The Purchase Order extension is used in Uptick to manage purchased stock and subcontracted labour, while also allowing you to keep an accurate profitability record in Uptick. You can raise a purchase order for any Materials, Equipment and Labour.
We highly recommend integrating our purchase orders with your accounting partner so that invoices can be pushed straight into your accounting system. Use this guide to help you understand each stage of the purchase order process and the options available to you at each stage. There is no dependency linked to accounting partners so any parts of the process can occur externally and have the status changed manually as you go.
Setting material markups
For task-based POs, purchased Materials can now be invoiced with margins configured at one of three levels: by Client, Branch or globally in the account.
This works as below:
If the task has a client material markup we will use that markup %
If no client material markup then we use branch material markup %
If no client material markup or branch material markup we use the default markup constance
If there's none of these above things it will use the unit_price of the line item (from the product catalogue)
On a client | On a branch | Site-wide |
Edit/Update the client, then click the Purchase orders tab. Input the desired markup in the Material markup field. | Go to Control panel > Branches. Edit the Branch and input the desired markup in the Material markup field.
This can also be done when creating a new Branch. | Go to Control Panel > Purchase Orders. Input the desired markup in the Material markup field. |
Extensions required
In order to create purchase orders the following extensions need to be enabled:
Suppliers - for the purpose of storing and syncing supplier details
Purchase Orders - for the ability to create, view and filter your purchase orders
Optional Extensions
Warehouses - for the purpose of bulk ordering stock for your warehouses or vans.
Creating Suppliers in your system
You need Suppliers in your Uptick system so that you can send purchase orders in Uptick.
Pull in all your suppliers from your accounting partner by changing your Sync Settings to 'Create and Update'.
From then forth, if you need to create more suppliers, simply create a new supplier in Uptick.
Creating the purchase order
Purchase orders can be initiated in the following ways:
Purchase Order from a task | Warehouse Purchase Order |
From a task, by clicking on Purchase order under the Process section. Goods received will make the products added to the task billable.
 | From the Purchase Orders dashboard, by clicking on Create Warehouse Purchase Order.
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When you initiate the PO, you will be taken to the Create Purchase Order screen where you will need to fill out the purchase order details:
Ref | Automatically generated by Uptick as it has to be unique. |
Date | Automatically selects today's date, can be changed if necessary. |
Supplier Note: POs for subcontracted work require that contractors have a supplier associated with them in the system. | Drop down list of your suppliers stored in Uptick. |
Email Contact | Drop down list of all the Supplier Contacts you've set up on your Supplier.
Only fill out this field if the main contact of this supplier is not the contact you want to send this particular purchase order to. |
Warehouse (Warehouse purchase order only)
| Nominate the Warehouse to receive the stock. This is a mandatory field when creating a material PO. |
Type | Subcontractor (labour) or supplier (materials). Selecting subcontractor will reveal an additional field where you can select from the list of subcontractors stored in Uptick. |
Supplier ref | Provide a supplier reference if applicable. |
Description | Provide details if required. |
Delivery Instructions | Provide delivery instructions if required. |
Task products (Only applicable to POs raised from a task) | This will automatically populate a list of selectable items based on the products added in the tasks. Note: Selecting these will ensure the products that require being ordered will be made billable when the goods are marked as received. If you do not select these but order the same product this can cause a duplication of line items on the task. |
2. Click Save purchase order
3. Once you've saved you'll be taken to the main purchase order page, where you will see a summary of details and currently added items (you can add additional items by clicking Create new item). There is also a section for uploading documents against the purchase order (these are internal only and will not be sent to the supplier as part of the PO, nor be visible to the client).
Submitting PO for review - approving, rejecting and deleting
Once a purchase order has been created it will be in the draft stage, with 3 other statuses available when clicking on the status - Submit for review, Approve, and Delete.
Submit for Review | Mark this status to submit the purchase order for review. This is an internal process and would be performed by the admin appointed to approve purchase orders. |
Approve | The appropriate authority changes to this status to approve the purchase order. |
Delete | Select this status to delete the purchase order. |
2. If you submit for review, the status of the purchase order will change to Awaiting approval. Clicking on the status will display new options - Approve, Reject, Delete and Revert to draft.
Previously unseen statuses:
Reject/Revert to draft | Both of these options will revert the PO back to draft status. Note: Reverting to draft will not be possible once a bill has been created |
To continue to the next step, approve the purchase order. Only staff with the appropriate permissions are able to approve purchase orders.
Submitting a purchase order to the supplier
When a PO has been approved, the status options available are Submit to supplier, Delete, Mark as manually submitted and Revert to draft.
Previously unseen statuses:
Submit to supplier (sends email) | Submits the purchase order from Uptick, using the email address from the supplier details. |
Mark as manually submitted | Set it to this status if you prefer to download the PDF and send it to the supplier by means outside of Uptick |
Submit the purchase order to continue.
Receiving goods and delivery dockets
To ensure all materials used on a task are invoiced Uptick now supports the concept of delivery dockets to record when goods have been received. Multiple dockets can be added if the goods are arriving in partial shipments. When all goods are accounted for you can mark that everything on this order has arrived by click the All good received button.
Note: If dockets have been added before adding bills, the currently received goods are automatically factored.
This process will move any unseen line items from the purchase order to the tasks work tab which will allow those line items/products to be invoiced from the task, avoiding missed product sales. To add a delivery docket:
Click the +Add Docket button on the purchase order page.
A popup window will appear where you can add a docket Number, Date and any Notes if applicable
If receiving goods in separate shipments, you can edit quantities or delete line items before submitting. The goods left outstanding will automatically be factored in when adding subsequent dockets.
Click Submit.
Note: If this is a Warehouse PO, you can change the Warehouse before submitting if required.If the PO is raised from a task, when All goods received is checked all items ordered will have material markups applied and will be created as billable items on the task. Jump to the Material markups section of the article for more information.
OPTIONAL: A manual status of PARTIALLY RECEIVED can be set to indicate that the order is only partially fulfilled
Receiving and paying the invoice via the accounting partner
Once the purchase order has been submitted and sent, a Bills section will appear where you can add invoice details you received from the supplier. Multiple bills can be added on a purchase order for partial fulfilment.
Click add + Add Bill
A new window will pop up where you can enter the supplier invoice number and date, and the quantity of items specified in the invoice. You also have the opportunity to add additional expenses that were not part of the original purchase order during this step.
A new window will pop up with a summary of the purchase order and invoice details. If the bill raised did not include all of the items on the purchase order, specify the quantity of goods on the initial bill before clicking Save. You can repeat the process to raise subsequent bills, which will automatically account for the remainder of the items to be billed (see gif) .
When you're ready to continue click Save to create the bill in you accounting partner.
After some processing time, the bill will be created and you will be presented with a button labelled View in (accounting partner) that you can click to go straight to the bill and pay it.
When bills for all ordered goods have been added (whether it is a single bill or across multiple bills) this will automatically change the status of the purchase order to FULLY BILLED.
After some time the payment status will sync and automatically update the status of the purchase order to PAID. To update the status immediately, you can always view the bill and click on Sync to update the payment status.
Paying the invoice externally
If you don't use the accounting partner integration and complete payments externally, simply change the status of the purchase order to Invoice received upon getting the invoice and then change the status to Paid when the payment of the invoice is complete.