This new video tutorial shows you how to quickly and easily approve supplier invoices by matching them to Purchase Orders and Receipts already in SpendMap (three-way matching).
The video also reviews Invoice Discrepancy approval and Non-PO Invoices as well.
Click the image below to watch the tutorial on YouTube, and don’t forget to visit our Channel to see 15 other video tutorials that will help you get started with the most popular features in your free Purchase Order system…
Have you ever encountered a situation where a Purchase Order or other transaction that you need is in someone else’s Work Area but that person is not available?
There are a few options in SpendMap for dealing with priority transactions when other users are either temporarily unavailable or have left your company without first delegating their work to others.
SpendMap includes a series of “Work Areas” that contain pending documents/transactions that you are working on (i.e. your work in progress). For example, your PO Work Area is where you can work on unprocessed Purchase Orders.
If you ever need to get a document/transaction out of another user’s Work Area, you can use the related “Transfer” utility to move the document from one user to another. For example, to move a PO from one user’s Work Area to another, use this menu option…
> PURCHASING > Purchase Orders > Transfer POs to another user’s work area
Again, that is just one example. Most documents/transactions include a Transfer utility, such as Requisitions, RFQs, Invoices, etc., which you’ll find right next to the menu to access the actual Work Area.
TIP: It’s fairly common for a System Administrator to remove the Transfer Utility when setting up some users’ profiles, so if you don’t see the menu option, ask your System Admin to adjust your User Definable Menus.
If someone leaves your company permanently without completing or delegating their work in SpendMap, you can either transfer the transactions in each Work Area individually, or you can just go ahead and delete the user’s account, in which case you’ll be notified that the user has pending transactions in their Work Areas, and you’ll be given the option to transfer all documents in all Work Areas in one shot.
If you have lots of users and aren’t quite sure where a document/transaction is (i.e. whose Work Area it’s in), try the Document Finder, which will search the entire system for the Purchase Order or other document number. From any modules, select…
> Help > Document finder
Finally, if a requisition approver is out of the office (the most common reason why a document/transaction might get tied up), use the Proxy approver feature rather than a Transfer utility…
> REQUISITIONS AND APPROVAL > Approval > Enable proxy approver
…or you can upgrade to the web-based version of SpendMap, so that you can approve requisitions using your smartphone or tablet while on the road.
Hope that helps.
Last week, our Sales Manager hosted a free system setup meeting for the owner of a small residential cleaning service company in California.
What I found interesting was this customer’s unconventional use of the software. She has a team of cleaners and is using SpendMap to keep track of their work by setting up each cleaner as a supplier in the Supplier Master File, and then creating a Purchase Order for each cleaning job, which she auto-emails from the system.
In addition to being an easy way to communicate with her team, she’ll have a complete history of all the jobs (orders) to refer back to as needed.
No budgets. No requisitions. She won’t even be using the Item Master File.
An unconventional use of a Purchase Order system, for sure, but why not? After all, the software is free and accomplishes the task.
So it got me thinking, what else might people use this free PO software for? I mean, since most of the system’s features are compartmentalized, there’s no reason why you need to use everything that the system offers.
Are you making use of the free version of SpendMap in an unconventional way? If so, we’d love to hear your story. Please shoot us an e-mail at free-procurement@spendmap.com.
Thanks!
We’ve had a few questions about copying Purchase Orders to create new POs in the free version of SpendMap.
There seems to be a bit of confusion about why there are two [COPY] buttons, one on the PO Work Area Summary Screen (where you see the list of Purchase Orders in your PO Work Area) and the other button on the Purchase Order Header Screen (where you see a summary of line items at the bottom of the screen). The later is actually called [COPY/CUT] since it provides dual functionality, as outlined below…
So, to clarify, one is used to copy an entire Purchase Order (including all details, and all line items) while the other is used to copy individual line items, either to somewhere else on the same PO or onto another PO in your Work Area.
If you select the [COPY] button at the bottom of the PO Work Area Summary Screen, you will be prompted to copy either the PO that is currently highlighted/selected in the list, or you can copy an already processed (i.e. live) PO, or a PO Template. In all cases, you’ll get a brand new Purchase Order in your PO Work Area, which you can then modify as needed before processing.
Quite separately, if you click the [COPY/CUT] button at the bottom of the Purchase Order Header Screen (just below the list of line items), you’ll see that “Copy” shows in the Line Column for the selected line item. Click the button again and it will change to “Cut”…
You are essentially “tagging” line items to be either duplicated or moved from their current location. You can tag as many items as you want and when you’re ready, just click the [ADD] button to add the lines to the bottom of the order, or click [INSERT] to paste the lines above the currently selected line.
TIP: When copying and cutting line items like this, you’re not restricted to the Purchase Order that you’re currently working on. You can also copy or move lines to and from other POs in your Work Area as well. For example, if you want to consolidate two POs into one, just [CUT] all the lines from one Purchase Order and add them to the other PO.
Hope this helps.
Nancy in Pennsylvania recently asked me about the best way to set up her part numbers in SpendMap. Specifically, she asked about the use of supplier item numbers when multiple suppliers provide the same item…
“How do item numbers relate to supplier item numbers? For example, if you have an item code but have several suppliers for that item, then I would think the item code needs to be generic (e.g. copy paper). But how or where do you record the item number from the supplier, so you order the correct things? If you use the supplier’s item number, then how do you have multiple suppliers for that item?“
That’s right Nancy, you can set up a “generic” part number for the item, which will be the same regardless of how many suppliers you buy it from (let’s call it the “internal item code”). Then, in the [Supplier] Folder of the Item Master File, you can set up as many suppliers for that item as you like, each with their own “supplier’s item code”…
The other alternative would be to set up multiple items in the Item Master, one for each supplier, but there are a number of benefits to having a single “internal” item code for all suppliers.
First and foremost, you will be able to run reports by your internal part number, so you’ll be able to see the purchase history of the item, regardless of who you bought it from.
Almost as important, there will only be one item in the Item Master File for your users to search for, regardless of who they’re buying it from, which is a bunch easier, especially for “casual” users like Requisitioners who may not be as well-trained as, say, Buyers or Purchasing Managers that use the system all day long.
Also please note that you can search for items by the supplier’s item number when creating Purchase Orders, Requisitions, or other transactions in the system, in addition to being able to search by your internal item number, by keyword in the description, and many other options.
Finally, since your suppliers may not be familiar with your internal item numbers, their part numbers (the “supplier’s item numbers”) will be inserted into the description of the Purchase Order automatically, so your suppliers will be able to see both your internal item number as well as their item number when processing Purchase Orders on their end.
An update has been posted for the free version of SpendMap, which now includes a “Forgot My Password” feature.
We have added a “Forget Password?” link to the Login Screen of your Live System. Just enter your User ID or e-mail address in the User ID Field and click the link to receive your login credentials by e-mail…
Please note that you can now also log into the system using your e-mail address rather than your SpendMap User ID in the first field (one less piece of information to remember).
To use this feature, you must have an e-mail address specified in the [Name/address] Folder of the User Master File. Also, your system must be able to connect to our Update Server (spendmap-updates.com) which will send out the e-mail with your login information (the free desktop application cannot send the e-mail itself, as that would present a security risk, plus you may not have enabled the e-mail module yet).
So please make sure that all your user accounts have an e-mail address set up in the applicable field.
To get the updated version of SpendMap, you can either wait for the next auto-update cycle (could take up to a week) or you can just select the menu HELP > CHECK FOR UPDATES from within SpendMap.
This new video tutorial outlines the free version of SpendMap that automates Purchase Orders and a whole lot more.
Click the image below to watch the video on YouTube…
We’ve had a few requests for help with importing your items (item catalogs) into the free Purchase Order Software during initial system setup (saves time over keying in all the item details manually).
So to help you out, we put together a new video tutorial on importing items into the Item Master File.
The video actually covers many generic concepts about SpendMap’s built-in integration tools, not just importing items, so it will also be helpful for you when importing other Master Files (suppliers, account codes, assets, etc), as well as setting up transactional interfaces (e.g. exporting approved invoices to your Accounts Payable system, etc.).
TIP: As you’ll see at the end of the tutorial on importing items, we’ve added a sample import configuration to your Evaluation System, along with a sample spreadsheet containing a few sample items that you can use to test the import utility. If you recently downloaded the free version, you may need to select the menu Help > Check For Updates to get these files.
You can watch all 14 video tutorials to help implement your free Purchase Order Software on our YouTube channel.
Thanks, and please keep the feedback coming!
I was speaking with Gwen in Connecticut about setting up user accounts in SpendMap for 20 or 30 of her staff. Gwen wondered if there was a way in SpendMap to only display information on each user’s own Requisitions and Purchase Orders but not orders that the other staff had placed.
While it’s common for managers/approvers to have visibility over an entire department or across a division, sometimes policy requires a more restricted view at the end-user (requisitioner) level, while sometimes document level filters are put in place just for ease of use (e.g. to simplify searches).
You can limit the scope of documents that each user will have access to by locking the document filter option on the way into View PO Status, View Requisition Status, the Receiving utility, etc.
Just use “Add/remove individual menus and pop-up prompts” and navigate to the applicable utility, then select “Lock-out this option” and select the desired filter…
If the user will need access to all documents within their cost center, you can specify their default cost center in the [Settings] folder of the User Master File.
On a related note, there’s also a setting in PO Processing Settings to hide pricing (dollar amounts) in these areas in case your pricing information is confidential but you need users to view other people’s orders, which is not uncommon in some central Receiving and Accounts Payable environments.
TIP: Use your Testing System to play around with this stuff without fear of messing up your Live System. When you run the Testing System, it will give you an opportunity to copy your Live System’s data into the Test System, including all the user accounts, settings, etc.
I recently helped a Free-Procurement customer with importing his items into the Item Master File in SpendMap and I thought a couple of the tips I gave him would be useful for you as well.
What I’m going to outline here applies to importing most of the system’s Master Files, not just items…
The Free-Procurement Project 