The Purchase Order extension is used in Uptick to purchase any materials, hire any equipment or send a PO to a contractor to complete a task. It also allows the system to accurately understand the costs you incurred on a task and keeps your accounting system up to date while doing so.
This feature is also available to field staff.
We highly recommend integrating your accounting partner with purchase orders as it allows you to keep track of what has been raised or paid easily.
If you also have the Warehouses extension on, doing bulk ordering of stock for your warehouses or vans is also made easy.
Setup
Extensions
Required:
In order to create purchase orders against tasks the following extensions need to be enabled:
Suppliers - for the purpose of storing a list of suppliers to raise purchase orders against. This list will match your list of contacts in your accounting partner if an integration is set up.
Purchase Orders - for the ability to create and manage your purchase orders against tasks
Optional:
Warehouses - for the purpose of bulk ordering stock for your warehouses or vans.
Permissions
There are several permissions that determine what a user can do with purchase order based on the permission settings of the security group they belong to.
Can create and update purchase orders and dockets | Allows office staff to create and update any purchase orders & docket any deliveries. |
Can create and update purchase order bills | Allows office staff to create a bill (invoice) against a purchase order in Uptick. |
Can create partner purchase orders | Allows office staff to push and create a bill into your accounting partner. |
Can approve and submit any purchase order | Allows office and technicians approve any purchase orders. |
Can email purchase orders to suppliers | An extra permission just for field staff which allows them to send an purchase order to supplier. |
Can view purchase orders | An extra permission just for field staff which allows them to see purchase orders in the app. |
Setting up Approvals
Anyone with the Can approve and submit any purchase order permission can approve any purchase order.
For anyone without that permission, either they must go to the person with the permission for approval or you can also set up an auto-approval limit for all staff. This approval limit allows anyone to approve a purchase order under a certain amount.
You can find this setting in Control Panel > Purchase orders.
You can also set up per-staff authorisation limits.
Creating Suppliers
You need Suppliers in your Uptick system so that you can send purchase orders in Uptick. This list will match your list of contacts in your accounting partner if an integration is set up. This list will include contractors you may have set up in your accounting partner.
Read this article to learn how to set up a supplier.
Creating the purchase order from a task
1. Click on Create purchase order under the Process section.
2. 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, but can be changed if necessary. |
Supplier | Drop down list of your suppliers stored in Uptick. |
Email Contact | To save time, you should not select this unless the main contact of this supplier is not the contact you want to send this particular purchase order to.
An example may be, this supplier has other departments or branches that this purchase order needs to be sent to.
Set up different contacts by going to the Contacts tab of the Supplier |
Type | Select whether this purchase order is for ordering materials, equipment or engaging a subcontractor.
Selecting subcontractor will reveal an additional field where you have the option to select from the list of subcontractors stored in Uptick, by default, it will use the associated supplier's contractor. |
Supplier ref | Provide a supplier reference if applicable. This will appear on the PO that is sent to the supplier. |
Description | Provide details if required. This will appear on the PO that is sent to the supplier. |
Delivery Instructions | Select whether the stock will be picked up, delivered onsite or to a warehouse. If your warehouses are set up with their addresses and delivery instructions these will be available to select from this field.
You can then also provide extra delivery instructions below if needed. This will appear on the PO that is sent to the supplier. |
3. You may see a list of products available to you at the bottom of the create page. These are products you've added to the task already. If you wish to purchase these products on the task, it's important you select them now. This lets the system know that the products are being purchased and the costs of these products should come from the purchase order, not from the warehouse or your product catalogue. This ensures we capture the right costs if they end up being more expensive or cheaper than expected.
4. Click Save purchase order
5. 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 products from step 3. You may add any extra products you wish to purchase 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 your purchase order for approval
If you have approval, you will see the option to Approve this purchase order straight away:
If you don't have approval, you will only be able to submit the purchase order for approval or delete it.
Approving a purchase order
If you are a person who has the authorisation to approve a purchase order, you may have to keep an eye on purchase orders coming in that need approval.
We suggest setting up your dashboard so that you can see purchase orders requiring your approval. Several filters can help you find those purchase orders on the purchase order list such as, created by, submitted by, servicegroup, subtotal above this amount, office assignee etc.
To approve a purchase order, simply:
View the purchase order you wish to approve
Use the status dropdown and click 'Approve'
Alternatively, you can reject it or revert it back to draft to edit it.
Submitting an approved purchase order to the supplier
When a PO has been approved, you have two options, you can Submit to Supplier which sends an email to the supplier with the attached PO, or you can Mark as Manually Submitted which simply puts the purchase order into the submitted status without sending an email. This is used when purchase orders are sent externally or down ove the phone.
The email and purchase order PDF that is sent to the supplier by default looks like the below, but is customisable with a fee.
Dear {{ supplier name }},
Please find attached our purchase order for {{ task.name }}.
Regards,
{{ your organisation }}
Receiving goods and delivery dockets
Tracking when goods have been received can be done through Uptick. It's not a required step, but gives office staff an easy way to know when a task is ready to schedule, invoice or needs follow-up.
There are two workflows you can follow when tracking delivery via Uptick.
Option 1: Using Delivery Dockets
When goods have been delivered and double-checked by staff, a delivery docket can be added to a purchase order. This docket represents what has actually been delivered (which isn't always what the supplier says has been delivered!).
Click Add Docket
2. Fill in the docket:
Reference Number | Add a reference number if applicable |
Date | The date on which the goods were received |
Notes | Any additional notes you may want to note down |
Qty to Docket | The qty of goods that was received.
Lower the quantity if you've only partially received goods. |
3. Once the docket is saved, the system will automatically move the purchase order into a Partially Delivered status, or tick the 'All Goods received' checkbox.
Option 2: Not using Delivery Dockets
This option is for companies who don't see a benefit in tracking the delivery of individual goods.
On a submitted purchase order, instead of adding dockets, you can just move the status of the purchase order manually to Partially Delivered if not all the goods have been received:
Or you can select the 'All Goods Received' option if goods are received in full:
Filtering for purchase orders needing review:
To find tasks that are ready to schedule as all goods are received:
To find purchase orders needing to be followed up:
Processing the supplier's invoice
Note: Once a bill has been pushed to the accounting partner, the status of the bill is determined by the accounting partner. Bills can be voided in the accounting partner, but only if they weren't already paid.
A purchase order ready to invoice can be found using the below filters:
To raise an invoice against a purchase order:
Click add + Add Bill
2. Fill in the bill information:
Invoice Number | Required. |
Invoice Date | The date on which the invoice was received |
Unit Price | The price being charged to you for that product.
The system will only accept a change of price if that price is equal to or lower than the expected price on the purchase order. If the price is higher than expected, the purchase order must go through re-approval. See below. |
Qty to Docket | The qty of product that is being invoiced.
Lower the quantity if you're not invoicing for all the products expected on this purchase order. |
Add additional delivery expenses | You have the opportunity to add additional delivery expenses during this step given it's commonly unknown when the purchase order is first raised.
This delivery expense will be automatically added to the original purchase order. |
3. Click Save. If this was the final invoice, the system will automatically put the purchase order into Fully Billed.
4. The final step is pushing and creating an identical bill in your accounting partner for later payment. Click Create New in the integration panel.
Once all this purchase order's bills have been paid in your accounting partner, the overnight sync will move your Uptick purchase order into PAID.
Frequently asked questions
FAQ (click to expand)
FAQ (click to expand)
Can I create a single subcontractor purchase order that spans multiple tasks?
Currently the purchase order functionality only allows for a subcontractor purchase order to be raised from a task, therefore the ability to link multiple tasks to a single blanket purchase order is not possible.