Use purchase order change management
You can use the change management process to create approval and review processes for your purchase orders. With change management enabled, when you create a purchase order, the approval status is Draft and the purchase order lines do not have inventory transactions, like a purchase order type Journal.
You can track changes for approval on all or some purchase orders.
When change management is enabled, the purchase order must be approved to have inventory transactions be created for each line of the purchase order. At this stage, you no longer have the ability to change the purchase order unless you select the Request change button; then, the purchase order must be submitted to workflow. While the workflow is in process with a status of Pending, the original inventory transactions stay intact. As soon as purchase order workflow is approved, the inventory transaction changes based on the modified values.
Therefore, for each request change, only one version of the purchase order with the type Draft is maintained by the system. Though you can compare changes between the original value and the changed value of purchase orders, only one version that is the latest version can be compared.
However, when change management is not enabled, each time a purchase order is confirmed, a new version is created.
To compare changes of purchase order versions, select the Manage tab on the Action Pane and select the Compare to recent version button.
On the Compare purchase order versions page, you can compare the values between versions. On the All purchase orders page, select Compare to recent versions.
After submitting the purchase order for approval, the requester of a change request can recall the workflow in case of any mistakes, or any decisions to make additional changes, and then resubmit the purchase order.
A purchase order with the approval status of Approved indicates that it has been approved within the organization. The confirmation of a purchase order enables you to perform the product receipt and invoice on the purchase order. Confirmation of the purchase order indicates that the purchase order is accepted and is external between the organization and the vendor.
When you use change management, a purchase order confirmation is still required before the purchase order can be processed (product receipt and invoice). Additionally, to use the change management feature, you must define a workflow for purchase orders. By default, change management is not activated, so it must be turned on.
We recommend that you use the override settings to define which transactions should not use change management. For example, intercompany vendors should not have the Activate change management option enabled.
If you do not use change management, you can still track all the changes that were made between purchase order confirmations.
Approval statuses
Several approval statuses can be on a purchase order, which helps to indicate how far the purchase order has progressed in the change management process. Some statuses are only valid when change management is activated.
The statuses are described in the following table.
| Status | Description | Inventory transactions exist? | Can it be used without change management? | Can it be used with change management? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Status of the order while you create the purchase order before the Submit button is selected. | No. If the purchase order was submitted for approval, then the original inventory transactions still exist for the original version. | No | Yes |
| In review | Status of the order after you select Submit. | No. If the purchase order was submitted for approval, then the original inventory transactions still exist for the original version. | No | Yes |
| Approved | Status of the order after the workflow is approved. When you do not use change management, this is the default status for the order. Inventory transactions are created when the order reaches this status. | Yes, only if the purchase line includes a stocked item. | Yes | Yes |
| Confirmed | Status of the order after the purchase order is confirmed. | Yes, only if the purchase line includes a stocked item. | Yes | Yes |
| Finalized | The PO was made final. It’s now financially closed and can no longer be changed. When the purchase order encumbrance process is enabled, or if you are using budget checking on purchase orders, you might need to reverse encumbrances or relieve the reservation of budget funds when a purchase order is canceled or on back order and the products are not going to be received. When you finalize a purchase order and purchase order lines, the system liquidates remaining quantities and amounts that are budgeted and encumbered. | Yes, only if the purchase line includes a stocked item. | Yes | Yes |
Roles within the change management process include the following:
- Requester
- Initial submit of the PO for approval
- Create change requests
- Submit change requests
- Change requests
- Recall
- Approver
- Approve
- Edit and Approve
- Reject
- Request Changes
- Task user (optional)
- Complete a task
- Administrator
- Configure the workflow
Change management process
Each business process can require different steps in the workflow. When you use the workflow configuration, you can define multiple approvals or different levels of approval. Additionally, you can configure tasks for users to review or verify information on the purchase order before the purchase order is approved.
For example, you can also set up line level workflows to have each line approved by the appropriate category or department managers. Each business process will be different. A sample process could consist of the following steps:
The requester creates a purchase order.
The requester submits the purchase order for approval.
The task user reviews and updates the accounting distributions for the purchase order, if necessary.
The approver can review, change, or compare purchase order versions.
The approver approves, rejects, or requests changes to the purchase order.
Enable change management
You can use several parameters in the system to enable change management. To use change management, you must first enable it on the General tab on the Procurement and sourcing parameters page.
Activate change management - You can enable change management for the current company.
Allow override of settings per vendor - You can enable or disable the activation for change management on each vendor.
If the Allow override of settings per vendor check box is selected in the Procurement and sourcing parameters, additional options are available on the purchase order Defaults tab of the Vendors page. This includes the override settings that you can use to select one or both of the following two options:
Activate change management - You can use this to enable change management for the selected vendor.
Allow override of settings per purchase order - You can use this to override the activation of change management on a purchase-order-by-purchase-order basis.
If the Allow override of settings per purchase order check box is selected on the Vendor page, the Activate change management check box will be available on the Administration tab of the Create purchase order page. You can use this page to manually activate or deactivate change management on a single purchase order.
If change management is enabled for most or all vendors, then Activate change management and Allow override of settings per vendor should be selected.
Change management must be activated and a workflow must be set up for the Submit button to appear and be functional.
Watch the following videos to see the effects of enabling change management at different levels.
Purchase order tasks
On the Purchase orders page, you can perform many tasks, such as:
- Copy a purchase order.
- View totals for a purchase order.
- Cancel an order line.
- View and compare purchase order versions.
- Create a purchase order from a sales order.
- Create a direct delivery purchase order.
- Create cases or activities that are related to purchase orders.
Copy from all
After you create a purchase order, you can use the Copy from all function to view all purchase orders, confirmations, product receipts, and invoices and lines to select a document or lines most like the one(s) that are being created. This data can be copied and used as a starting point for the new purchase order.
The Copy from all function helps when you create a new purchase order that resembles one that was created for a different vendor, or even for the same vendor for a different item or quantity. Within this option, you can configure how to copy the following variables in the Quantity and Setup field groups.
- Quantity factor
- Invert sign
- Copy charges
- Recalculate price
- Copy precisely
- Delete purchase lines
- Copy order header
To open the page, you can select Copy from all in the Copy group on the Action Pane or on the Purchase order lines tab on the Line view, select Purchase order line, and then select an option to copy information.
Copy from journal
To create purchase order lines by copying lines from other purchase order journals, you can use the Copy from journal page for various methods of copying purchasing information.
You can use the Copy from journal option or the Copy from all function to configure how to copy the same variables in the Quantity and Setup field groups.
Direct deliveries
With Supply Chain Management, you can create deliveries so that items can be sent directly to your customer from the vendor. This helps to save on delivery time and inventory carrying costs.
To create direct deliveries from the Sales order page, you will create a sales order and order lines, and then select the Direct delivery button from the NEW group on the SALES ORDER Action Pane.
Then, you need to specify a vendor for the line that you want processed as a direct delivery.
After the purchase order is created, a link will be created between the direct delivery sales order lines and their corresponding purchase order lines.
After you have created the direct delivery link between the sales order lines and the purchase order, you can generate a product receipt for the sales order by generating a product receipt or invoice from the purchase order.
You must invoice update the sales order from the Sales orders page. The sales order cannot be invoice updated with a larger quantity than is registered as delivered to the customer.
When a product receipt is posted on a purchase order, a sales order packing slip is automatically created. When the product receipt is complete, the validation for the sales order invoice is made against the sales order packing slip that was automatically created by the system.