Creating Purchase Orders

What is a Purchase Order?

A purchase order is a document that outlines a buyer's need for a good or service. A purchase order gives a work order to a vendor and shares the information that is needed to complete the work that you have put in your work order. 

In Umbrava, a purchase order creates a line of communication to the vendor and allows for interaction within a work order. A vendor can select to auto-accept all purchase orders that are sent to them, or they can check each purchase order and accept or decline.

Adding a Purchase Order

Purchase orders can be created for a work order in 3 different ways.

1. Work Order Creation
2. Add Purchase Order screen
3. Assigning a Service Request

Adding a vendor while creating a work order will automatically generate a purchase order with the work orders information and the NTE (Not To Exceed) that has been set for the vendor.

The Add Purchase Order screen gives you control over which aspects of the work order get transferred to the vendor. You can change the Trades, Priority, and Scope which you are unable to do when creating a purchase order during the work order creation process. We will go over selecting a vendor to assign to the purchase order in the next section.

Selecting a vendor that has responded to a Service Request will also create a purchase order. This purchase order will have the rates that were selected and agreed upon in the service request tied to. For more details on Service Requests, click here.

Assigning a Vendor

A vendor can be assigned to a purchase order. When the purchase order is created through the work order creation screen, the vendor that was selected will automatically be assigned. 

When assigning from a Service Request, the vendor will automatically be added to the purchase order. 

When searching for a vendor, you can hit the 'Find' button and open the Vendor Assignment screen.

The Vendor Assignment screen allows you to filter through your vendor list and find a vendor that is perfect for the job. The vendor assignment modal will show vendors that are near the Service Location selected for the work order. This searches through the vendors service locations and trades that are set for the search. You can open the vendors profile by clicking on the vendor ID in the list. Hit 'Assign' and the vendor will be added to the Purchase Order.

Sharing Information

The created purchase order will contain all given information from the work order and send that info to the assigned vendor.

The Priority dictates the First Trip SLA and the Completion SLA for when the work needs to be addressed and completed.

The NTE is the vendors Not To Exceed. It is set to tell a vendor that they are not to charge more than the given amount. Updates to the Priority and NTE will be sent to the vendor when the purchase order is saved with the new information.