A purchase order is typically a binding order placed by you to your supplier. It is therefore a non-accounting purchasing document that commonly contains the ordered items. A purchase order may be preceded by an issued inquiry or a received offer.
A purchase order is also part of the so-called business cycle. The business cycle refers to the entire trading process that can be carried out in Flexi. If you would like to know more, take a look at our guide.
As mentioned in the first paragraph, a purchase order is a non-accounting document and therefore has no payment linked to it. Payments can only be matched against a received invoice.
Where can I find purchase orders?
The easiest way to find purchase orders is probably by using the search.
The second option is, of course, to find purchase orders in the overview of all modules. The list of modules can be customized as needed — learn more in our guide.
And if you use purchase orders frequently, nothing is simpler than dragging them into the menu on the left side.
What information should a purchase order contain?
First, it is worth noting that a purchase order has no fixed set of required fields. It essentially depends entirely on the user which information is important to them or their supplier. However, we will walk through the creation of a typical purchase order.
The purchase orders module can be customized freely. You can adjust the displayed columns or apply sorting and filtering. More information is available in our video guide.
To create a new order, as in any other module, click the New button in the top-right corner of the web application.
You are now in the purchase order form. An empty form, depending on the configured layout, may look like this, for example.
It is worth mentioning that the form layout can be customized. More information about the application appearance is available in our guide. Are some fields missing from the form, or do you need to hide fields you don't use? Use form settings to make the necessary adjustments.
Let's take a look at the fields that are commonly filled in on a purchase order.
Header tab
Document type: Every order must have a document type. The document type allows you to pre-configure a number of settings, such as which invoice type should be created from the order or what the default currency should be. More general information about document types is available in our guide.
Issue date: The date the order was issued. This is typically the date on which you placed the order.
Deadline: The date by which the order should be delivered by the supplier.
Department, Job: Additional reference fields used to categorize orders. These values can also be taken into account in various reports and analyses.
Document status: Information about the current status of the order. Some statuses are assigned automatically (depending on the order fulfillment progress). Statuses can also be set manually — either using the default statuses or custom statuses you have created.
Responsible person: The user who created the order.
Shipping method: An informational field about the carrier.
Other tab
This tab typically only requires the payment method, and optionally the type of received invoice or goods receipt to be created from the order. Both of these values can be predefined at the purchase order type level.
Company tab
Supplier information. You can reference a supplier from your address book, or simply look up a company from the business register.
Shipping tab
The postal address of the supplier. If it differs from the supplier's registered address, enter it on this tab.
Overview tab
If a company from the address book is selected, this tab displays information about the company — charts, invoices, and more.
Contact tab
The contact person at the given company. If a company from the address book is selected and it has a contact person defined, you can select them here.
Local currency tab
Details about the total order amount in the local currency. You can enter a percentage discount here, which will be applied to all order items.
Foreign currency tab
Details about the total order amount in a foreign currency. You can enter a percentage discount here, which will be applied to all order items. If the order is not in a foreign currency, the amounts shown here will be zero.
The order header allows you to configure many more settings. If the fields and tabs described above are not sufficient, you can also use other, less commonly used fields. All available fields can be found via form settings, and the meaning of all fields in the module is described in the documentation for the desktop application.
Once the order header is filled in, we can move on to the second part — creating the order items.
Order items
This is the section where you store all goods, products, or services that your supplier has been asked to deliver. Click the "Add another row" button to insert a new item.
You can reference price list items, or create items without a price list reference. For better record-keeping, however, we recommend always linking to the price list.
More recently, items can also be loaded using a barcode scanner. More information about using a barcode scanner is available in our guide.
An item can be created simply by filling in only the essential details — at a minimum, the quantity and price. When referencing the price list, the price is filled in automatically (including with advanced pricing, for example when a single product is supplied by multiple suppliers each at a different price).
The columns displayed in the item overview can easily be added or removed.
Stock items can also be reserved in the warehouse. More information is available in the documentation.
You can access the advanced edit view simply by clicking the button highlighted above.
This view contains a number of additional fields and settings that can be adjusted. In most cases, however, the required information is already pulled from the price list. For non-price-list items, the key fields are simply the quantity and price.
Attachments, Texts, and summary totals
As an attachment, you can upload any document (i.e., a file in any format) that should be stored with the order.
The introductory and closing text are printed directly in the document sent to the client (PDF). The introductory text appears above the items, and the closing text appears below. The note is for your internal use only and is not included in the printed document by default.
While on the topic of printing, it is worth mentioning that you are not limited to the default print template. Using custom reports, the print template can be adjusted as needed. If you would like more information, feel free to contact us via our support line.
Bottom control panel
At the very bottom of the form, there is one more very important button: "More actions" — known in the desktop application as "Services".
This button provides access to all actions that can be performed on the order or its items. Among other things, this is where you will find the previously mentioned order fulfillment — which refers to the creation of a goods receipt or a received invoice. If you would like to learn more about the business cycle that these steps are part of, our guide may be helpful.
This button also provides access to the printing options mentioned above, sending by email, and viewing document links.
Once the order is configured to your needs, all that remains is to save it. After saving, it will of course appear in the purchase orders overview.
FAQ
A purchase order can also be fulfilled via the API. If you would like to know more, refer to our documentation. An example is also available in JSON format.
Purchase orders can also be used in manufacturing. See the related guide.
Do you need a consolidated overview of items currently in transit from your supplier? Install our free add-on, which lists all outstanding items.
Do you need an overview of stock levels including ordered quantities? Install our free add-on that takes this information into account.