Purchase Order Workflows and Statuses

The status of a purchase order is determined by the PO Workflow. The PO Workflow is set by Supplier. On the Credit tab of the Supplier (Creditor Maintenance), refer to Purchase Order Settings:

Open

While the workflow applied to a PO is set by the supplier setting, it can be changed on each individual PO to another workflow while the order has a status of Not Sent. When the PO moves from Not Sent to the next status, the workflow may not be changed.

Jiwa ships with 4 Purchase Order Workflows. This is the list, from simplest to complex.

1. Simple Workflow

2. Simple EDI Workflow

3. EDI Workflow

4. Approval Based Workflow

For each workflow, the available statuses are as follows:

The following guidance is based on Simple Workflow. This is the one set by default and the most commonly used.

Some of the statuses are also referred by other names, depending on the context (e.g. in a report or on the Order tab of an inventory item).

1. Not Sent, also referred to as Entered or Uncommitted

2. Sent, also referred to as Committed.

Not Sent

A purchase order that has been raised.  The order may have been emailed or mailed to the supplier, but no confirmation has been received.

When running reports this status may be referred to as 'Uncommitted', 'Entered not sent' or 'Not Sent'.  There are no journals associated with status.

Sent

A purchase order that has been sent to a supplier and the supplier has confirmed the order.  The goods may be on their way.

When running reports this status may be referred to as 'Committed'.  When the status is set to Sent, Jiwa creates the following journal for the ex GST order total:

dr Ordered Stock

cr Ordered Stock Liability.

These are both balance sheet accounts.

Closed

A purchase order is set to Closed when all the goods for that order have been received.  No more changes may be made to orders with this status.

Why is it important to set the status to Closed? When the status is set to Closed, Jiwa creates a journal that reverses the 'Sent' journal above for all stock that was ordered BUT NOT received.

(Note: activating a GRN reverses the 'Sent' journal above for all stock that was ordered AND received)

Current Status

The current status of a purchase order is displayed by a stamp in the top right corner of the purchase order entry form header:

Entered: 

Sent: 

Closed: 

Changing the Status

To change the status of a purchase order, use the 'Set Status To...' button in the menu ribbon of the purchase order entry form.

Open

The status you are allowed to change the order to depends on the current status of the purchase order.

• If the current status is Entered the button will only allow you to change the status to Sent

• If the current status is Sent, the button will only allow you to change the status to Closed.

• If the current status is Closed, the button will only allow you to change the status back to Sent.

You cannot reverse the Sent status by changing an order back to Entered/Not Sent.

Useful reports

The following reports are useful for managing the status of your Purchase Orders:

Purchasing > Reports

"Purchase Orders Completed But Not Closed" - this report lists all the purchase orders within an order date range, by supplier, where all the ordered goods have been received but the purchase order status has not yet been set to Closed.

"Outstanding Purchase Orders" - this report lists the purchase order number where the goods have not been received or only part received.  This report can be run based on the purchase order status: Uncommitted / Committed / All. It can also be restricted by warehouse or run in Detailed (displaying part no) or Summarised format. Make sure you extend the 'Due by' date out far enough to capture all the relevant orders.  Running this report with a status of Committed should reconcile to your Ordered Stock ledger account.