Document Management

Restricting users to their own Purchase Orders in your Free PO Software

Do you have more than one person working in your Free Version of SpendMap?

Would you like to restrict their access so that they can only see their own POs or maybe their own department’s orders, for example, when receiving or checking the status of Purchase Orders?

Just use the Document Access setting, at the top of the [Permissions] tab in the User Master File…

This setting will restrict the user to the applicable Purchase Orders in the following areas of the software…

  • View Purchase Order Status
  • View Release Status
  • PO Acknowledgments
  • Receive PO
  • Reprint PO
  • Reprint Release
  • Cancel Purchase Order
  • Cancel Release
  • View Cost Center History
  • View Cost Center Budgets
  • Document Lookups (when searching for POs and other documents)

Open Order Warning in your Free Purchase Order Software

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…

  1. Check before you start:  You can always use View PO Status or View Item History to see the orders that are out there, before going into your PO Work Area to create a new order…
    – PURCHASING > Status & Inquiries > PO Status > Current POs
    – PURCHASING > Status & Inquiries > Item History
  2. Check while you’re at it:  Better yet, while adding new items to Purchase Orders in your PO Work Area, you can also use the [History] button at the bottom of the PO Line Item Details screen, to see the complete purchase history of the item.  If you click to see the [Details] of a recent purchase, you will see both the original order quantity, as well as the quantity on-order.
  3. Let SpendMap check for you:  Even better yet, to make sure that your Buyers are aware of any open orders, without them having to proactively look for that information, you can use the Open Order Warning feature in SpendMap, to actively warn them if they attempt to create a duplicate order…

Open Order Warning

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…

Open Order Warning in Free Purchase Order Software

 

Seeing other users’ work in your Free Purchase Order Software

PO-Work-Area-Toolbar-ButtonRandy works at a consulting firm in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was asking why users aren’t able to see other people’s work in SpendMap…

“I installed the free version of SpendMap on a server for two users. They are trying to see each other’s work (one added a PO, but the other can’t see it under the PO Main screen). Is this the way it is supposed to work?”

Randy is referring to Purchase Orders in the users’ PO Work Areas, which contain their “work in progress” (i.e. the POs that are still “on their desks”).  When they’re finished, they will process the new POs, which will update many areas of the system, so that everyone can see (provided they have the appropriate permissions).

So yes, Purchase Orders, Requisitions, RFQs and other “pending” documents/transactions will not be visible (in most areas of the system) until they are processed.

To learn more, check out this section of the Online Help…
– System-Wide Features and Information > System-Wide Features and Utilities > Document Work Areas

 

Bob split and he has my Purchase Order

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

Transfer PO to another user
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.