Screen Resolution Settings and your Free Purchase Order Software

We’ve had a few support tickets from people who are using the free version of SpendMap on Microsoft’s new Surface Pro Tablets, with the setting “Make text and other items larger or smaller” set pretty high (e.g. 150%).

Settings like this can affect SpendMap’s minimum screen resolution test, resulting in an error message that you don’t have the required minimum 1024×768 screen size.

If you get this error message, try adjusting that setting to 125% (or until you stop getting the message).

TIP: The higher your screen resolution, the smaller SpendMap (and other software applications) will appear on your screen.  Instead of adjusting your computer’s overall screen settings, you might also consider adjusting the “Font/screen scaling factor” in SpendMap, using setting #10 in Workstation Configuration Settings (PURCHASING > Setup system > Workstation configuration settings).  This will make SpendMap appear bigger on your screen, without affecting other apps on your PC.

screen resolution

How rejected requisitions affect budgets in your free Purchase Order Software

David works at a government agency in Texas and was wondering why rejected requisitions still show as commitments to the cost center’s budget.

Based on the settings in the Requisitions and Approvals Module, rejected requisitions will stay in the budget temporarily because often the Requisitioner will modify and re-process the requisition (e.g. try again with a different item or otherwise clean up whatever the Approver didn’t like).  So SpendMap will keep the budget “reserved”, to avoid that part of the budget being picked up by someone else, and therefore reduce the chance that the original Requisitioner will be “out of budget” when they try again.

But if they don’t want to try again, they can either 1) delete/cancel the requisition, or 2) there is a setting to “auto-delete” rejected requisitions after a certain number of days, which will eliminate that additional step, or if the user just forgets to cancel the Requisition.  You can find that “auto-delete” setting in here…
– REQUISITIONS AND APPROVAL > Setup system > Miscellaneous settings

Reminder:  Users will see rejected requisitions the next time they go into their Requisition Work Area.  If you would like to be a bit more proactive, just enable this e-mail notification…

Rejected requisition email notification

It’s ok to applaud your Free Purchase Order Software

Here’s another interesting blog post from Seth Godin.

Well friends, in case you were waiting for permission to “whoop, holler or applaud” as Seth puts it, here it is…

Please do let us know that you’re happy with the free version of SpendMap, by adding a comment to our Reviews Page, or by posting on our Facebook timeline.

We don’t ask for any money for you to use the software, for providing technical support or for maintaining this Blog, but we sure would appreciate if you could help spread the word.

Thanks and best regards,
– The Free-Procurement Project team

Achieve Budget Compliance with Free Purchase Order Software

As a follow-up to the Success Story that we posted about Managed Care Systems last May, Eric was kind enough to send us this note…

Thanks for sharing, Eric!

Control spending to save money

Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 1:30 PM
To: SpendMap
Subject: Good news

The numbers are in for last year. Because of SpendMap, we were under budget for 2013 by approximately 30,000 dollars!

For the past 5 years, we were over budget every year, by significant amounts.

Just wanted to share the great news with you.

Eric Jeffers
MCS, LLC

When Purchase Orders Beat P-cards

P-Card-TrapWe hear stories like this all the time.  Companies get tired of the paperwork and administrative effort of Purchase Orders and so they switch to Purchasing Cards (p-cards) to make things easier.

Often the p-card programs start off well and employees follow the guidelines (e.g. only to be used for low-value purchases, etc.).  But inevitably things start to “creep”, and before you know it the cards are being used to buy everything, and then you’ve lost control of spending.

But the good news is, with the free version of SpendMap, you can get the tight internal controls that can only be achieved with a proper Requisition and Purchase Order process, while significantly reducing the paperwork and administrative burden compared to your Grand Daddy’s old paper Purchase Orders.

Sometimes, when it comes to your company’s spending, there is such a thing as “too convenient”.

Free Purchase Order Software Goes Mainstream in 2013

2013 year reviewIt seems that you’re in pretty good company by choosing the free version of SpendMap.

In 2013, just over 17,000 people in 170 countries read our blog, resulting in just over 60,000 page views.

Of those, around 10,000 decided to download their free copy of SpendMap.

And it didn’t stop there.  Most of you elected to learn the system on your own using the free video tutorials, resulting in over 20,000 views on our YouTube channel, for a total of just over 60,000 minutes of viewing time.

But we also answered more than 500 free support tickets, for people who still had questions.

We feel honored that so many people put their faith in us, considering that free Purchase Order Software is still quite new to the industry.

If you are impressed with what we’re doing and would like to give back, please help spread the word to keep the momentum going.

Thanks for a great 2013 and all the best in 2014!

– Your friends at the Free-Procurement Project

New Expense Reimbursement Requests in 2014 Release of SpendMap

We are happy to officially announce the new Expense Reimbursement Approval functionality as part of the 2014 release of SpendMap, which also includes more than a dozen other new features and capabilities.

Companies usually spend money in two ways; either employees process Requisitions and Purchase Orders, or they just spend their own money and expense it later. By adding Expense Reimbursement Requests to our world-class e-procurement toolset, we are empowering our clients to capture and report on all non-payroll spending in one place.

With the new Expense Reimbursement approval features in SpendMap (sometimes called Expense Management, Expense Reporting, Travel and Expense, or T&E), you can replace your paper or Excel-based “expense sheets”, to reduce paperwork, accelerate the approval process, and simplify reporting for employee expense reimbursements.

expense reimbursements and approval

Much like Purchase Requisitions in SpendMap, Expense Reimbursement Requests can be routed for online approval based on predefined business rules, to ensure that proper approvals are obtained for every expense, every time, and Managers can receive automatic e-mail notifications of pending Requests.  Complete expense details are at the Approver’s fingertips, including previous spending history, up-to-date budget status, as well as a copy of any scanned receipts.

Once approved, SpendMap can send a “check request” to the Accounting, ERP or Payroll System to issue payment to the employee, with no duplicate data entry.

In addition to eliminating paperwork and accelerating the approval process, approved Expense Reimbursement Requests will update spending history, budgets, and many other areas of SpendMap.

Stay tuned for more details about the 2014 release in the new year…

Decimal places for price and quantity fields in your free PO System

By default, the Price and Quantity fields are set to two (2) decimal places in the Free Version of SpendMap (e.g. $123.12).

But when purchasing items with a very low unit price, you may need to increase the number of decimal places for prices, which you can do in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > User defined terminology and settings > User defined field settings

decimals in free PO system

You might also want to consider the unit of measure that you’re using.  For example, if you purchase by the thousand (M), you’d need fewer decimal places (e.g. $123.45 vs. $1.2345).  You can set up your units of measure in here…
– PURCHASING > Master Files > Units of measure > Add/modify/delete