Automatically Generating Purchase Orders

Users who have purchased the Polygon Inventory add on module have the option to automatically generate purchase orders for any stock items which have a current stock balance less than the Stock Item's configured par level. A Stock Item's par level can be assigned from the Stock Item Details form. Users who have purchased a multi-department license can generate separate purchase orders for each department. If a multi-location add on module has also been purchased, a Stock Item can be assigned a different par level for each department which the Stock Item has been assigned to, and a separate purchase order can be generated for each location. For more information about setting a Stock Item's par level see section Polygon Inventory > Stock Item Details.

From Polygon Back Office,

Click on the Reports button on the toolbar,

Highlight the Stock Reorder report under the Stock heading, then click the Select button,

Tick the Generate Purchase Orders tick box and configure any additional report selection criteria options.

Clicking the Print button will display the Stock Reorder Report. Save or Print this report as required. Pressing the "Escape" key on the keyboard to close this report.

When the Stock Reorder Report is closed, the Automatic Purchase Orders Form will be displayed.

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Stock Reorder Report Selection Criteria Form

The Stock Reorder Report displays details of any Stock Item which has a stock balance that is less than the stock item's configured par level. Information included is:

•Stock Type;

•Department;

•Stock Item;

•Stock Measure;

•Stock On Hand;

•Reorder Amount;

•Reorder Cost.

The Stock Reorder Report's selection criteria determines which stock items will be included in the Stock Reorder Report. It also helps determine which stock items will be included in the Automatic Purchase Orders form (described below). The following selection criteria options are available:

•Department (Multi-Department Users Only)- Selecting a department here will include only stock items which have been assigned to the selected department. Select all to include all departments;

•Stock Type - Selecting a stock type here will include only stock items which belong to this stock type;

•Include Inactive Items - Ticking this tick box will include stock items regardless of their active status. Un-ticking this tick box will include only active stock items;

•Exclude zero reorder quantities - When this tick box is ticked, stock items which have a par level equal to their current stock balance will be excluded from the report and the automatic purchase orders form;

•Only include items with a set par level - Ticking this tick box will exclude stock items which have not been assigned a par level regardless of their stock balance.

•No page breaks between stock types - When this option is ticked, details of more than one stock type can be included on the same page. Un-ticking this tick box will create a page break between each stock type;

•Generate Purchase Orders (Important) - Tick this option to load the Automatic Purchase Orders form after the Stock Reorder Report is closed. If this option is un-ticked, no automatic purchase orders will be displayed.

When the Stock Reorder Report is closed (and if the Generate Purchase Orders tick box was ticked on the report selection criteria form) the Automatic Purchase Orders Form is displayed as an editable list containing the items reported on the Stock Reorder Report. This form provides an editable summary of the purchase orders which will be generated when this form is confirmed. The items displayed can be edited or deleted and new items can be added to the list.

The order which items are displayed in can be changed by selecting "Supplier", "Item Description" or "Item Code" from the View By drop down list at the top left of the form.

The details of each item listed on the Automatic Purchase Orders form can be adjusted as needed before their purchase orders are generated. The information which can be changed includes the Supplier, Department, Quantity (The number of packs or SMUs to order) and Loose Units.

•Changing Item Suppliers - To change the supplier who an item will be ordered from click the Line Item icon

to the left of the supplier entry for a stock item. Note: If you have a multi-location or multi-department license, an additional entry for this stock item may already exist with a different supplier & department. Sorting the list by Item Description can be helpful when checking for additional entries.

•Changing Item Departments (multi-department users only) - The department which an item will be ordered for can be changed by clicking the Line Item icon

to the right of the stock item's department field. This loads the Stock Items File where you can select a different department. Reselect the desired stock item from this pick list then click the Select button Note: If you have a multi-location or multi-department license, an additional entry for this stock item may already exist with a different department in the Automatic Purchase Orders List. Sorting the list by Item Description can be helpful when checking for additional entries.

•Changing Order Pack/SMU Quantities - To change the how many packs or SMUs which will be ordered in a purchase order, click on the stock item's Qty field and enter the number of Packs/SMUs you would like to order.

•Changing Order Loose Item Quantities - To change how many loose items which will be ordered in a purchase order, click on the stock item's Loose Units field and enter the desired number of loose units. Note: Stock Items which have been configured with 1 Unit per Pack do not allow entry of loose units. In this case the loose units field is not editable.

•Cost & Extended Cost Values - When an order Quantity (Qty) or Loose Units amount is changed, the Cost and Extended Cost values are automatically recalculated and displayed. The Cost value indicates a Stock Items pack cost. This will be displayed as GST Inc or GST Ex depending on whether the supplier has been set to use GST Exclusive Amounts from the Supplier Details form. The Extended Cost is calculated from the number of packs/SMUs, Loose Units and the Item Cost. The Extended Cost figure is always GST Inc. The Cost and Extended Cost values are read only on this form but these values can be edited from the Purchase Order Details form once the automatic purchase orders have been generated.

•Deleting Items - Deleting an entry removes a stock item from the Automatic Purchase Orders List. This means the deleted entry will not be included in this set of automatically generated purchase orders. This does not delete the stock item from the entire system. Note: If you have a multi-department or multi-location license, other automatic purchase order entries may exist for this stock item in other departments. If these other Stock Items need to be removed, each entry must be deleted individually. Sorting the list by Item Description can be helpful when checking for additional entries.

•Adding Items - Additional stock items can be added to the end of the Automatic Purchase Orders List by scrolling to the end of the list and clicking the last Line Item icon

next to the Department column. This loads the Stock Items pick list. (Users with a multi-department location can select which department the new item will be ordered for from the top left of the pick list). Next, select the Stock Item you wish to add, and click the Select button. Select which supplier the item will be ordered from by clicking the last Line Item icon

next to to the Supplier field, then select the desired supplier and click the Select button. Repeat these steps for each additional item you would like to add.

•Printing - To print the data on the Automatic Purchase Orders form, click the Print List button towards the top right of the form. The Stock Reorder Report can also be printed, as can each individual Purchase Order from the Purchase Order Details form.

•Overwriting Auto-Generated Purchase Orders - If you are using the Automatic Purchase Orders feature more than once on the same day, duplicate purchase orders can be avoided by ticking the Overwrite Purchase Orders Generated Today tick box at the bottom of the form. If this option is ticked when the Create Purchase Orders button is clicked, any automatic purchase orders which were generated earlier on the current day will be deleted before purchase orders fore the currently listed items are generated.

Important Note: Generating Automatic Purchase Orders when this tick box ticked will Delete All Automatic Purchase Orders previously generated on the current day.

•Generating Purchase Orders - When you are happy with the items, quantities and suppliers listed, click the Create Purchase Orders button. A new purchase order will be generated for each of the supplier and department combination listed. If any listed items have not been assigned a supplier, a warning message will be shown saying "Stock item records without an allocated preferred supplier were detected..." This means stock items which haven't been assigned a supplier will not be included in the generated purchase orders. If you would like to exclude these items, click Yes to continue, otherwise click No to go back and assign suppliers to these items.

If you have purchased the multi-location add-on module and the multi-department add-on module, automatically generated purchase orders can be automatically assigned to a POS Location when generated. To enable this feature follow these steps:

•From Polygon Back Office,

•Access the Application Settings by selecting File from the main menu then selecting Application Settings;

•Select Remote Stock (under the the Polygon Inventory heading on the left menu);

•Tick the Link purchase orders to POS locations tick box;

•Click OK to save changes;

•Restart Polygon Back Office to apply this change.

Now stock item departments listed in the Automatic Purchase Orders List will be cross checked against the departments assigned to POS locations (from the POS Location Details form). If a POS Location with a matching department is found, the generated purchase order will be assigned to the POS location instead of the department.

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