Add/Edit Purchase Orders

Your church may have a formal approval process for the purchase of some items and services, especially when these items are of a higher cost. The Purchase Order (PO) system in Shepherd's Staff standardizes this process, by allowing you to add and manage your Purchase Orders right in your Finance module of your database.

Working with Purchase Orders happens in phases, which we have broken up for you below to walk through the standard Purchase Order process:

1. Entering a New PO
   1. To add a new PO, in Finance, under Activity, click on "Purchase orders" and then click the Add button on the PO grid.
   2. A PO Number is automatically assigned for you and cannot be changed. The first two digits represent the year in which the PO was entered into Finance. The status defaults to requested, which is the first stage in the PO process. A category can also be assigned to this purchase order, if you wish.
   3. Enter the Date Requested and fill in the person/group who requested the items/services in the Requested By field. This may be an individual or a group of people (e.g., “Ministry Board”). Then fill in the Date Required, saying when the items/services are needed by.
   4. Next, in the gray bar at the middle of the window, start entering the details of the items/services needed in this PO. For the initial entry, you'll enter the item number and/or description.
   5. Enter the purchase price (the price you will pay for this item or service) in the "Purchase $ ea." field. If you are not sure of the price and are going to get bids from vendors, then leave the Purchase price blank. If you are paying a discounted price, enter the list price. The List price is never required, and is only used in calculating the discount on the Totals folder. 
   6. Enter the quantity of this item being ordered. The total price (if a purchase price has been entered yet) will be calculated for you in the "Total" field. 
   7. Click "Add" to add this item to the purchase order. If there are additional items to be added to this PO, repeat steps 4-6.
   8. If you know the vendor you will be ordering from, select the Vendor in the "Vendor" field.
   9. Click "Save" at the bottom-right corner of the window.
2. Initial Approval
   1. In this stage you submit the PO to a formal approval process, prior to requesting bids from vendors. If you do not need to submit a Request for Price / Proposal, then skip this step and go to Step 4, Final Approval. 
   2. On the PO grid, click on the PO you need to get approval for, and then click print and choose "PO for approval sign-off". This sign-off report has a place for two signatures and two dates. 
   3. Once the initial go-ahead is received, click on the PO you need to update, and then click the "Edit" button on the grid.
   4. Click on the "Approval" tab and fill in that person/group’s name in the "Initial Approval" field. This is a user-defined field, so you can click inside this field and then click the button that appears to the left of it to enter in options for it. Also fill in the "Date Approved" field to the right of the "Initial Approval" field.
   5. Back on the "Purchase Order" tab, change the status to "Initial Approval", and click "Save" in the bottom-right corner of the window.
3. Request for Price / Proposal
   1. Click on the PO you need to make changes to, click "Edit' on the grid, and change the status of this PO to "Request for proposal"
   2. Click "Save"
   3. At the PO grid, with this PO still selected, click on Print and then choose the "Request for price / proposal" option. Print off as many copies as you will be sending to different vendors.
   4. Once you've heard back from the vendors, and you've made a choice on which vendor you will be working with, click on the PO, click Edit, and then choose the Vendor in the "Vendor" field. This is also where, if you did not fill in a purchase price back in step 1, you would do so now in the "Purchase $ ea." field for each item being purchased.  Click "Save" when finished.
4. Final Approval
   1. Once a Vendor has been finalized, then you may want to get a second, final approval. If you didn’t need a Request for Price/Approval, then this may be the only approval step you need.
   2. Highlight the PO in the Purchase Orders grid and click the Print button.
   3. Select PO approval for sign-off and print this report. This sign-off report has a place for two signatures, and two dates.
   4. Once the final go-ahead is received, edit the Purchase Order and fill in that person/group’s name in the Final Approval field on the Approval tab. 
   5. Enter the Approval Date, then go back to the Purchase Order tab and change the status to "Final Approval".
   6. Click "Save".
5. Issue the PO
   1. Now that the vendor has been selected and the PO has gone through its approval process, it is time to send the PO to the vendor (i.e., it’s time to place the order). Just a reminder that the vendor selection and approval processes are both optional; your church may not need one, the other, or either of these steps.
   2. Edit the Purchase Order and fill in the Date Issued (on the PO tab) and change the status to "Issued to vendor". Then, click "Save"
   3. On the PO grid, click on the PO you have been working with and then click "Print" and choose "PO to send to a vendor". Print this report out and send it in to the vendor your church will be purchasing from.
6. Receive and Check/Match the PO
   1. This step simply tells you that the items have arrived from the vendor, and are waiting to be verified by someone (probably the person who Requested the PO to begin with). Once the vendor ships the products, or supplies the services, you need to compare the vendor’s invoice to the Purchase Order, and both to the products/services received, noting any overages, shortages, or other issues. As you record the quantity received for each line of the PO, you “Match” that line. 
   2. Edit the Purchase Order and fill in the Date Received.
   3. For each item you received, enter the quantity Received, and then check the "Matched?" box. Today's date will automatically be filled in, but if you matched this on a different date, fill that date in on the "Date matched" field. Use the Comments column to mention any anomalies. Repeat this process for each item. Note: The "Match PO" button will perform the above automatically for the selected item in the PO.
7. Close the PO
   1. A Closed PO is one that has been paid.
   2. Click on the PO you wish to close out, click "Edit" and then click on the "Receipts/Invoicing" tab.
   3. On this tab, fill in the details of each shipment of the PO. The last field of each shipment will let you associate this PO with a transaction to show how your church paid for this shipment.
   4. Click on the "Purchase Order" tab and change the status to Closed. Then, fill in the "Date Closed" field with the date this PO is being closed out on.
   5. Click "Save"