This post reviews how to set up the budget tracking feature in your Live Copy of SpendMap.
If you’d like to see the budget tracking feature in action before you get started, it’s already set up in your Evaluation Copy of SpendMap (the copy with the sample data), and there’s a Walkthrough Tutorial called “Budget Tracking” that you can try, using the drop-list at the top-right of the Main Menu in SpendMap…
OK, here’s what you do to set it up in your Live Copy…
We’ve completely redesigned the View PO Status Utility in the upcoming release to make it even easier for you to keep track of your Purchase Orders in SpendMap.
Check out our news announcement for all the details.
Get control of your company’s spending and see where the money is going, with SpendMap’s free Purchase Order Management Software.
Happy Halloween everyone!
Linda works at an Accounting firm in Winnipeg, MB, Canada, and wanted to make sure that the free version of SpendMap will never assign the same PO number to two different Purchase Orders…
“If two people or more are using the software and both attempt to create a Purchase Order at exactly the same time, how does the system number the POs?
It is vital that we never have use the same number (twice)”
Great question, Linda.
No, SpendMap will never assign the same PO number to different orders. If you only set up one PO Number Set (i.e. only one sequence of PO numbers for everyone to share), each person will get the next sequential PO number for each new order. For example, PO 1000, 1001, 1002, etc.
TIP: You may want to prohibit manual modification of the auto-assigned PO numbers, by UNchecking the option for “Allow user to modify number”, in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > Incrementing document number sets > POs
A more advanced option would be to set up a separate sequence of PO numbers for each user. While using a separate PO Number Set for each user is not a prerequisite to unique PO numbers, per above, there are some additional benefits to this approach, especially when it comes to reporting.
For example, you might add a unique prefix to the auto-assigned PO numbers to represent the user who created the order, for example, PO number J-1000 for John’s orders, M-1234 for Mary’s orders, and so on. That way, you’ll know whose order it is just by looking at the number, and you can sort and filter reports by the PO number prefix.
TIP: You can lock/restrict each user so that they can only use one of the PO number Sets, using the “Force” checkbox, just to the right of the Number Set Field, in the [Settings] Folder of the User Master File.
Nadine runs a property management company in New York and wants to know if she has any open orders for an item before placing a subsequent order for more of the same…
“Were trying to get organized (using SpendMap) but sometimes the left hand doesn’t know what he right hand is doing. How does a Buyer know if someone else already ordered something?”
Sure Nadine, now that all your Buyers are using SpendMap, it’s easy for them to check on each other’s work and eliminate duplicate orders. Here are a few options to consider…
If you like the sound of #3 above, you can enable the feature by selecting an option for “Open Order Warning Option”, in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system> Purchase Order settings > PO entry settings
Then, if Buyers try to create a new Purchase Order for an item that is already on an open (unreceived) order, they will get a warning message like this…
Peter works in a state agency in Louisiana and was asking about removing old Purchase Orders from his Open PO list…
“Once a PO is received and closed it should come off the list.”
You can remove received/closed POs from the Open PO list by moving them to the Closed PO Archive, using…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Purge and Archive History > Archived Purchase Orders > Archive closed POs
…or you can use the applicable setting in the [Permissions] folder of the User Master File, to be prompted from time-to-time to archive your close POs when logging into SpendMap.
This will reduce the number of POs that you see in the Look-up List in View PO Status, when printing PO-related reports, etc., making it easier to focus your attention on the remaining (still open) orders.
Please note, however, that running this utility may leave some closed Purchase Orders behind (ie. they will remain in the Open PO list), per the setting “Number of days before closed POs are moved to the Closed PO Archive“, which you can find at the bottom of the screen in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system> Purchase order settings > PO processing settings
That is, this setting will keep received/closed POs in the Open PO area for the number of days that you specify, as you may have need to access recently closed orders. Most SpendMap customers set this to between 30 and 90 days. Peter – set yours to zero (0).
While you can always access your old/closed Purchase Orders even after they have been archived, and while you can even unarchive/restore a PO back into the Open PO area, it may be more convenient for you to just keep, say, a month or two worth of old POs front-and-center, again, if you need to refer to recently closed POs as a regular course of business.
The thought of wasting money is pretty scary for most small and medium size businesses.
It’s hard enough to run a successful SMB these days, without having to worry about your staff spending money that they shouldn’t be.
Get control of your company’s spending and see where the money is going, with SpendMap’s free Purchase Order Management Software.
Happy Halloween everyone!
The vast majority of data entry fields in SpendMap are optional and can be left blank. For example, the only mandatory fields on Item Requisitions are…
That said, you may choose to force fields (i.e. make them mandatory) using one or both of…
If a field is optional on a particular screen or transaction, keep in mind that it might also be filled in later in the process. For example, the person requesting an item may not know the supplier and so a Buyer or Purchasing Manager may select the supplier when reviewing/approving the order or when converting the Requisition into the final Purchase Order.
Account codes are another common example. Some SpendMap customers allow their end users to process Requisitions without specifying a G/L Account or other account coding, which might not be completed until the invoice is matched/approved later in the process.
Keep in mind, however, that you may need to make certain fields mandatory in order to use certain features of SpendMap. For example, if you are routing requisitions for online approval based on the G/L Account, then obviously that piece of information needs to be provided so that SpendMap can determine the appropriate approver(s).
Similarly, if you’re tracking your financial commitments against each G/L, for example, using the budget tracking features in SpendMap or maybe with the PO Account Commitments Report, then you may want to make the G/L field mandatory on transactions earlier in the process, or risk missing commitments until the invoice shows up.
Again, the question about when (or if) you want to make fields mandatory applies to other fields as well, not just G/L Accounts (but that’s certainly a common example).
Bottom line, what’s easiest for your end users is not the only thing to consider (although it’s certainly important). You also need to think about what data is needed to properly support your Purchasing and Spend Management processes.
Most people who are using the free version of SpendMap want to track and report on their spending based on one or more account codes or account code “segments”, such as a cost center, general ledger account, department, business unit, project, fund, etc.
We’ve had a few support tickets from people who seemed a bit mislead by our default terminology for the account code fields. Most commonly, people are using the Project or Job Fields, when they could get more benefit using the Cost Center field instead.
So in this blog post, we’ll discuss a few options for setting up the account code fields in SpendMap. For more details, check out this section of the Online Help…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Master Files > Account Coding (Overview & Guidelines)
SpendMap includes 5 user-definable fields that can be used for coding Purchase Orders and other transactions. By default they are labeled as;
But you can change the names of these fields, so please don’t feel obligated to use the default field titles.
And you do not need to use all of these fields if you don’t want to. Most small businesses that are using the free version of SpendMap will use only Cost Center and maybe G/L Account, while Project, Job and Request-By are typically only used by larger organizations with more complex account coding needs, such as larger public, government or non-profit organizations. (more…)
Jolene from Helston in the UK asked if she could track her Purchase Orders by project or job using the free version of SpendMap…
“Most of our jobs are ongoing and can take up to 6 months to complete, is there an easy way of viewing all items purchased for just one particular job?“
Yes, there are a number of ways that you can get a list of items purchased for a project or job. There is a Job Master File and a Project Master File under the Master Files menu section, so you can put your project/job numbers in there, then select the applicable number in the Project or Job Fields on the Purchase Order Line Item Details screen.
At that point SpendMap will know which project or job each Purchase Order is for, so you can sort and/or filter many reports by these fields. For example, try running the PO Listing Report for a particular project or job, using this menu option…
– PURCHASING > Reports > Purchase Order Reports > PO Listing
Again, that’s just one report that can be run by project or job but there are many others.
You can also search for Purchase Orders and other transactions on-screen using these fields. For details, see this section of the Online Help…
– System-Wide Features and Information > System-Wide Features and Utilities > Lookup (Searching)
On a separate but related note, the Project and Job Fields are user-definable (i.e. you can rename the field titles), and there are also other user-definable “account coding” or “tracking” fields available in SpendMap, some of which have even more capabilities than the Project and Job Fields. So if you only need to track purchases by Project or Job but nothing else, you might want to use the (user-definable) Cost Center field, rather than the Project or Job fields, since there is more reporting available for the Cost Center Field than any of the other fields. So consider renaming “Cost Center” to “Job” and then you can use the Job Field for something else, or you can just rename it to “N/A” or “Not Used” or something if you don’t need it (you can’t have two fields with the same title).
For more details, take a look at the subsection called “Account Code Fields and Segmentation”, in this section of the Online Help…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Master Files > Account Coding (Overview & Guidelines)
Have a great day!
The Free-Procurement Project 