Automatic PO Creation

The Automatic Purchase Order Creation function creates Purchase Orders from a pre-selected Shopping List with little user intervention. While not quite a "one button" solution, this utility practically automates purchasing activity. You may also wish to check the Interactive PO Creation feature which requires more user input.

From the FOOD-TRAK Main Menu, locate Data Entry, then Procurement and click Automatic PO Creation. The wizard that is presented allows you to refine your price and vendor selection to closer fit your needs. Click the Next button on the wizard to proceed.

Select a Shopping List from those available on the list. Click the Next button on the wizard to proceed.

Use the calendar feature to enter the date on which the orders will be placed.

The date selected will be the Order Date for the Purchase Order forms that are created.

Enter a date for FOOD-TRAK to consider bid prices. The order date may not be congruent with the date when new bid prices are valid.

Bids that are not active on the selected date will not be considered in the creation of Purchase Orders.

Select a Profit Center if the orders are for a specific Profit Center. If the Shopping List you selected is for a specific Profit Center this field will display the Profit Center name and disallow you from choosing another.

You may also choose to create orders for specific vendors. If this option is selected the system will present you with a vendor selection pane when the Next button is selected. If this option is not selected, you will proceed through the wizard and the vendor selection pane will not be displayed.

A set of check boxes for each day of the week are displayed in the wizard. The selected days can be used to pre-populate the vendor selection list with vendors that deliver on those days.

The vendor selection pane lists all non-transferable vendors in the Site on the left side of the pane if no Delivery Days are selected in the wizard. If Delivery Days are selected in the wizard the vendors that match the criteria will be pre-populated and listed on the right side of the pane. One or many vendors can be selected on either side of the pane by clicking on a vendor to select it. If you select specific vendors the Automatic PO Creation process will only create PO’s for the selected vendors. Vendors that are not selected will not have PO’s created. Items not placed on a PO will remain on the shopping list.

Once vendors have been selected you can click on the Next button on the wizard to proceed.

Additional criteria available for price and vendor selection include:

• Include bids for different unit sizes of the same item

• Ignore Bid Preference (set up on the Vendor Editor),

• Include expired bids - If the option is selected the scope of bids considered by the system will be expanded to include expired bids.

You also have the option of printing all Purchase Orders when the creation of the PO’s is submitted.

Items on a shopping list with no active bid will automatically be placed on a Purchase Order form using the vendor and price paid on the most recently dated invoice. Items that do not have an active bid and have not been purchased (no invoices in database for the item) will be left on the Shopping List.

An audit trail is automatically displayed that shows each item purchased as well as items not included on a PO. The audit trail identifies the items that do not get placed on a PO with the reason stated in parenthesis. For example, if an item is not put on a PO because the Vendor was not selected it would say (Vendor not selected- vendor name). If there was no current bid for an item and the utility used the last price paid, this will be indicated on the on-screen and printed audit log.

Click the Print button to print a list of all audit trail results for the Shopping List items or just the exceptions that did not make it to a Purchase Order form.

If you find the results of the Automatic PO Creation acceptable, you can click Accept All changes, or if they are not to your liking, you can Cancel All changes. If you accept the results, yet some items on the Shopping List were not placed on a Purchase Order, they will be retained on the original Shopping List.

Purchase Orders created by this utility can be modified to include items not assigned to them by simply opening the form and making the appropriate entries.

Advanced Procurement Features

When coupled with Advanced Procurement this process considers the ”direct-ship” designation of items when creating Purchase Orders from a Cost Center Shopping List. By checking the item's properties the system determines if an item that is being ordered is a direct ship item for the Profit Center that requested it. If the item does not have the "direct ship" option set it follows the standard path and is put on a PO to be received for the Cost Center. If the item is a direct ship item it is placed on a separate Purchase Order for the Profit Center.

The Automatic Purchase Order process creates Purchase Orders with multiple orders if the Shopping that is used contains multiple orders.

An optional setting, "Check other Profit Centers for excess stock", provides the ability to check excess quantities of purchased items in other Profit Centers prior to creating an order from an external vendor. Marking the option allows you to further define availability of stock. You can select to create a requisition from the Profit Center if there is stock in excess of minimum par or maximum par. Internal requisitions are automatically created through the process and submitted to the appropriate Profit Center.

The audit trail provides the item name, amount, purchase unit, requesting and requested from Profit Centers and cost of any items requisitioned. It also details the fact that the internal requisitions will be created along with the corresponding internal requisition numbers upon accepting.