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Purchase Orders

Whenever you buy anything from a supplier, add a Purchase Order in Factory Superstar.

Purchase Orders do several things:

  • They allow you to track when you should receive things: Manufacturing businesses need to buy lots of things from their suppliers (sub-components, tools, supplies, etc.), and you can very easily lose track of what you have purchased and when it is due. You add an 'expected' date to a Purchase Order, and Factory Superstar will let you know if it's overdue so you can chase it up.
  • They teach the system costs: When you add a Purchase Order, you record how much you paid for that item and who the supplier was. Factory Superstar keeps track of these costs (so you can see how a component cost changes with time), and uses up-to-date costs when calculating 'made' item costs.
  • They track lead times: You add an Purchase Order when you purchase something. When it's arrived you click 'arrived'. The system uses this lead time to generate a more accurate time estimate for future Production Orders.
  • They control inventory: When a Purchase Order arrived and you click 'arrived', Factory Superstar updates the inventory with the new arrivals. It automatically assigns the new products to any Production Orders where it is required, and tells your team to get on with work accordingly.

Adding Items to a Purchase Order​

In Factory Superstar, Purchase Orders are designed like any other online shopping experience. To order items:

  1. Go to the Inventory, find the items you want to re-order (filter by '< minimum' to quickly see which items have less than the minimum allowable quantity in stock)
  2. Enter in an order quantity in the 'Adjust' field *(remember you can quickly go from one component to the next by pressing the 'tab' â­¾ key on your keyboard)
  3. Click 'Add to Re-Order' at the bottom of the Inventory. You're now taken to your 'shopping cart'. You can go back to the Inventory to add more, or follow the steps to add the Purchase Order.
tip

It's not only 'bought' items that you can add to re-order using this 'shopping cart' method - Production Orders for 'made' components can also be added this way, making it very easy to produce anything that you need.

note

You can return to the 'shopping cart' at any time from the Inventory - just click on the shopping cart icon at the top right of the page.

Untracked Items​

Often, you'll purchase things for your business that aren't on the Inventory and don't need to be. Things like odd replacement parts for machinery, or samples. Even though they're not in the Inventory, it can still be very useful to know when you've ordered them and when they are due. This is what 'Untracked Items' are for. On Step 1 of Adding a Purchase Order, click + add untracked item. You can then fill in the details required, and Factory Superstar will let you know when they're overdue as usual.

After the Purchase Order has been marked as 'arrived' the Untracked Items won't appear in the Inventory, but you can view their details by going to the relevant Supplier page.

Configuring the Purchase Order​

Follow the steps to Complete the Purchase Order (note that you can add new Suppliers by going to Inventory->Suppliers->add Supplier). A separate Purchase Order will be created for each Supplier.

Arrival of Purchase Order​

To see the list of Purchase Orders that haven't yet arrived, go to Inventory->Purchase Orders.

When a Purchase Order arrives, click 'mark arrived'. This will then add the received stock to the inventory, and allocate it to Production Orders if required.