WORKING SMARTER EVERY DAY
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5 Great Tips for
Closing & Reconciling Your POs
While
Clients & Profits automatically reconciles purchase
orders with vendor invoices, some POs will need special
attention. These five tips offer useful suggestions
for these unique situations:
Tip
#1 - All POs always need cost amounts POs
keep their open balance until reconciled with
an A/P invoice. If the net cost amounts of
the A/P invoice and the PO match exactly, the
PO closes automatically. If a PO doesn't have
a cost amount, you can still enter the vendor's
invoice but the purchase order won't get closed
automatically. Instead, you'll need to click
the Closed checkbox in the Purchase Order window.
Tip
#2 - Look for discrepancies If there's
a discrepancy (even a penny) between the PO
and the vendor's invoice, the PO will remain
open with a balance. This is meant to call
attention to the PO in case it is only partially
billed by the vendor and another invoice is
to follow. The Over/Under Orders report lists
these kinds of purchase orders.
Tip #3 - Manually close completed POs
If a PO has a balance but is completely invoiced
by the vendor, then close it manually by clicking
on the "closed" checkbox in the PO window.
Tip #4 - Investigate POs with negative
balances A negative balance means the vendor
billed you for more than the order amount.
Purchase orders remain open if they have a
negative balance in order to flag those orders
that were overcharged by the vendor. Together
these POs will help identify vendors who consistently
overcharge you.
Tip #5 - Close many POs at once The
Update Status window lists all purchase orders
that have a balance, including negative balances.
To manually close many POs at once, click the "close" checkbox
for each order you wish to close, then click
Save. |
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By
Bonnie Burlew
For improved cash flow, prebilling is the way to go. If your clients
are a little slow to pay, it makes good financial sense to not wait for
the vendor's invoice to come in to bill your clients. After all, your
shop is not your client's bank!
"We prebill everything we can," says Wendy Tricarico of Shipley Associates. "And
if we can't prebill something completely, we'll prebill 50%. It's so easy to
do with Clients & Profits."
Once the PO is entered, you can immediately create an A/R invoice for
it. And there are a variety of billing options.
If it's a PO for a large dollar amount, it's worthy of its own invoice.
Generate it directly from the PO file by prebilling the PO with no rekeying
of details. Then, go to the A/R file to proof, post and print the invoice.
Send it to your client immediately.
If it's something you wish to bill along with costs (hard costs) from
the job, then choose the A/R file to add a Progress/Final Billing invoice.
This invoice type can combine POs (BOs and IOs, too), costs and even
a job's change orders.
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Regardless of how you bill your POs, from a client's perspective, they
won't be able to tell that you are not actually billing hard costs.
However, it's a very good idea to include the concept of prebilling,
especially for big ticket items, on your clients' contracts. If you can't
do this for existing clients, make sure you do for every new client.
With the costly work that's done outside your shop on your clients' behalf,
being able to prebill, especially for the big ticket items like printing,
can make a big difference in your cash flow and the financial health
of your business.
Bonnie
Burlew is a senior member of the Clients & Profits
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