Purchase Order Processing

axis diplomat provides a comprehensive set of tools for the effective control of the activities of a busy purchasing department.

Purchase Orders can be added and tracked, through the receipt of goods from the supplier and the associated supplier's invoice. Facilities are available for managing the return of goods to suppliers, for replacement or for credit. Documents (such as Purchase Orders) may be printed and a range of analysis reports can be produced to monitor the current purchasing position.

Purchasing Controls

Controls are incorporated to restrict those able to enter Purchase Orders or those able to authorise Purchase Orders. Some users, for example, may be only able to enter unapproved Purchase Orders that others must approve. The system will not allow, for example, an unapproved purchase order to be printed or emailed to a supplier.

In addition, each individual can be assigned a purchasing authority threshold. This allows operators to be given the authority to place approved purchase orders up to a given value –above that value, orders must be subsequently approved by a supervisor.

Stock Control

One of the many benefits of operating an integrated purchasing system, instead of a stand-alone or manual system, is that the stock ledger is able to reflect stock due in against outstanding purchase orders.

In the same way that a Sales Order generates stock allocation, Purchase Orders generate transactions showing expected receipts; these are used to give an “on order” figure.

This information can be made available elsewhere in the system - for example when entering a Sales Order it is possible to view the future schedule of stock availability showing not only when stock is due to go out on other Sales Orders but also when deliveries are expected from Suppliers.

Supplier Price Lists

Unlike some systems, that allow you to record just one or two preferred suppliers against each stock record, axis diplomat allows you to create any number of Supplier Price Lists - any individual item may be purchased from a large number of potential suppliers.

A supplier price list records the items that you purchase from a given supplier, their price, their description and their own part number. This means that no matter how many suppliers you purchase a given item from, information on all of those suppliers can be recorded on the system.

When entering a purchase order item, items can be added using either your own part number or the suppliers. If a supplier price list entry exists for the product that you are entering, for the supplier in question, the price information is retrieved from the supplier price list and not from the stock ledger. If that price is then amended by the operator, they have the opportunity to update the supplier price list with that current price. This helps to ensure that the supplier price list is kept up-to-date.

Drill Down

The Purchase Order Processing module allows the operator to drill down through information, into other modules. For example, from a Purchase Order Enquiry, right-clicking on a line item allows drilling down to the stock enquiry for that item.

Similarly, from a Stock Enquiry transaction list, a right-click on a Purchase Order or Goods Received from Supplier transaction allows the operator to go directly into a Purchase Order Enquiry or Goods Received Note Enquiry, as appropriate.

Purchase Requirements

Purchase Requirements provides a powerful link between Purchase Order Processing, the Stock Ledger and, optionally, the Compact MRP module and/or Stock Forecasting modules.

Purchase Requirements is able to create a list of suggested purchase orders, and to suggest with whom those purchase orders should be placed. The suggested ordering list can be created from the Stock Ledger (based on the stock under minimum information) or from shortages identified by the Compact MRP module.

The suggested ordering information can be monitored and adjusted manually. This facility allows managerial judgement to be used to take into account factors which the system cannot be aware of, for example, a supplier's current promotions or rebates.

Once the purchasing manager is completely happy with the suggested ordering list, a simple and completely automatic function will convert these into official purchase orders.

The suggested suppliers will be identified from extended information which is held on the supplier/product price list. You have the option to specify whether the system should select suggested suppliers based on price, lead time or other, user defined, categories.

By providing the tools to offer tighter stock control, Purchase Requirements may also reduce the need to hold large amounts of buffer stock. This, in turn, reduces the amount of capital tied up in stock which can improve cashflow.

Purchase Requirements is incredibly useful in a wide range of situations, not just in relation to manufacturing. For example, back to back ordering and just-in-time stock control are just two operations which become trivial administration tasks instead of major management headaches!