Purchase Orders are a part of the Inventory Planning suite in Zentail, along with Demand Forecasting and Shipments. You can access Purchase Orders under Inventory > Planning in the main menu. Note: This feature is currently in Closed Access. For more information about closed access features, check out this article.
This article covers the following topics relating to Purchase Orders.
Relevant Information Needed
In order to provide complete information on the purchase order that you supply to your vendor, you'll want to make sure some information is filled in in Zentail.
Account Info
Vendors - Head to Account > Settings > Vendor / Brand management and add any relevant information. The vendor/supplier's address will appear on the PO as the "Source Address".
Warehouses - Head to Account > Settings > Warehouses and add the address of the receiving warehouses. This will appear as the "Destination Address" on the PO (if one is selected).
Product Info
Vendor SKU - This can be added in Quick Edit. This is the SKU that will appear on the purchase order.
Vendor Title - This will appear on the csv download, but not the PDF version of the PO. The vendor title can be added in Quick Edit. (The product’s normal title will appear as the "Description" on the PDF version of the PO.)
Vendor - The vendor should be filled in so you can filter your catalog by vendor. This isn't required, but it helps!
Cost - This is not required, but will automatically fill in on the purchase order if it’s filled out on the product.
Here's a helpful Quick Edit view for entering this information on your products, including other relevant columns like MPN and Manufacturer.
How to Create a Purchase Order
In your main menu hover over Inventory and click Purchase Orders from the drop-down menu. Click on the blue “New Purchase Order” button in the upper right.
Select your Vendor and the receiving Warehouse.
Add a Name that will make it easy to keep track and identify the order.
Click ADD LINE ITEM to select SKUs to add to your purchase order.
Enter the quantity you want to order and click ADD. Many SKUs will already have quantity filled in. This is a suggested reorder quantity from our Demand Forecasting feature. Feel free to adjust this number as you deem appropriate.
Enter your Payment Window (Payment Terms, i.e. 60 days).
Once you're done, or to save as a draft, click SAVE.
To download and email to your supplier, click the download icon and select PDF or CSV. Email as an attachment to your Supplier using your normal email client.
Now you can download a PDF (or csv) of the purchase order by clicking the download icons on the right hand side of the screen. Once you've downloaded and submitted the PO to your vendor, you'll want to start updating the status of the PO.
How to Update the Status of a PO
Purchase Orders have a few different statuses.
DRAFT - At this point the purchase order is prepared internally. The information on the PO can be updated, such as vendor, products, lead times, cost, and the receiving warehouse.
SUBMITTED - This indicates that the purchase order has been submitted to the vendor.
ACCEPTED - Once you and the vendor agree on terms and payment the PO is now accepted. As soon as a PO is marked Accepted in Zentail, an inbound shipment will be created in a "pending" status. This will be linked at the top of the PO, and visible with a PO identified in the Shipments page.
CANCELLED - If you decide not to reorder, or don't agree on terms with the vendor, you can cancel a PO.
To update a purchase order, follow these steps.
From the Purchase Orders table you can filter POs by Status.
To update from DRAFT status click on the PO and click MARK SUBMITTED.
Once your vendor accepts your PO, click MARK ACCEPTED.
To cancel a PO, click CANCEL.
FAQs
Q: How do Purchase Orders and Inbound Shipments interact?
A: ACCEPTED POs will show as inbound shipments in the Shipments view. You can receive inventory associated with POs from the Shipments view.
Q: How should I receive inventory if I'm using an inventory integration?
A: The inventory integration will overwrite the inventory in Zentail, so while you should mark the shipment received in Zentail, be sure to also add inventory to your inventory integration since that will be treated as the source of truth.
If your inventory system also automatically creates inbound shipments in Zentail (SkuVault), our recommended workflow is to still receive inventory in SkuVault (since that will be sent to Zentail). The difference will be that if you've also created an inbound shipment in SkuVault to either mark received or cancel the inbound shipment in Zentail that was created when the PO was marked as Accepted. This way there won't be an open / pending inbound shipment throwing off any reorder forecasting.
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