4.10 Purchase Orders

Purchase Orders (POs) help you keep track of what needs to be ordered for each job, stay organized with your vendors, and manage incoming products from order to intake. This article walks through the full purchase order workflow in Printavo, from flagging items that need to be ordered, to building and sending a PO.

In this article

• Step 1: Mark line items as needing to be ordered
• Step 2: Create a purchase order and add line items
• Step 3: Review and organize the PO
• Step 4: Send the Purchase Order and mark it as ordered
• Step 5: Receive goods
• FAQ

Step 1: Mark line items as needing to be ordered

Before an item can be added to a purchase order, it needs to be flagged as needing ordering. There are two ways to do this.

Option A: Flag items from the order/invoice

1. Open the order/invoice that contains the items you need to order.
2. Click More actions in the upper right
3. Select Bulk Set Goods Status
   • This will update the status of all line items on the invoice.
4. Select the Need to Order Status
   • If you purchased the products outside of Printavo and do not want to utilize the purchase order flow select Ordered or Received, based on your need to receive the goods in Printavo or not.
5. The line items are now sent into the purchasing workflow.

Option B: Set the status on individual line items

1. Open the order and click Edit.
2. For each line item, click the dropdown menu on the far right of your line item, select Product Status and set the status to Need to order to send the item to purchasing.
   • As mentioned earlier, if you purchased the products outside of Printavo and do not want to utilize the purchase order flow select Ordered or Received, based on your need to receive the goods in Printavo or not.
3. Click Save once all statuses are set.

Tip: Use Option A for quickly flagging a full order. Use Option B when you need finer control over individual line items on a job.

Step 2: Create a purchase order and add line items

1. Go to Manage goods in the main navigation. This opens the purchasing module.
2. Click Create Purchase Orders in the upper right to start a new PO.
   • You can select Create One if you do not yet have a purchase order in Printavo.
3. Once you are in the Needs Ordering page, select + New Purchase Order in the upper right corner.
   • Similar to the last step, you can select Create a new purchase order if you do not yet have a purchase order in Printavo.
4. From the left column, drag the line items you want to include into the new PO on the right.
   • Wait for the destination box to highlight (turn yellow) before dropping each item. This confirms it's ready to accept the item.
5. Group items by vendor. Each PO should represent a single vendor order, so if the items you're purchasing come from different vendors, create a separate PO for each vendor.

Step 3: Review and organize the PO

Once items are attached to the PO, open it to review and clean it up before sending it to your vendor:

1. Click into the PO by selecting the blue #P followed by the number it has been allocated.
   • You can now toggle between viewing the PO and the order as there will be a link to the Invoice under the line items corresponding to the PO they are in and a link to the PO under the line items corresponding to the order they are in.
      
2. Click Edit to reorganize line items, such as grouping similar items together for clarity.
   
3. Use + Line item to manually add any items that aren't tied to an existing invoice (for example, shop supplies or blanks ordered in bulk).
4. Select the Vendor you are purchasing from via the dropdown
5. Add a PO name or note, if helpful, to make the order easier to identify later.
6. Enter any additional notes, such as expected shipping or arrival details.
   • You can edit the PO # allocated in the top right when editing a Purchase Order.

Step 4: Mark the Purchase Order as ordered.

Once the PO is finalized and you're ready to place the order with your vendor:

1. Place the order manually in your vendor portal.
   • Select Send > Public Purchase Order View or Copy Link  if you wish to send a link of the PO to the vendor.
   • We do not recommend using the Email to Vendor function at this time as there are some known issues with it.
2. Click Edit and change the Goods Status to Ordered.
3. Scroll to the bottom and click Save.

Tracking numbers: You can optionally add tracking numbers from the PO view once the order has shipped. This is helpful for monitoring incoming shipments, but isn't required.

Step 5: Receive goods

Once your PO has been marked as ordered, the final step is checking goods in as they arrive. This happens in the Receiving section of Manage Goods, where you can group incoming goods by PO or by invoice, mark items as received individually or in bulk, and track partial shipments or issues with received goods.

For a full walkthrough of the receiving workflow, see 3.10 Receiving.

FAQ

How do I remove an item from the "Needs to Order" column?

If an item is sitting in the Needs to Order column in the purchasing module but shouldn't be there:

1. Go to the line item's invoice and click Edit.
2. Find the line item, click the drop-down arrow, and update its Product status to the appropriate value.

This removes it from the purchasing queue without needing to add it to a PO.

What's the difference between sending items to purchasing vs. receiving directly?

Sending an item to Needs to Order routes it through the full PO process: grouping it with other items by vendor, marking the PO as ordered, then receiving it. Setting an item's status directly to Ordered skips the PO step entirely and sends it straight to the receiving view, grouped by invoice. Use this shortcut for items you've already ordered outside of Printavo's purchasing workflow. See 3.10 Receiving for more on how items behave once they reach that stage.

Can I add items to a PO that aren't from an invoice?

Yes. From the PO's edit view, use + Line item to manually add items. This is useful for shop supplies, blanks, or anything else you're ordering alongside job-related items.

How do I remove a line item from a PO?

If you need to move it to another PO - As long as the PO has not been updated to "Needs Ordering," navigate back to the Organize Purchase Orders page. On the right-hand side where your purchase orders are queued, find the PO # it is attached to, hover over the line item that requires removal and use the X icon. Once you refresh your page, the line item will be queued on the Needs Ordering side again.

If you want to remove it from Purchasing entirely - you must navigate back to the Invoice it comes from and update the line item status to "Unset.". DO NOT remove the line item from the PO edit page as this does not work as intended currently. The order that the line item is attached to will simply update to "Attached to Purchase Order" without any indication of which or where it is.