Purchase Order Manager

The Purchase Order Manager is a management window in Acctivate that allows users to filter and process batches of purchase orders in one central location. The Purchase Order Manager can be configured to group orders together based on user defined criteria.

The Purchase Order Manager can be accessed by going to Purchasing → Purchase Order Manager or by clicking the PO Manager icon on the Icon bar.

PO Manager Bars

The PO Manager is made up of Bars, which are a collection of Buttons. To view the bars, click the View... button at the top of the PO Manager window. The PO Manager includes a default Purchase Orders bar which includes various buttons depending on the enabled advanced purchasing order statuses.

Custom bars can be created to meet your needs. See Configuring the Manager Windows.

PO Manager Buttons

Once you've selected an PO Manager bar you will see a collection of buttons. A button is a group of POs that meet a specific criterion.

A button can display up to three different pieces of information:

  • Button name: The button's name will display prominently and provide a description of the POs included in the Button. For example, "Open" which includes all open POs.
  • Amounts: A dollar amount can be displayed in the bottom left corner of the button. The dollar amount displayed is a sum of an amount field for all the POs included in this button. This amount could refer to one of the following amounts:
    • Ordered: The total ordered amount.
    • Outstanding: The total amount of the PO lines not received yet.
    • Received: The total received amount.
    • Invoiced: The total amount of the PO that has been invoiced so far.
  • PO Count: The number in the bottom right of the button indicates the number of POs that are included in the button.

PO Manager Columns

When viewing a Button columns of data will appear. The PO Manager only shows header level purchase order information and summary date, it does not show any detail/line level information such as Product IDs, descriptions, quantities, etc.

The Due Date column is the Promised Ship Date if provided, otherwise it's the Requested Ship Date. This date will be color coded based on the date in relation to today:

  • Green indicates that the date is 8 or more days in the future.
  • Orange indicates that the date is due in the next 7 days.
  • Red indicates that the date is one or more days overdue.

Filtering, Grouping, and Sorting

While each button is pre-configured to show orders that meet certain criterion, you can use the Filter button to apply additional filtering to a button.

When you click the Filter button, a new window will appear. The bottom of the Filter window will include a description of the current button's configuration. In the Filter window, use the filter editor to add to the existing button filters.

These additional filters will remain in effect until you close the Purchase Order Manager or click the "X" button next to the filter button (when the "X" button is a dark gray it means there are additional filters in place).

When the Find panel is enabled (View → Find Panel or Ctrl+F), type in text to search and further filter the grid results. Use Ctrl+F to place the cursor in the Find field. To hide the Find panel, uncheck it from the View menu.

When the Grouping panel is enabled (View → Grouping Panel or Ctrl+G), drag columns from the grid to the Grouping panel to group the grid by the field. Multiple levels of grouping are supported. To hide the Group panel, uncheck it from the View menu.

Sort by a single column by clicking the column header. Click the column header again to change the sort direction. Multi-column sorting can be achieved by holding shift while clicking on other column headers.

Actions

Besides presenting purchase orders for easy review, the Purchase Order Manager allows you to perform various actions on selected POs. Actions include printing forms, emailing forms, changing statuses and more. To perform an action:

  • Open the Purchase Order Manager.
  • Select the appropriate Bar and Button.
  • Check off one or more PO.
  • Click Action... to view a list of Actions and select one.

Actions

  • Revert to Entered: Changes the PO status back to Entered, if enabled as an Advanced Purchase Order Status.
  • Request Quote (RFQ): Changes the PO status to Request for Quote (or reverts to RFQ), if enabled as an Advanced Purchase Order Status.
  • Request Approval: Changes the PO status to Request Approval (or reverts to Request Approval), if enabled as an Advanced Purchase Order Status.
  • Approve and Issue: Changes the PO status to Issued.
  • Print Purchase Orders: Prints the Purchase Order form.
  • Email Purchase Orders: Creates an email to the email address entered in teh Contact field of the Enter Purchase Order window. The Purchase Order form will be attached as a pdf.
  • Create Receipt: Creates an inventory receipt for Issued POs. One Receipt session will be created and each PO will have its own transaction.
  • Create Note: Opens the Note window to allow adding a note. If multiple POs are selected, the same note will be added to all the selected POs.

The action will apply to the selected POs if they are eligible. For example, if you select a range of purchase orders and go to Action...→ Receive POs, an inventory receipt will be created for the purchase orders in an Issued status.

After the action is completed, the selected POs remain selected. This allows you to perform additional actions on the selected POs. However, if the action caused some or all the POs to move to a new button, you must click on that button in order to perform a secondary action. Or to put it another way, actions only apply to the POs selected in the button which is currently being viewed.

Tip

There are a few different ways to select rows:

Check off all rows: Click the checkbox column's header to select all the rows in the current button.

Check off a range of rows: Click anywhere in a row, then hold the down the shift key while clicking on a row above or below the first row. The first and last rows clicked and all rows between will be checked off.

Check off a group of rows: Enable the Group panel (Ctrl+G) and then drag a column header to the panel to group by that field. Once rows are grouped, you can click the checkbox in the group section to check off all rows in the group.

Check off rows using a USB scanner: You can also check off records in the current button using a USB scanner configured with a carriage return/line feed (Enter key) suffix.

  1. Click the Check by ID button on the toolbar.
  2. In the Check Purchase Orders window, scan a barcoded Purchase Order number (from a purchase document for example) to select and check off the row.
  3. Repeat, scanning additional barcodes.

Using the spacebar: Click a checkbox to select it, then use the up/down arrows on your keyboard to move to another checkbox and press the spacebar to check the checkbox.

Button Definitions

The following table contains the definitions of the default Order Manager bars and buttons.

Bar Button Definition Amount
Purchase Orders Open Includes all open purchase orders. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Entered Includes purchase orders in an Entered status. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Request For Quote Includes purchase orders in a RFQ status. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Pending Approval Includes purchase orders in a Pending Approval status. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Issued Includes purchase orders in an Issued status. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Pending Approval Includes purchase orders in a Pending Approval status. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Special Order Includes Special Order purchase orders. The total ordered amount.
Purchase Orders Drop Ship Order Includes Drop Ship purchase orders. The total ordered amount.