A Purchase Order is a document that represents an order placed by you to one of your vendors, where you ask them to give you a certain set of products or services at a certain price. In inFlow Inventory, all of the work related to a purchase order is saved alongside the order, including receiving goods, payment, and possibly returning products. This makes it easy to find all the order information in one place and see the order status at a glance.

To create a new Purchase Order, from the Purchasing Homepage, click the Order button. Alternatively, you can click the New Order link from the Tasks Box.

Entering Header Information

The Header of the Purchase Order contains the common information about the order that is visible throughout the Purchasing Workflow.

The following fields are in the Purchase Order Header:

Vendor – (Required) Here you should select the Vendor to whom you are placing this order. This will usually be the company name of your vendor. How to select a vendor

Contact – The person at your vendor's place of business whom you should contact regarding this order.

Phone – A phone number you can call at your vendor's place of business.

Vendor Address – The address to which this purchase order should be sent.

Terms – Payment Terms for this order, i.e. an agreement between you and your vendor about how you should pay them for the order. You can select from a list of existing Payment Terms, or add a new type by selecting <Add New…> from the dropdown list.

Vendor Order # - An Order Number that your vendor may use to refer to this order.

Order # - A unique Purchase Order number by which you can refer to this order. This will be automatically filled in the first time you save your order. You can edit this Order # directly, or set the pattern of how order numbers will be created under Company Settings.

Date – The date of the order, usually the date on which the order was placed. You may change this date.

Status – A short description of the status of this purchase order. See possible statuses and what they mean.

Ship-To Address – The address to which the vendor should ship the goods for this order for you to receive.

You may also add up to three custom fields into Purchase Orders. These will show up underneath the Vendor Order # field. More information.

Working with Addresses

For the Vendor Address, you can select from one of addresses defined for this vendor in the Vendor Information by clicking the small arrow next to the address field, and selecting the name of the address to use.

For the Ship-To Address, you can select from the addresses you have set up in your Company Information or Receiving Addresses under Company Settings. You can also add a new receiving address here by selecting Add New Address from the dropdown.

To edit the vendor or ship-to addresses, move your mouse into the main address field and then click the Edit link. A popup will appear allowing you to edit the various parts of the address. Changes to the addresses here will be kept for this purchase order only.

Entering the Main Order Contents

The Order tab shows you the information on placing a purchase order, and is accessible by clicking the button from the bottom of a Purchase Order.

A green light on the Order tab is shown when any items have been ordered. Otherwise, a red light is shown.

The Purchase Order information cannot be modified once the order has been marked Fully Received.

Requested Ship Date – A date that you want the vendor to ship the goods to you on.

Carrier - A selection on the carrier and shipping method that the vendor should ship the products to you.

Taxing Scheme - The type of taxes that will be charged to you for this order.

More information on tax handling.

Remarks – Any extra remarks on this order. These remarks will be included when you print out the Purchase Order.

Sub-Total – The total cost of this purchase order before tax or freight are applied.

Tax – You may see one or more Tax fields depending on the Taxing Scheme set for this order. This shows amount of tax charged for this order. You may change the amount of tax charged here, but if the order is later changed, the tax will be automatically recalculated.

Freight – The amount of freight or other surcharges applied to this order. Tax is applied to this field if the selected Taxing Scheme has Tax On Shipping set.

Total – The total amount that you will owe the vendor for this order.

You may click the Cancel Order button to cancel the order and avoiding further processing.

More Information.

Order Tab Columns

The main Order table has the following columns:

Item – The item name or item code for the product or service being ordered.

Description – A text description of the product or service being ordered. This will be defaulted to the description from the product information, but can be changed here.

Vendor Product Code – The item name of item code that the vendor uses for the product or service being ordered. This will be defaulted to the Vendor Product Code set up in Vendor Information for this vendor and product, or blank.

Quantity – The quantity of the item being ordered. This will be defaulted to 1 but can be changed to the actual quantity to be ordered.

Unit Price – This is the price per unit that the vendor charges you for this item. In order of priority, this will be defaulted to the Cost set up in Vendor Information for this vendor and product, then the Cost set up in Product information for this product, then the unit price you last purchased this item at, or zero.

Tax – (This may be hidden, depending on your company settings.) The Product Tax Code for this item, determining if it is taxed in a special way, e.g. tax exempt. This is defaulted to the Product Tax Code in the product information for this product. More information on Product Tax Codes.

Sub-total – The total cost of this item for the quantity given and after applying discounts, but before applying taxes or freight. This is calculated based on the Unit Price, Quantity, and Discount, and cannot be modified.

To add in a new line item, first select a product in the Item column. Then, you may choose to modify the other columns.

How to add or remove rows from a table.

Auto Order

The Auto Order button can be used to quickly set the order to match the goods received. This may be useful when you do not place a purchase order before receiving goods.

The Auto Order function will add lines to your Order table to match the received quantities, but will not remove any existing lines you have. It will add order lines so that the total quantity ordered matches the total quantity received.

Printing or Exporting Purchase Orders

You may choose to print out a Purchase Order or export it to another format, like PDF, to be e-mailed out to a customer.