What are Purchase Orders?
Purchase orders are documents created when placing an order with vendors or suppliers. This document includes the details on the items that are to be purchased, such as the types of products, quantity and price.
Creating a Purchase Order (PO) in Sumtracker streamlines the procurement process. With Sumtracker, you can
create a purchase order with product filters and purchase prices with multi-currency support
email the purchase orders directly to your suppliers
keep track of your incoming inventory
Receive products partially in multiple Shipments
order products in packs
sync the inventory for products that you just received automatically.
Purchase orders and incoming inventory from Sumtracker are not pushed to your online stores. They remain in Sumtracker only.
What’s changed in the new version?
With the revamp of the purchase order, there are several new features and changes:
An additional purchase order status, "Cancelled," has been added, allowing purchase orders to be marked as cancelled. This status can only be applied when the purchase order is in the draft or incoming state.
Purchase orders now includes 2 tabs: Order Details and Products. In the Order Details tab, you have all essential information like supplier details, warehouse information, shipping details, and more. The totals section is also available here for easy reference.
In the Products tab, you can manage the products in the purchase order. This tab allows you to add, edit, or delete products from the purchase order directly.
The changes made in the purchase order are auto-saved now, eliminating the need to manually save each change. This reduces the risk of losing information.
You can now add products to the purchase order in bulk by importing a CSV file.
You cannot add duplicate products to the same PO. An error message will display if a product is already added.
Search for products added to the purchase order using the search box at the top right corner of the product list. And sort the added products by SKU or name.
To receive products, first mark the purchase order as incoming, then choose to receive products partially or in full.
Receive notes now have two statuses: received and final. You can update shipping fees and additional duties and charges even after receiving products, and the cost will be updated only after marking the receive notes as final.
Email/print options have been moved to the more options (3 dots) at the top right corner.
When creating the purchase order, you can now use the 'tab' key on your keyboard for quick data entry in the purchase order and Receive notes.
Create Purchase Orders
Head over to the Purchase Orders section from the sidebar and click on 'New Purchase Order.' Enter details such as supplier info, warehouse, and other relevant information. Use the tab key for quick navigation. Click on Add products.
In the Products tab, click on Add Products and select the products to add to the purchase order.
You will then be able to add products and quantity you want to place an order for to the purchase order and the price information.
If you have not added a purchase price for the product, you can add/edit it from here by clicking on the edit icon below the order quantity.
Creating a purchase order (Draft state) does not have any effect on the inventory. The change in the inventory will only be seen when you receive the products in the purchase order.
Purchase Order Fields Explained
Field | Description |
Supplier | Choose and select the supplier you want to create a purchase order for |
Warehouse | The warehouse where the inventory will be added. |
Currency Conversion Rate | If your supplier trades in a different currency, it will be converted to the currency in your account. It is automatically filled when creating a purchase order in a different currency. You can change it manually if needed. Formula: Landed cost (in your currency) = Currency conversion rate x Landed cost in Purchase currency. |
Billing Address | The billing address for the purchase order, by default will be the selected warehouse address. Can be changed if needed. |
Shipping Address | The destination address for the products, by default will be the selected warehouse address. Can be changed if needed. |
Reference | Add notes/references to uniquely identify the purchase order. |
Ship By Date | The date by when this order is due to be shipped by your supplier. |
Payment Terms | Automatically picked from Supplier details but can be changed directly in the purchase order as well. |
Tracking Details | Include shipping and tracking details here for easy access. |
Total Quantity | Total quantity of products ordered, calculated by summing all quantities in the purchase order. |
Subtotal | Sum of all line totals in the purchase order without tax. Formula: Subtotal = summation of (price + shipping fee) * quantity of all lines. |
Total Tax | Total tax = summation of (tax rate * price) * quantity for all lines. |
Shipping Fee | Shipping fee for the entire purchase order, added separately over the shipping fee for each product. |
Duties and Charges | Any additional charges on the purchase order. |
Total Amount | Total amount = summation of line totals + shipping fee (in the Totals section) + Duties and Charges. |
Purchase Order Statuses Explained
Status | Description |
Draft | Automatically assigned when creating a new purchase order. No Inventory changes in this status. |
Incoming | Adds the quantity as "incoming" to the product's stock. Can undo the incoming status whenever needed, even after receiving products partially. |
Closed | Automatically closed once all products are received. Can be manually closed at any time and undone if needed. |
Cancelled | You can mark the purchase order as cancelled. |
Adding or Removing products
To add or remove products from a purchase order, make sure that the purchase order is in Draft status. If a product is already received, it cannot be edited. Once you’ve made sure of these, you can add, edit or delete products in the purchase order.
Add products individually
To add products, navigate to the "Products" tab in the purchase order and click "Add Products" to open the product selection window. You can search and select products using various filters, including Supplier SKU, overbooked products, below alert threshold, and more.
To display products exclusively from the selected supplier, toggle on the "Supplier" button in the product selection window.
Add bundle components
For adding bundle components, click the dropdown arrow in "Add Products" and select "Add Bundle Components." Search and add the bundle and quantity, and the component quantities will be calculated automatically based on the bundle quantity. Then simply click on Add products and you will see that all the components have been added to the purchase order.
Add products using Barcode
If your products have barcodes in Sumtracker, use the "Scan" option in the Purchase order to add products by scanning their barcodes. This is useful for quickly adding multiple products without manually searching for each one.
Add products using CSV upload
For adding a large number of products in Bulk, use the CSV upload feature.
Removing a product from the purchase order
To remove a product from the purchase order, simply click on the trash icon located beside the product to remove the product from the purchase order.
Sharing Purchase Orders
You can share, print or email purchase orders to your supplier directly from Sumtracker. Emails are by default sent to the email ID stored in the supplier details. If there is no email ID stored in the supplier information, you can enter in the recipient’s email ID. The purchase order will be sent as a link in the email and anyone with the link can open the purchase order online.
If the supplier replies to the email, their response will be directed to the email address of the Sumtracker user who sent the purchase order.
You can print the purchase order as well or directly share the link to the purchase order. Any one with the link can access the purchase order online. Here’s a sample purchase order link.
To share, print or email the purchase order, once you’ve added the products and all the necessary details, click on the 3 dots at the top right corner and select the Email option and verify/enter the email ID and click send. To print, click on print from the drop down and a print preview screen will be opened where you can then go ahead and print it.
To share the purchase order, click on the share from the dropdown and the link to the purchase order will be copied to your clipboard which you can then share it with anyone.
Purchase Order Print Settings
You can manage some of the details that gets printed in the purchase order.
The next purchase order document number, the purchase order number that will get assigned to the next purchase order that is created.
purchase order Prefix: a fixed prefix for your purchase order documents for future purchase orders. You can set it to match your existing workflow. By default, it is PO (PO2345) you can change it to look like ACMEPO2345.
You can control whether to print the following: Product barcode, purchase order line notes, Product and variant name, SKU, Supplier SKU, Price, Product images.
You can also add/edit footer terms.
To access these settings, click on Print settings from the More options drop down.
Receiving Products in Purchase Orders
Products can only be received if the purchase order is in the Incoming state. To mark the purchase order as Incoming, click on 'Mark Incoming' within the purchase order.
You have the option to receive products either fully or partially.
Receive all products
You can receive all the items orders in a single shipment. Once you have received the products, a receive note will be generated.
To ‘Receive all Products’:
Click on ‘Receive Products' in the purchase order
Select 'Receive all Products’.
All the products will be marked as received and the purchase order will be closed.
Receive products partially
You can receive some products and receive the rest at a later point.
Click on ‘Receive Products' in the purchase order
Select ‘Receive Products Partially’. A new receive note will be created
Add the products you’ve received by clicking on ‘Add products'.
Add in the quantity that you’ve received
Click on 'Mark as Received'.
In this case, every time you receive a shipment of products, a new receive note is created. You can view all receive notes associated with the purchase order by clicking on 'Receive Products' within the purchase order.
Cancelling a Purchase Order
No inventory changes occur when cancelling a draft purchase order. For incoming purchase orders, the incoming quantity will revert back when the purchase order is cancelled. You can cancel a purchase order only when it is in the Draft or Incoming state. If it is in the incoming state, no products should have been received, which means no Receive notes should be marked as received.
To cancel the purchase order, click the dropdown arrow in the 'Mark Incoming' button and select 'Mark Cancelled.'
Deleting a Purchase Order
To delete a purchase order, make sure it is in the draft state. If you have received products in the purchase order, undo all the received notes against this purchase order and revert the purchase order to the draft status by clicking on Undo incoming.
Then click on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the purchase order and click on Delete from the dropdown menu.
