Buy what a job needs

Purchasing is the buy side of a job. A project manager plans materials, a service call needs a part, the shelf runs low, and all of it lands in one place: a queue of things somebody has to buy. A purchaser works that queue into purchase orders, sends them to vendors, and then watches for the boxes.

Purchasing must be turned on for your workspace. Buying needs the permission to order materials, which the purchasing and manager roles hold.

The queue

Purchasing in the sidebar opens the queue. Every line on it is something that has been asked for and not yet ordered: material a project manager released, parts added to a service call (those arrive on their own, with no release step), and stock top-ups. Each line carries the part, how many, who wants it and when they need it.

A line whose part a change order is currently touching reads Held · change order pending and waits until the change order is decided, so nobody buys a part that is about to be swapped out. See Swap or remove a part.

One line, several vendors

Sometimes one line cannot be bought from one place: the vendor has eight of the twelve, or half the run is cheaper somewhere else. Split takes a quantity off a queue line and leaves the rest where it is, so each part of it can go on its own purchase order.

The pieces stay connected. Each one shows a Split · 3 of 12 chip, and the line tells you where every piece went: so many on PO-26-000014 · Halliwell AV, so many waiting on the queue, so many in hand. If a split turns out to be unnecessary, Rejoin puts the quantities back on one line, as long as the pieces have not been ordered.

A piece does not inherit the original’s vendor part number, because a piece is usually bought from a different vendor and the old number would print on the new order.

Raise the order

Create purchase order takes the lines you picked and makes one order. The dialog lists them with the price each will carry: the estimate to start with, and the vendor’s real price typed over it when you know it. That price is what the order carries and what the project’s costing reads, so it is worth a moment.

Money on this screen shows only to people who can see project money.

On the order’s own page, each line’s vendor part no. and PO price are edited in place by the purchaser. The item name, and the manufacturer and model number under it, are edited in place too, by anyone who plans materials: point at the line and click the text. A manufacturer or model number the line does not have yet, or one its name already carries, offers itself while you point at the line. The vendor’s PDF prints the corrected wording the next time you download it.

Add to an order you already started

A part that was forgotten can join an order that has not gone to the vendor yet, instead of starting a second one. Pick the lines and choose Add to draft order, which appears only while at least one draft order exists. The same dialog opens with a Draft order list in place of the vendor and ship-to: each order shows where it ships, which jobs it already carries and when it was made, and Florio opens on the one that fits best, a draft from the vendor these lines suggest or one already carrying the same project. Quantities and prices work exactly as they do on a new order, split included, and the price starts from what that order’s vendor charged before.

Florio warns but does not stop you when a bill has already been entered on the order (it will not include the new lines), when the order ships to another project’s job site, or when a line was suggested from a different vendor (on this order it is bought from the order’s vendor). Only a draft can take lines: once an order is placed the vendor has its copy, and Florio says so if it was placed while you were choosing. The lines show up in the order’s activity and in the activity of each job they belong to.

Move the rest back

An order that is part-filled does not have to stay that way. On the purchase order, a line’s ⋮ menu offers Move the rest back to the queue: what arrived stays on this order, the remainder goes back to the queue as its own line, and you record why (backordered, cancelled by the vendor, or something else). Remove line in the same menu returns the whole line to the queue, and only while nothing on it has arrived.

Then the boxes

Once an order is placed, the question stops being “did we buy it” and becomes “where is it”. That is the Tracking cell, and it is the same cell on the purchase order, on a project’s Materials tab and on a service call’s Parts card.

Florio can also read the mail your vendors already send you, and attach the order confirmations, shipping notices and invoices to the right order by itself. Each purchase order’s Vendor documents card shows what that mail did to it. See Vendor mail and On the purchase order.