Manage purchase orders
With purchase orders, you can record the cost of purchases and track the accounts payable. Purchase orders are also used to dynamically update inventory levels so that you can minimize your inventory costs and provide better customer service.
If partial receipts or drop shipments are not applicable, you can also use a purchase invoice for these objectives. You must use a purchase order if your purchasing process requires that you record partial receipts of an order quantity, for example, because the full quantity was not available at the vendor. If you sell items by delivering directly from your vendor to your customer, as a drop shipment, then you must also use a purchase order as the main document.
When the purchased items are received, or when the purchased service is completed, you will need to post the purchase order to update the inventory and financial records and to activate payment to the vendor according to the payment terms.
To create a purchase order, select the search for page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter Purchase Order, and then choose the related link.
In the Vendor Name field, enter a vendor.
In the Order Date field, enter the order date.
In the Document Date field, enter the document date. This is the date that appears on the vendor invoice. This means that in most cases, when you create the purchase order, you don’t know the document date yet, and that you might have to update the Document Date field before posting the invoice.
In the Posting Date field, enter the posting date. This is the date on which you want to post the receipts and invoices.
On the Lines FastTab, in the No. field, enter the number of an inventory item or service (if a Type for this line is an Item). In the Quantity field, enter the quantity that you want to order.
Sync document and posting dates
On the purchase header you can enter the document data and posting date of the purchase order. Depending on your business processes, you might want to enter different dates or on the other hand keep both dates the same.
With the Link Doc. Date to Posting Date on the Purchases & Payables Setup page, you can specify if these two date fields should be the same.
To set the Link Doc. Date to Posting Date field, follow these steps:
Select the Search for Page icon in the top-right corner of the page, enter "Purchases & Payables Setup" and choose the related link.
Expand the General FastTab.
By enabling the Link Doc. Date to Posting Date field, the document date is automatically updated based on the posting date that you enter on the purchase header. However, it’s still possible to manually change the document date and post the purchase document with different document and posting dates.
When you leave the Link Doc. Date to Posting Date field unselected, the document date isn't linked to the posting date.
Post a purchase order
To post an order, select Posting from the action bar.
The posting function consists of two parts: (quantity) and invoice (value) posting.
The Qty. to Receive and the Qty. to Invoice fields on a purchase order represent the quantities that will be posted during the posting process.
Orders can be partially received and/or invoiced.
An order can be posted by registering the order receipt first and registering the invoice in a later, separate action. Accordingly, you can also:
Combine several receipts in one invoice.
Undo a quantity record for a posted receipt that isn't yet invoiced.
When an invoice is posted, the two parts occur at the same time, without an option to separate them.