Purchase Orders

Purchase orders (PO’s) are the most convenient way to track which parts are needed for what service. Purchase orders can also be created to help you restock your inventory if you keep one. In the article below, we’ll cover both options.

Purchase Orders for Work Orders

There are two ways to create a purchase order from a work order. You can click the “PO” button at the bottom of your work order to make a purchase order with the inventory and non-inventory items already on the work order, or you can click the “+NEW” button in the purchase order section of the work order to start a blank PO.

When you click the “+NEW” button at the bottom of the work order, you’re presented with the PO screen. From here, you can add your PO to an existing PO or you can create a new one by selecting “Create New” for the “PO Number” field.

When you create a new PO, you’ll need to add a vendor (from your vendors list) and add which company you’re ordering for. When you add the vendor, you’re selecting which store you will be getting these parts from. When you add a company, we mean which company of yours (some of our customers have multiple companies in Smart Service Cloud) that will be handling this work order and PO.

When you save the new PO above, you will be brought back to the work order PO level to add the items you need to order. Select the first item you need to order and if you know how much you paid for it, you can add in the “Unit Cost” here. The customer won’t see the unit cost and this is different from the price the customer will pay.

When you save that first item, you will be taken back to the work order, focusing on the PO section. You can click the “NEW” option, choose that same PO number, and add another item. You can continue doing this indefinitely.

If the items you’ve added to the work order need to be ordered, you can click the PO button at the bottom of the work order to make a PO from them. This usually happens when you convert a quote to a work order and now need to order the items you quoted.

Purchase Orders for Inventory

Click below to learn about our Inventory features available in Smart Service Cloud. Purchase orders for restocking inventory can be created in the “Purchase Orders” screen in the accounting center. ​The screen shows in the following “Purchase Order Management” section where you can create PO’s using the “+” symbol at the bottom right. These PO’s do not need to be assigned to a specific work order to resupply your warehouse.

Purchase Order Management

Wherever you create the purchase order, someone needs to track and manage these parts requests. This can be done under the “Purchase Orders’ option in the accounting center. This screen shows you when purchase orders were created, their status, what’s needed, and also allows you to create more PO’s to restock the inventory.

The screen above shows all of the PO’s your company has created. Remember, you can filter and search this screen just like any other in Smart Service Cloud.​You can also open any PO from this screen and click the “QuickBooks” button to send your purchase order over to QuickBooks Online, provided your QuickBooks Online account supports Purchase Orders.