Alan works in the graphic design industry in Glasgow, UK, and he was asking why he’s getting the message “PDF file creation is not available from here” when he selects the “Disk (PDF) file” option when processing new Purchase Orders in his PO Work Area…

As it turns out, we recently added support for PDF file creation in that area, so if you’d like to save new POs to disk rather than printing a hard copy, that option is now available.  If you’re still getting the message “PDF file creation is not available from here”, just select the menu HELP > CHECK FOR UPDATES to update your free version of SpendMap.

But please note that printing POs to disk is usually not necessary (which is why that option was not available previously).  Here are a few reasons why you might be doing that, along with alternate (recommended) functionality to consider…

PO history

If you are saving a copy of your POs to disk to have around for historical/audit purposes, please note that every new PO that you process is stored in SpendMap automatically, whether or not you print a hard copy or save a copy to disk.  At any time, you can reprint a processed PO, or pull up the details of the order on-screen.  Here are the applicable menu options…

– PURCHASING > Purchase Orders > Re-print or re-send a processed PO
– PURCHASING > Status & Inquiries > PO Status
(TIP: you can also re-print a copy of the actual PO document, using the [Print] button at the bottom of the screen)

There are also many reports that show Purchase Order history, under…
– PURCHASING > Reports > Purchase Order Reports >

E-mailing POs to suppliers

You might be saving a copy of new POs to disk in order to e-mail them to your suppliers.  But a better alternative would be to select the “e-mail” option in the Send Document Via field on the PO Header Screen, in which case the PO will be e-mailed to the supplier automatically (with no extra work) when the PO is processed…

That way, you won’t have to manually create an e-mail for each PO, manually attach the PDF file that you created, etc.

In addition, if you process a batch of POs for multiple suppliers, SpendMap will automatically create a separate e-mail for each supplier, and attach only their POs.  By comparison, if you use the “Disk (PDF) file” option when processing new POs, you’ll get a single PDF file with all POs that you’re processing (for all suppliers), so you’d have to process the batch in pieces in order to get a separate PDF file for each supplier.

Anyway, we took all that into account with the “e-mail” option in the Send Document Via field.  For more details on how we intended for you to send POs to your suppliers by e-mail, check out this section of the Online Help…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Documents and Reports > Sending Documents Electronically

Don’t need a copy of your Purchase Orders at all?

Some of you might be printing to disk because you don’t need any hard copies at all (e.g. if you’re calling in your orders to your suppliers), so perhaps you’re using the “Disk (PDF) file” option to avoid sending the print job to your printer?

If so, please consider using the “None/verbal” option in the Send Document Via field, in which case new POs will not be printed or transmitted when processed.  Again, you can use this option when you only want to store the PO in the system, but you have another means of informing the supplier about the new order (e.g. by phone).

Got anymore feedback for us?

We’re not exactly sure why a few of you have asked for the ability to (manually) save a copy of each new PO to disk, but we try to listen so, again, we did add that ability recently.  If you still want to, you can now select the “Disk (PDF) file” option when processing new Purchase Orders from your PO Work Area.

If there are other reasons why you’re manually saving POs to disk that we haven’t thought of, please let us know by adding a comment to this blog post, or e-mail us at free-procurement@spendmap.com

Thanks!