corner of the top half of the screen.

1. Open the purchase order you would like to split.

2. Click Split Order by Lineitems.

3. A pop-up box will confirm that you wish to split the purchase order. Click OK to continue.

4. The line items will display with a PO search.

5. Select Pending from the State drop down menu. Leave Show results as a virtual combined PO checked and click Search.

6. All pending orders will appear as a virtual combined purchase order. You are able to activate the purchase order for each item from this screen.

The Virtual combined purchase order is a known bug and does not work. Each PO will appear separately in your purchase order search.

Actions Menu

Mark Ready for Selector

This step is optional, but may be useful to some individual workflows.

See Mark Ready for Selector

Line Items

Creating Purchase Orders

There are three important monetary numbers in every purchase order: Total Estimated, Total Encumbered, and Total Spent.

Total Estimated = Sum of estimated item prices + amount of direct charges Total Encumbered = Sum of estimated item prices that have not been paid yet Total Spent = Sum of invoiced amounts on invoices associated with this PO

When the provider and funds use different currencies:

  • Total Estimated is calculated in the currency of the provider
  • Total Encumbered is calculated in the currency of the fund
  • Total Spent is calculated in the currency of the fund
There is a soft limit of 250 items (copies) on purchase orders. If the resulting invoices have more than 250 items, there become issues with printing and EDI orders may fail.

Create a Purchase Order from Line Items

The following instructions apply if you are creating a purchase order while using Catalog IDs or the View/Place Order link from the Actions for the Record function in the catalog.

1. Select Create Purchase Order.

2. A pop-up box will appear.

3. Select the Ordering Agency from the drop down menu.

4. Enter the code for the Provider. This field will auto-complete as you type.

5. If prepayment is required, check the box adjacent to Prepayment Required.

6. Choose to either add All Line Items or Selected Line Items to the purchase order.

7. Check the box adjacent to Import Bibs and Create Copies if you wish to import them at this time. If not previously selected, bibliographic items will be imported and copies created when the purchase order is activated.

If you check this box, the Vandelay interface will appear when Submitis clicked. See How to Load Bibliographic Records and Items into the Catalog [link] for instructions.

8. Click Submit.

9. Your purchase order will be created, the page will reload and the new purchase order will appear in the same tab.

Blanket Orders

Blanket orders allow staff to invoice an encumbered amount multiple times, paying off the charge over a period of time.

The workflow supported by a blanket order assumes staff does not need to track the individual contents of the order, only the bulk amounts encumbered and invoiced.

Create a Blanket Order 1. Select Acquisitions→Create Purchase Order.

2. A pop-up window will appear. Create the purchase order as normal [link].

3. Click Save. The purchase order is created and will appear on your screen.

4. Go to the Direct Charges line at the bottom of the purchase order and choose New Charge.

5. From the New Charge drop-down choose Blanket Order from the list.

6. Choose a fund from the Fund drop down menu.

7. Enter the Estimated Cost for the blanket order.

8. Click Save New Charges.

9. Click Activate Order.

After a blanket order is activated, multiple invoices can be created to gradually expend funds over a period of time. Alternatively, there is an option to close a blanket order without expending all funds. See Blanket Order Invoices and Receiving [link] for guidelines.

Activating Purchase Orders

Activation Criteria

Before you can activate a purchase order, the following criteria must be met:

Each line item must contain an estimated price.

Error: If there is no estimated price, the Activate Order? field will read, No: The lineitem has no price (ACQ_LINEITEM_NO_PRICE).

To resolve: Enter prices in the estimated price fields and click Reload.

Each line item must have at least one copy attached to it.

Error: If there is no copy, the Activate Order? field will read, Activatable? No: The lineitem has no attached copies (ACQ_LINEITEM_NO_COPIES) (lineitemID).

To resolve: Add a copy to the line item. (See: Add a Copy to a Line Item [link])

In instances where a line item should not have any copies the Allow activation with zero-copy lineitems check box may be used.

Copies should never be added to line items after a purchase order has already been activated. Copies added to line items after purchase order activation will never be ordered or tracked.

Each line item must have funds applied to it.

Error: If no funds are applied, the Activate Order? field will read, No: The requested acq.fund was not found (ACQ_FUND_NOT_FOUND).

To resolve: Apply funds individually or as a batch. (See: Apply Funds to Line Items [link])

The fund(s) used for the purchase order must not have reached its STOP level.

Error: If ordering these item(s) would encumber the fund beyond its stop level, the Activate Order? field will read, No; fund [fund name here] would be encumbered beyond its stop level.

To resolve: in this case more credit must be allocated to the fund, or a different fund must be applied to the purchase order.

If the fund(s) used for the purchase order reaches the WARNING level, staff will be alerted but are able to continue with activating the purchase order.

If you are importing bibs and copies when you activate the PO, you hit Activate and it gives you the error message that fund(s) are past the warning level, DO NOT just hit Activate again! See this troubleshooting FAQ for how to proceed: PO Activation Fails.

Activating a Purchase Order

When the activation criteria have been met, the Activate Order buttons will appear and you can proceed.

1. Click the button Activate Order.

2. When you click Activate Order:

  • If not previously imported, the bibliographic records and copies will be imported into the catalog using the Vandelay interface. (See: How to Load Bibliographic Records and Items into the Catalog [link])
  • The funds associated with the purchases will be encumbered. This includes any direct charges that may have been added to the purchase order.
  • The tab will reload with several changes: an activation date and time are added, encumbered funds updates, and invoicing buttons and cancel order buttons are now available.

Activate without Loading Items

Once the purchase order has been activated without loading items, it is NOT possible to load the items.

This feature should only be used in situations where the copies have already been added to the catalog or if you wish to encumber funds via the Direct Charges feature.

When the activation criteria have been met, the Activate Order buttons will appear and you can proceed with the following:

1. Click the button Activate Without Loading Items.

2. When you click Activate Without Loading Items:

  • The funds associated with the purchases will be encumbered. This includes any direct charges that may have been added to the purchase order.
  • The tab will reload with several changes: an activation date and time, encumbered funds displayed, invoicing and cancel order buttons now available.
acq/purchaseorders.txt · Last modified: 2019/06/27 01:59 by tlittle