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Purchase Orders – Overview

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Overview

This document will serve as an overview of all of the functionality available via Purchase Orders (PO). Subsequent documents will discuss in detail all the features offered via POs.

Definition: Purchase Orders are objects/records in Ascent that serve as a framework for receiving material that goes into inventory as well as recording receipts of services. 

Purchase Orders consist of a header record, indicating who the vendor is, delivery location (typically your firm, except in the case of a drop shipment, which would be the customer), and summary price information, among other things and purchase order lines, which has the item being purchased, quantity, and price as a basis for procurement.

Received Purchase Order Lines get created when any line on the purchase order is received.

The purchase order function also gives you the ability to record a vendor invoice against received purchase order lines.

Types: there are three (3) types of purchase orders:

  1. Standard – this is what most purchase orders are, simple procurement of goods and services, to be delivered to your own company location, a location of your choice, or a one time delivery.
  2. Drop Ship – companies have agreements with their suppliers (vendors) that if there is no stock available to ship to a customer, they can send their supplier a purchase order with a delivery address of the customer. In Ascent, this can happen if:
    1. The item is classified as “Allow Drop Ship?” = Yes
    2. The item also has a default vendor
    3. A sales order is created, and upon performing “PackSO”, no stock is available. An option appears on the sales order line stating “Drop Ship”. If that is selected, then a drop ship purchase order will be created, with the delivery address on the purchase order being the customer’s delivery address.
  3. Contract Manufacturing Purchase Order (CMPO) – This type of purchase order is used when you send material to your contract manufacturer (sub-contractor) to put together those materials. IT is often used when you have a capacity constraint, a machine breakdown, or unforeseen business. You would put one (or more) BOM-non Phantom items on your purchase order, and send the PO to your contract manufacturer. When you complete the CMPO, the components on the BOM(s), which have been put on the PO Line(s), get deducted from inventory, and the PO Line items are put into inventory. Additionally, if you wish, Master Planner can suggest and create a CMPO for you. Fields that are required on the item master are:
    1. Item Type = “BOM”
    2. BOM-Type = BOM-non Phantom
    3. Suggest PO for Master Planner = “Yes” – that is, if you wish a purchase order to be created for this BOM-non Phantom. If an item is not to be used for CMPO, then you should also enter a Default Vendor, such that when you have issues manufacturing this in your facility, you can request a vendor supply you with this item. In that case, they would supply the material and you would be purchasing it from them.
    4. Default to CMPO = “Yes” if you wish Master Planner to always suggest a CMPO for this item. Answer “No” if you don’t want that. In either case, you would want a Default Vendor, such that the Master Planner wouldn’t consolidate ALL CMPO (or non-CMPO) suggestions into a single purchase order. This prompt is disabled if the answer to Suggest PO for Master Planner is “No”.

Detailed Documentation:

  1. Creating Purchase Orders – click here
  2. Receiving Purchase Orders – click here
  3. Drop Shipping Purchase Orders – click here
  4. Contract Manufacturing Purchase Orders – click here

 

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