Purchase Orders (POs)

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An order for one or more Equipment Items or Equipment Kits with a specific Equipment Vendor. Includes an Inventory Recipient and other related details that determine shipping location and method.

POs are the primary means by which Equipment Items make their way into your inventory system.

Terms

View the complete list of terms used in inventory management.

Base Level

On an Inventory Template, the desired quantity of the equipment item that the recipient should have on hand.

Electronically Submitted

Indicates if a Purchase Order placed with an Equipment Vendor that has a Vendor Integration enabled has be submitted electronically to the Equipment Vendor.

Equipment Item

Represents the items that your company uses in the course of business operations. Note: In SecurityTrax, this list does not contain Equipment Kits, which are treated separately.

Equipment Kit

A collection of Equipment Items that are bundled together for ease of ordering. In SecurityTrax, kits are used only for the act of purchasing and are not usable in any other way. When a kit is assigned to an Inventory Recipient, it will be broken apart and the individual Equipment Items of the kit will be assigned.

Equipment Vendor

A company that sells and distributes equipment to your company.

Inventory Ledger

An all-inclusive record of transactions related to moving of equipment to, from, and within a company. All actions in the system are tracked and reportable to ensure you have a clear understanding of all inventory-related transactions.

Inventory Recipient

An entity that participates in your inventory system that can be assigned inventory items. In SecurityTrax, users and office locations can be designated as inventory recipients.

Inventory Template

Used to specify preferred vendors and desired quantities of Equipment Items for Inventory Recipients. Includes data such as items, Default Vendor, and Minimum Level, and Base Level.

Just Received

When receiving Equipment Items from a Purchase Order, this is the quantity of Equipment Items that have been physically received at the moment you are updating the Purchase Order.

Pending Purchase Order

A PO that has not been finalized. Pending purchase orders are shown for immediate action only, either saving (and therefore becoming a Purchase Order) or ignoring. They are not saved by the system for later use.

Pickup Branch

The physical location of an Equipment Vendor where Purchase Order Equipment Items will be picked up at.

Processing Method

The method of processing POs. The two available methods are:

Manual – The PO must be emailed or called in to the vendor (will not be sent electronically).
Electronic – The PO will be sent electronically (no manual intervention is required for the vendor to receive the PO).

Purchase Order (PO)

Retrieval Method

Methods of receiving equipment items from the vendor. Options are Equipment Vendor specific and include branch pickup and various shipping urgencies.

Vendor Integration

The ability for SecurityTrax to communicate with a vendor electronically. This provides the ability to submit purchase orders directly to the vendor. In some cases, there are other capabilities including retrieving order status, etc.

Usage

Creating a new purchase order

Note: Once a Pending Purchase Order is Saved and becomes a Purchase Order it can no longer be edited other than to indicate that items have been received. If you need to change details of a saved Purchase Order Close it and create a new one.

Manually

While in Company Inventory, click on Purchase Orders in the left menu.

Click Add.
Specify the Inventory Recipient that the Equipment Items are intended for.
After selecting the Inventory Recipient you can specify the Equipment Vendor.
1. Note: only Equipment Vendors that have been activated in the 'Inventory' -> 'Vendor Details' page will be shown in the dropdown list.
Once the Equipment Vendor is selected a Pending Purchase Order will be shown.
Update any of the vendor specific fields:
1. Pickup Branch - the physical location to pickup the equipment if "Pickup" is the selected Retrieval Method.
2. Retrieval Method - how you will be receiving the equipment.
3. Processing Method - how the PO will be sent to the Equipment Vendor.
Update the Equipment Items to be ordered:
1. Use the arrows or the buttons to set the desired quantity to be ordered.
  1. Will quickly set the quantity to order to 0.
  2. Will quickly set the quantity to order to the Inventory Recipients Base Level as defined by the Inventory Template (if applicable).
Click Review.
A summary of the Pending Purchase Order will be displayed for your review and confirmation.
Press Save.

Through replenishment

Replenishment is a feature of the Inventory+ add-on. The Replenishment feature allows you to auto-generate Pending Purchase Orders for the desired Type and/or Target. This takes into account minimums and bases set on the Type and/or Target to generate the Pending POs likely needed.

Learn more about replenishment.

Submitting to a vendor

There are two ways to submit a Purchase Order to the associated Equipment Vendor. This is defined by the Processing Method set on the Purchase Order.

The default is to submit it manually. In this case the Purchase Order must be emailed or called in to the Equipment Vendor. You will need to take a screenshot or save the page in SecurityTrax that shows the Purchase Order and provide it to the Equipment Vendor.
If using the Inventory+ add-on the Purchase Order can be Electronically Submitted to the Equipment Vendor if the Vendor Integration in enabled. If configured properly, and the Processing Method on the Purchase Order is set to Standard, the submission process will automatically be initiated as soon as the Purchase Order is saved. You can view the status of the Electronic Submission on the Purchase Order.

Viewing a purchase order

While in Company Inventory, click on Purchase Orders in the left menu.

Click on the PO you would like to view.
Top section shows details about the PO and the Equipment Vendor.
The items section shows the list of Equipment Items that have been ordered as well as details about the received status of each:
1. Ordered - the quantity of Equipment Items ordered.
2. Received - the quantity of the Ordered quantity that have ben received.
3. Outstanding - the quantity of Ordered that have not yet been received.

Receiving equipment

Once the Equipment Items ordered on the Purchase Order have been obtained they should be marked as received. At this point the received Equipment Items will be officially be entered into your inventory system and the on hand counts for the target Inventory Recipient will be adjusted to reflect addition of the new Equipment Items. You will be able to see these changes reflected in the Inventory Ledger.

While in Company Inventory, click on Purchase Orders in the left menu.

Click on the PO you would like to receive equipment for.
Navigate to the Items section.
When you are receiving Equipment Items on the Purchase Order you are indicating how many you have physically received right now. The Purchase Order will automatically keep track of previously received quantities so you only need to concern yourself with what additional items you Just Received.
There are multiple ways to update the Just Received quantity:
1. If you have received all the outstanding Equipment Items ordered:
  1. Clickin the table heading to set the number to the Outstanding amount for all Equipment Items at once.
  2. Click to reset all the numbers to 0.
2. If you have not received all the Outstanding Equipment Items ordered:
  1. Click to set the number to the Outstanding amount for the one Equipment Item.
  2. Click to reset the number to 0.
  3. Click to increase the number by 1.
  4. Click to decrease the number by 1.
  5. Manually key in the number.
Click Save.

Closing

Once you have either received all ordered Equipment Items on the Purchase Order or you no longer expect to receive more you should Close it. Closing the Purchase Order is an irreversible action and will prevent any further updates to be taken.

While in Company Inventory, click on Purchase Orders in the left menu.

Click on the PO you would like to close.
Click Save & Close PO.
A confirmation dialog will appear asking you to confirm you want to close the PO.
Click Close PO.