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How do I use Purchase Orders?
How do I use Purchase Orders?

Create Purchase Orders and link them to an estimate, invoice, or work order

Garrett avatar
Written by Garrett
Updated over a week ago

Purchase Orders allow you to monitor parts that you have ordered. View at a glance the delivery stage your order is in and whether or not the PO has been fulfilled, and with the Vendor Summary report, gain an understanding of your monthly parts cost and how much you are spending with each vendor.


Create a Purchase Order

Purchase Orders are housed in the purchasing page and can be created in different ways.

From anywhere in Shopmonkey, click the ➕ button towards the top-right of the page and then click Purchase Order.

Alternatively, you can go to the Purchasing page, click the Purchasing icon, then click ➕ Create New at the top-right of the page.


How to build and edit a Purchase Order

When you create a new PO the PO Number will automatically generate with a number higher than the last PO Number. The status of the PO will start as a Draft but can be updated later. Clicking in the Vendor field will show the retailers you have added to your Vendors List. You can also add a new vendor from here. In the Invoice Number field add the corresponding identification number provided by the vendor. The Work Order field will let you link the PO to an estimate or invoice within Shopmonkey. You can add a note for any other information you might want to be attached to your PO. Notes will be visible in the PO list and when POs are printed.

Click Add Part and enter the part's information. In the Part Name field, you can type the part number or part description of a saved inventory part, which will search across your inventory for that specific part to make reordering easy. Parts added this way will be indicated as Inventory Parts and will be connected to that part in your inventory.

Any other parts added to a PO will be labeled as Non-Inventory Parts. Non-Inventory Parts won’t be updated in inventory when they are received but can be added to Inventory Parts by clicking Add in that part’s Inventory Column, completing the part information, and clicking Save.

Once you are done adding the desired parts and have filled out the necessary information, click Save. If you try to leave the PO before saving a message will appear reminding you of unsaved changes.

Print the PO as a PDF by clicking Print and close the PO by clicking Save or Cancel.

Purchase Order Status

Open a PO to make updates to the PO status. PO status options include:

  • Draft: Add/Remove/Edit line items on the PO

  • Ordered: An order has been placed with the vendor for all part lines on the PO

  • Received: Some part lines on the PO have been marked as received from the vendor, but not all

  • Fulfilled: All part lines on the PO have been marked as received

Change the status of the PO from Draft to Ordered when you’re ready to receive parts. As your parts are received, you can update the quantities in the PO. The status of the PO will be changed to Received and any quantities of Inventory Parts will be updated in your inventory. When all of the parts in the PO are received the status for the order will automatically be set to Fulfilled. If all of your parts come in at the same time, click Receive All or just change the status to Fulfilled, and Save for a quick way to receive all PO parts at once.

Click on the status drop-down menu of the PO and click on the appropriate status to manually set it. Clicking View History in the bottom left will show you a record of the PO's statuses and the dates they were changed.


Linking a Purchase Order to an estimate or invoice

As mentioned above, you can link a PO with a work order directly from the PO. Just start typing in the order number or name into the Work Order field and select the order from the list.

Purchase Orders that are associated with orders will be listed in the right-side panel of the order. In addition, you can create a purchase order directly from the order itself.

To link an existing or new PO from within an order, click Add in the Purchase Orders section:

Then click Create new Purchase Order to create a brand new PO to link to, or begin typing the PO Number or Vendor of an existing PO and add it from the search results.


Adding Parts from a linked Work Order

When a PO is linked to a Work Order containing parts the Show Parts button will be active. This will allow you to quickly add any parts from the Order directly to the PO. Clicking on the Show Parts button will display a list of parts. If you want to quickly add all of the parts in the list just click the Add Parts button at the bottom. Alternatively, uncheck the box next to any part to remove the part then click the Add Parts button at the bottom to just add selected parts.

When creating a new PO from a Work Order the parts on the order will automatically be added to the PO. If you don’t want all parts added to the PO click Undo then use the above steps to select the desired parts.

With the part added use the steps in the sections above to edit, save, and update inventory.


Vendor Summary reporting

You can track the monthly costs spent on purchase orders and see a breakdown of your purchases by vendor by viewing the Reports > Vendor Summary report. Data from all purchase orders with the Fulfilled status will be displayed on this report.

Additionally, from the Lists > Vendors page, you can view and create POs by vendor.


Still have questions? Feel free to reach out to us through the Chat Icon in the bottom right corner of your screen. Thanks for reading!

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