When a purchaser places a purchase order (PO), you have to move it through a series of stages to make sure it's correct before you complete it. When you pass the order to the next stage it's status changes.
This guide explains what each of these stages and statuses mean and what action you need to do to process the order through to completion.
The below chart shows the potential stages an of order:
Order placed
New status
Once a purchaser submits an order, you have two stage options to choose from:
Pending internal approval: The order exceeds users maximum spend limit
Awaiting acknowledgement: The order is below users maximum spend limit
Pending internal approval
Purchasers can limit users spend limits in selected mini markets. When a user places an order that's above their upper spend limit for the mini market, an email is automatically sent out to all users who have the ability to approve the order. You can find a list of all users who can approve a orders in the details tab of the order.
Action required: The appropriate purchaser must approve or reject the order.
Purchaser users who receive the alert have the option to approve, reject or alter the purchase order before submitting it to the supplier.
📌Note: When a purchaser rejects a PO, an alert automatically sends to the user who placed the order informing them the order has been rejected.
Next status: Awaiting acknowledgement or Awaiting delivery.
Awaiting acknowledgement
Purchasers can request individual suppliers to acknowledge when they've received a purchase order via email. Purchasers opt for this option to help prevent suppliers missing orders they've sent via email.
Action required: The supplier clicks the link in the email to acknowledge the purchase order email.
📌Note: When you acknowledge a order, you're only confirming that you've received the order email and are not confirming that you can fulfil the order. If there are products on the PO that are currently out of stock, you need to contact the user directly.
Next status: Awaiting delivery
Awaiting delivery
When the purchaser receives the order, they're required to record the quantity of goods they've received.
The purchaser needs to cross reference this information to the suppliers' invoice to make sure they've not been over charged for goods that they didn't receive.
Action required: The purchaser must update the Delivery tab of the order and enter the quantity of goods they received within 48 hours of receiving the order. If a purchaser fails to confirm the delivery, you can't move the order to the next stage.
Next status: Awaiting invoice
Awaiting invoice
There are three types of invoice: Paper, Portal, or EDI. The person required to process the order depends on the type of invoice it is:
Paper invoice
Action required: You send a paper invoice. Once the purchase receives this, they update the invoice tab on system to match exactly the information on the paper invoice.
Portal invoice
Action required: You submit the invoice electronically on system rather than sending out a paper invoice. You must manually match the invoice on system to your own accounts package.
EDI invoice
Action required: You submit the invoice electronically on system rather than sending out a paper invoice. This is an automatic process where your accounts package links directly to our system to match the invoice.
Next status: The order automatically updates to one of three stages: Does not balance, Invoice queries, or Checked and balanced.
Does not balance
If the QTY entered by the purchaser or supplier on the invoice tab is different to the QTY that the purchaser confirmed as being received, the order updates as Does not balance. There are two options here:
Action required:
The purchaser can accept the discrepancy and move the order to complete.
The purchaser can create a credit on system for the difference between the invoice tab and delivery tab and send the credit to you.
Once you accept the credit and send conformation, you can accept the invoice move it to complete.
Invoice queries
If the purchaser creates a credit on the system, the order moves to the Invoice queries status.
Action required: The purchaser confirms the invoice and awaits the confirmation of the credit from you.
Checked and balanced
If the invoice tab matches the delivery tab, the order status automatically moves to Checked and balanced.
Action required: The purchaser accepts the invoice and moves the order to Completed.
Completed invoice
Once the purchaser has accepted the invoice the status is set to Completed invoice. This is the final status for the invoice.
The next time you run the accounts export report, the invoice is included on the export. You can then import this directly in to the purchaser’s accounts package.
Cancelled order
A supplier or a purchaser can cancel an order at any stage during the ordering process, with the exception of completed orders.