Create a Purchase Order

Purchase Orders should be created whenever you incur third party costs from a Supplier, in order to track the true cost of the Project. In iCFM, a Purchase Order should be linked to a Job in order to pass the costs onto the client — see the three paths below for how this works.

The Services booked on a Job are what become the billing rows that can later be attached to Billing Approvals and Invoices. The process of creating a Purchase Order is very similar to Quotes and Jobs. Complete the required fields in the header, indicated by the Bold captions.

If you are raising a Freelance PO, see Create Freelancer Job on Schedule for specific setup guidance before continuing.

How costs are handled

When creating a PO, how you fill in the Job ID field determines what happens to the costs. There are three paths:

• Path A - Leave Job ID blank (most common): A Job is created automatically on Authorisation using the PO costs, dates and services. The PO costs are passed on to the client via the Job's billing rows.
• Path B - Manually enter an existing Job ID: No new Job is created. PO costs are added to the existing Job as additional billing rows on Authorisation. See Purchase Order Types for important exceptions — for Freelance POs, the PO cost is ignored and the existing Job's costs are used instead.
• Path C - Tick No Charge and leave Job ID blank: No Job is created. The PO is recorded against the project for cost tracking purposes but the costs are not passed on to the client.

How to Create a Purchase Order

1. Open the Project Summary
2. Click the green + icon in the Purchase Orders section (or Entities > Purchase Orders > Click Add)
3. Complete the required fields
   • Purchase Order Type — select the type that most closely matches your purchase. Different types affect how dates, costs and Jobs are handled.
   • Job ID— choose one of the three paths above:
     • Path A: Leave Job ID blank to automatically create a Job on Authorisation (most common)
     • Path B: Manually enter an existing Job ID to add costs to that Job
     • Path C: Tick No Charge and leave Job ID blank if you are not passing costs on to the client
4. Click Save (your Purchase Order is created at this point)
5. The Purchase Order Details section will appear below
6. Choose your Service Category
7. Select Service
8. Check and amend the Qty, Description and Unit Charge fields
9. Click Add to Save row
10. Repeat steps 6-9 to add additional rows as required
11. Authorise the PO
    • Path A: a Job will be created automatically at this point
    • Path B: PO costs will be added to the existing Job at this point
    • Path C: no Job will be created
12. Mark Items as Received
13. Complete the PO