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Creating purchase orders

A purchase order (PO) can be created by a school or district and sent to a vendor to authorize a purchase before payment is made. This is an optional step in the Accounts Payable process. Some schools may skip over PO creation (and shipment tracking) and instead proceed directly to creating invoices.

POs can be created in two ways: A PO can be requested on the Employee Portal by any employee with login credentials, which will trigger the approval process; or a Financials User can create a PO through Financials Main, which does not trigger the approval process. This article addresses the latter method.

To create a PO:

  1. Go to Financials Main > Accounts Payable > Purchase Orders
  2. Create
  3. Edit the PO Number if necessary
  4. Indicate how payment should be issued:
    • Business Office will make payment
    • I already paid using my district credit card
    • I’m requesting reimbursement for personal funds already spent
  5. Choose a Vendor and select a Vendor Contact from the available options
  6. Add a Responsibility Center, Responsibility Center Contact, and a Ship To address
  7. Add a Billing Contact, Billing Phone, and Billing Address
  8. Terms & Conditions will be added automatically from the default, but you can click Show to view and edit the Terms and conditions of this particular PO
  9. Use the blue plus sign to add Line Items
    • Expenditure Item (choose an existing item, create a new item, or enter a temporary description that will not be saved for future use)
    • Enter a total dollar Amount, or enter the Quantity/Unit of Measure/Unit Price to calculate the total dollar Amount
    • Dimensions indicating how the payment should be categorized in the budget
  10. Optionally, add:
    • Attachments
    • Vendor Comments (will appear on the printed PO)
    • Internal Comments (will not appear on the printed PO)
  11. Save & Submit For Approval

Once the PO has been submitted for approval, the first person in the approval chain will receive a notification, inviting them to review it. To bypass the approval chain:

  1. Go to Financials Main > Accounts Payable > Purchase Orders
  2. Edit the purchase order
  3. Change the status to Approved or Issued
  4. Save