Purchase Orders

You can create and modify purchase orders for purchasing goods. For example, if you run out of inventory, you can perform the purchase order procedure to replenish stocks. You can also use the purchase order procedure to purchase, for example, services. After confirmation, a purchase order is a legal obligation to supply items according to certain terms and conditions, including specific prices and discounts.

After an order is processed, the information is used by different departments in the company, such as planning, production, distribution, finance, purchasing, and marketing.

  • Purchase order procedure
    The normal purchase order procedure includes the creation, approval, printing, release to warehousing, receipt, payment, and processing of purchase orders.
  • Purchase order line and line details
    A purchase order line can have linked detail lines or back order lines. A detail line can also have linked back order lines. The purchase order line holds the aggregated information of the detail lines/back order lines. Changed fields on the purchase order line are synchronized with the detail lines and vice versa.
  • Purchase order commingling
    To reduce the number of purchase orders and obtain the best available prices and discounts, you can commingle purchase orders. Commingling enables you to group various purchase orders that originate from different sources into a single purchase order.
  • Direct delivery
    On a sales order or service order, you can indicate whether you want the sold goods to be directly delivered. In case of a direct delivery, a sales order or service order results in a purchase order. Because the buy-from business partner delivers the goods directly to the sold-to business partner, Warehousing is not involved.
  • Cross-docking and splitting deliveries
    To fulfill an existing sales order for which no inventory is available, you can take inbound goods immediately from the receipt location to the staging location for issue. To initiate this process, you must generate a cross-docking order. If a cross-docking order exists and a split receipt is required, you can further split up a receipt line into several receipts.
  • Purchase backorders
    If a final receipt is made for a purchase order (detail) line and only a part of the goods or none of the goods are received, a backorder is created. Backorders can be manually or automatically confirmed.
  • Subcontracted service items
    In case of operation subcontracting, purchase orders can include subcontracted service items. These purchase orders can be generated from a production order, of from a converted purchase requisition, or request for quotation (RFQ) with a linked production order.
  • Project pegging
    To identify costs, demand, and supply for a project, you can peg project costs for purchase order lines.
  • Customer furnished materials
    To call off customer furnished materials required by a production order to produce a customer item, you can use purchase orders of the Customer Furnished Materials type. These automatically generated purchase orders inherit the demand peg of the demand order.
  • Consignment
    You can use consigned inventory, for which inventory ownership and storage are handled by different parties, and choose between a basic or extended consignment setup.
  • Supplier stage payments
    Supplier stage payments enable customers to pay suppliers before or after the ordered goods are actually received for a purchase order. The payments are spread over a period of time and the amounts must be paid to the supplier on specific dates. The purchase order item's invoice flow is separated from its goods flow.
  • Integration procurement and freight
    Freight is the package that handles transportation requirements. Because Procurement is sometimes responsible for the transportation of goods and must consequently collect goods from a supplier, you can generate a freight order from the purchase order.
  • Integration procurement and depot repair
    Depot repair serves to repair or upgrade parts. An integration is available between Service and Procurement to buy repair parts or to subcontract the repair or upgrade. Service can create a work order that posts its requirements to Procurement. The generated purchase order's origin is Maintenance.
  • Printing reminders
    You can print reminders to inform business partners of undelivered purchase orders.
  • Printing claims
    Occasionally, during the receipt process, the quantity received does not match the packing slip quantity. If suppliers ship less than what is on their packing slips, claim notes can be printed.
  • Purchase return orders
    A return order is a purchase order on which returned shipments are reported. A return order can contain negative amounts only. With a purchase return order, you can send back inventory units or return rejected goods to the supplier. Most of the time, these goods are rejected during inspection.
  • Changing prices or discounts after receipt or consumption
    You can change prices or discounts for purchase orders after receipt or consumption.
  • Copying purchase orders
    You can copy existing purchase orders to new ones from the actual orders or the order history.
  • Printing purchase invoices
    You can print purchase invoices to compare the data in your system with the data (invoices) you get from the buy-from business partner.
  • Purchase order history
    You can use purchase order history to track creations and modifications to purchase orders. You can keep certain information after the original purchase order is removed.