Purchase Order Tips from Real Clients & Profits Users Clients & Profits users are happy to share their tips on how they use Purchase Orders in C&P to help manage their shops, and how you can in yours: Catch discrepancies "We reconcile our POs on a daily basis," says Demetra Hinton of BHI Design. "It's so much easier to stay on top of costs when you enter A/P everyday. If there's a discrepancy, we call the vendor immediately. (However, if we didn't, we could always use the Over/Under PO report to catch those overages.)" Bill for outstanding costs "As part of the job closing process, we rely heavily on the PO report," says Kim Snider of On Fire Design. "The PO report quickly indicates outside costs that need to be billed for. This report not only functions as a tool to keep track of outside costs but also serves as a monitor of the accuracy of our internal operations." Get tough with vendors "If a vendor sends us an invoice without our PO number printed on it, it goes right back to the vendor," says Wendy Tricarico of Shipley Associates. "It takes too much time and effort to try to figure out how to enter an invoice that's missing our PO number. We simply won't do it!" Save time with PO Templates "Templates are added for repetitious purchases like scan, film, printing, etc.," says C&P consultant Rebecca Cox. "Add a template and enter a default description, vendor, user fields and shipping instructions. Then when adding a PO, choose a template and details from it fill in automatically. Add a job, task, amount and any other information, then save your new PO."

Q. How do I keep certain staff members from ordering too much?

Each staff member can have a dollar limit to that they can't exceed on a single PO. This limit is part of their job costing access privileges, which can only be set by a system manager.

Q. What's the best way to number POs?

A good number to start with is 1000 (which is entered in PO preferences). But if you use Clients & Profits for broadcast or insertion orders, you'll need to number them differently. That's because all media orders and purchase orders share the same number series. If you start numbering media orders at 50000, they're unlikely to ever overlap with purchase orders.

Q. Does a PO need a job and task?

No, but the order won't appear on any job reports -- which defeats the purpose of using purchase orders.

Q. Can I ensure that sales tax isn't charged on a PO?

Yes. When adding the PO, click on the "sales tax exempt" checkbox. If certain kinds of work or vendors are always exempt, set up a PO template with that setting. On those POs, the words "sales tax exempt" print prominently.

Q. Do POs affect the General Ledger?

No. Purchase orders aren't posted, so they don't make journal entries. The order's costs only affect the G/L when the vendor's invoice is posted in Accounts Payable.

Q. How do I add a PO for office expenses where there is no job or task?

Add a purchase order like usual, but instead of a job number enter the word "NONE". This tells Clients & Profits that the PO shouldn't affect jobs or tasks.

Q. Why don't PO amounts update the job ticket's Unbilled column?

Clients & Profits treats POs as "committed" costs, which mean that they aren't actual job costs yet. They don't update the "unbilled" total, which is reserved for hard costs, like A/P invoices and time. PO amounts appear separately from job costs on job reports. A report like the Job Summary has a column for Open Order amounts. And if you highlight the tasks of a job in the Job Ticket window, then select the middle button of the three that appear in the upper-right hand corner of the job ticket window, a screen report appears showing Orders for that job, if there are any.

Q. Can I tell which invoice tied to a particular PO?

Yes. From the Purchase Order window, choose File > View POs invoices.