Purchase Order Settings

availability

Platform:	WebMobile
Plan Type:	BasicEssentialPremiumEnterprise
User Type:	RequesterFull UserAdministrator

This article describes the settings and preferences that you can use to customize purchase orders.

To access purchase order settings:

1. From the sidebar, select Settings > Features.
2. On the Features page, navigate to Purchase Orders, and select Set Preferences.

Customize Purchase Order Titles

By default, the title for a new purchase order looks like this:

Purchase Order #{NUMBER}

Where {NUMBER} is an automatically generated unique number.

Customize purchase order numbering

• You can replace the automatically generated number with a custom number when you create a new purchase order. For details see Create a Purchase Order.
• You can start automatic purchase order numbering at a custom number. For details, see Modify the Starting ID for Purchase Orders.

You can add a title field to the purchase order form to let users add a custom title for each new purchase order. You can also specify a custom prefix that gets prepended to the purchase order number. With those customizations applied, the title for a new purchase order looks like this:

{TITLE} - #{PREFIX}{NUMBER}

Add a Custom Title Field

1. From the Purchase Orders setting page, toggle Custom Title on.

The title field will now appear in the purchase order form when you create a new purchase order or edit an existing purchase order.

If you don't add a title to a new purchase order, MaintainX adds Purchase Order to the title automatically.

Add a Prefix

When you add or change the custom prefix, it's added to new purchase orders, but doesn't affect existing purchase orders.

1. On the Purchase Orders setting page, toggle Purchase Order Prefix on. A text field appears.
2. Enter your custom prefix in the text field.

Add a CC Field to Purchase Order Emails

You can send any approved purchase order to the vendor by email (see Send a Purchase Order to a Vendor). This setting adds a CC field so you have the option to add other recipients. Use these options to specify default CC recipients. Each time you send an email, you also have the option to add or remove recipients.

To add a CC field:

1. On the Purchase Orders setting page, select CC Purchase Orders. The Default Recipients field appears.
2. (Optional) Enter the email addresses for any recipients that you want to CC by default.

Set Up Shipping and Billing Addresses

You can set up different addresses to add to purchase orders as the shipping or billing address. If you have several addresses set up, you can specify default addresses to add to purchase orders automatically.

tip

You can also add addresses on the fly when you create or edit a purchase order.

To access the Addresses page:

1. From the Purchase Orders setting page, select Address Management. The Addresses page appears.

Add an Address

1. On the Addresses page, select Create Address. The Create Address dialog appears.
2. Fill in the address information, and select Create.

The new address is added to the list.

Set Default Shipping and Billing Addresses

You can choose an address to be the default billing address or default shipping address for new purchase orders. MaintainX adds your default addresses to new purchase orders by default, but you can select other addresses when you create or edit a purchase order.

1. On the Addresses page, locate the address that you want to set as a default.

2. Select , then select one of the following:

   • Make Default Billing Address
   • Make Default Shipping Address

Edit or Delete an Address

1. On the Addresses page, locate the address that you want to edit or delete.

2. Select , then do one of the following:

   • Select Edit Address to open the Create Address dialog where you can update the address. When you're finished, select Update.
   • Select Remove Address to delete the address.

note

When you delete an address, it's no longer available for new purchase orders, but it's not removed from existing purchase orders.

Add Custom Purchase Order Fields

You can add custom fields to purchase orders to add extra information. The Customize Purchase Order Custom Fields page lists all your organization’s custom asset fields.

Custom fields and purchase order approval rules

Single-select type custom fields can be conditions for purchase order approval rules. For example, you can set up a rule to automatically approve purchase orders when a given single-select custom field is set to a specific value. For more information about approval rules, see Set Up Purchase Order Approval Rules.

Create a New Custom Field

1. Select + Add Another Custom Field (or + Add Your First Custom Field if you don't have any custom fields yet).

2. Add a name for the field.

3. Select the type of the field. The field can be:

   Field Type	Description
   Single Line Text	A one line text field. It can be up to 4096 characters long (about 500-700 words).
   Multi Line Text	A text box field. It can be up to 4096 characters long (about 500-700 words).
   Number	For numerical values.
   Single Select	Create a list of values for users to choose from.
   Date	A date field.
   Date & Time	A date and time field.
   Link	A hyperlink or phone number to select. Requires that users enter a complete link, such as www.myurl.com, or a complete phone number prefixed with tel:, for example tel:123-456-7890.

4. To make the field mandatory when a user creates a new purchase order, Select the Make this field required option (Enterprise account required).

5. Select Create.

The custom field is added to all purchase orders.

Edit a Custom Field

For any existing custom field, you can change:

• The field name.
• The field type.
• Whether the field is mandatory.

When you change a custom field's type, or whether or not the field is required, your changes only affect new purchase orders. Existing purchase orders stay as is unless you edit them.

For example, let's say you create a custom text field, but later you change it to a single-select field.

• New work orders will only let users choose from the available single-select options.
• Existing work orders will keep whatever text users entered in the field.

Similarly, if you make a previously optional field mandatory, MaintainX will only require it for new work orders, and existing work orders that you edit.

To edit a custom purchase order field:

1. On the Customize Purchase Order Fields screen, change any field as needed.
2. When you're finished, select Update to apply the changes.

Reorder Custom Fields

To change the order of the custom fields, drag the (Reorder) icon to move a field up or down.

Delete a Custom Field

To delete a custom field, select the (Trash can) icon next to the field you want to delete.

Set Up Purchase Order Approval Rules

Purchase order approval rules specify who in an organization should approve purchase orders that meet specific criteria. By default new purchase orders are sent to the organization Administrators for approval. You can set up approval rules to handle purchase orders differently. Use purchase order rules to:

• Send purchase orders to other teams or users besides the organization Administrators.
• Approve purchase orders automatically.

For example, you could set up a rule to assign purchase orders to a specific user or team when the total cost is more than a threshold amount. Or a rule to automatically approve purchase orders when the total cost is less than a threshold amount.

Each approval rule has:

• One or more conditions: A condition is a criterion a purchase order has to meet to trigger a rule.
• An action: The action is what happens when you create a purchase order that meets the conditions for an approval rule.

Create a Purchase Order Approval Rule

To create a purchase order approval rule, choose its conditions and action. A rule can have more than one condition, but only one action.

note

Some conditions are mutually exclusive. For example, you can't create a rule that looks for purchase orders that have a one-off part AND don't have a one-off part. If a condition isn't available when you're building a rule, the rule probably has a conflicting condition already.

To create a new approval rule:

1. From the Purchase Orders setting page, select Approval Rules for Purchase Orders. The approval rules settings appear.

2. In the rule configuration options, choose a condition for your new rule, and fill in any additional fields that appear.

   Condition	Additional Fields
   Total cost is higher than or equal to	Min. Amount Max. Amount
   Total cost is between	Min. Amount
   Has a one-off part	None
   Does not have a one-off part	None
   Has a part with no cost	None
   Custom field (single select)	Choose one of the available values

3. If you want to add more conditions for the same rule, select + Add Condition and choose the conditions you want to add.

4. Choose the Action that happens when a purchase order meets the rule's conditions.

   Action	Description
   Assign and Notify	Assign purchase orders to one or more teams or users for approval. Specify the teams or users in the Who field that appears. If you choose a team or user that doesn't have permission to approve purchase orders, you'll see a reminder to contact your MaintainX representative.
   Automatically Approve	Approve purchase orders automatically.

5. Select Save Rule.

   The new rule appears in the Rules Created section.

Manage Purchase Order Approval Rules

An organization's purchase order approval rules appear in the Rules Created section on the Approval Rules for Purchase Orders page. You can edit or delete any rule in the list.

To edit a purchase order approval rule:

1. Select the (edit) icon next to the rule.

   The rule's conditions and action appear in the rule builder options.

2. Update the rule as needed.

3. Select Save Rule.

To edit a purchase order approval rule:

1. Select the (delete) icon next to the rule.
2. When prompted, select Confirm to delete the rule permanently.

Handle Conflicting Approval Rules

It's possible that two or more approval rules conflict when they're applied to the same purchase order.

For example, let's say you set up the following rules:

Rule	Action
If a Purchase Order has a cost between $0 and $100	Then Automatically Approve
If a Purchase Order has a one-off part	Then Assign and Notify Warehouse Team

Then you create a purchase order that has a one-off part, and a total cost of $87.

In that case MaintainX won't apply either rule because it can't simultaneously approve the purchase order automatically and assign/require an approver.

Instead, it does the following:

• Sets the purchase order status to Pending.
• Sends an email alert to all the purchase order approvers in your organization (provided they have an email address in the system).

To prevent further conflicts, we recommend you do the following:

1. Update the purchase order approval rules.
2. Reject the purchase order that caused the conflict, and resubmit it so it's assigned to the correct approver.

Modify the Starting ID for Purchase Orders

Administrators can modify the starting ID of purchase orders in the organization. For example, for reporting reasons, you need your organization's purchase orders to start at #2000.

warning

Changing the starting ID for work orders is permanent, and can't be undone. The new starting ID must be higher than the highest existing purchase order ID. Let's say you change the starting ID to #2000, and then create purchase orders with the IDs #2000, #2001, and #2002. If you change the starting ID again, the new starting ID must be higher than #2003.

To change the starting ID for purchase orders:

1. From the Purchase Orders setting page, select Next Purchase Order IDs. The Purchase Order Starting ID dialog appears.

2. Enter the new Starting ID.

   This number must be higher than the highest existing purchase order ID in the organization.

3. Select Save Changes.

   The next purchase order you create will use the new starting ID.