items

Decimal places in your Free Purchase Order Software

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 if you purchase 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

Decimal-places-PO-software

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

 

Item Pricing by Supplier in your Free Purchase Order Software

A common question that we get from new Spend-Mappers is how to set up pricing for each supplier, so that the correct price defaults on each new Purchase Order based on who you’re buying from.

Pricing by Supplier

For each item that your company buys, you can enter an unlimited number of suppliers, each with their own pricing.  Do this in the [Supplier] Folder of the Item Master File.  Here’s the menu path…

– PURCHASING > Master Files > Items > Add/Modify

One Price for all Suppliers

If you would rather not enter pricing for each supplier, you can enter a single price for the item in the Standard Price field, in the General Folder, instead.  In this case, the Standard Price will be used for all new Purchase Orders, regardless of supplier.

 

Part Numbers on the PO Form in your Free Purchase Order Software

Paul works in the coach (bus) industry in Canada and was asking how to include his item codes (part numbers) on his PO form in the Free Version of SpendMap because there is no column for “Item Code” on the default PO form layout that ships with the system.

As it turns out, there are five (5) PO form layouts that you can choose from in the Free Version of SpendMap; layouts 4 and 5 include a column for your internal item code.  You can switch form layouts using the [Change PO Layout Option] button in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system> Purchase order settings > PO printing settings > Settings .

Internal Item Codes vs. Supplier Item Codes

Please note, however, that we left the Item Code off most of the form layouts on purpose because typically your suppliers won’t be interested in your internal part numbers.

Their part numbers (i.e. the “Supplier’s Item Code”) will already appear in round brackets in the description of the line items on the PO form for the supplier’s reference.  Note that this only appears when you actually process your new POs (but not when you preview your draft POs in your PO Work Area).

You can enter suppliers’ item codes for an unlimited number of suppliers, in the [Supplier] folder of the Item Master File.

And here’s another blog post that explains the difference between your internal part numbers and your supplier’s part numbers.

item and supplier part numbers

Faster Pricing Setup in your Free Purchase Order Software

A popular feature in the Free Version of SpendMap is the ability to set up an unlimited number of suppliers for each item that you buy, along with supplier-specific pricing, freight charges, lead times, and other information that will be different for the item depending on who you’re buying it from.

You can enter pricing and other supplier-specific information in the [Supplier] folder of the Item Master File…

Suppliers in Free PO Software

But if you just can’t wait to start using SpendMap and don’t want to take the time to enter or import all those details for each supplier, another option is to just enter the price for the item in the Standard Price field, in the [General] folder, in which case that price will be used for the item regardless of which supplier you choose for each new Purchase Order…

Item Price in Free PO Software

Pro Tip:  If you want other information to default on each new PO aside from the pricing, you can set up a single supplier in the [Supplier] folder and simply enter * (an asterisk) instead of individual supplier codes, in which case the same price, freight charge, lead time, and other information will be used on all new POs (for all suppliers).

Just a couple of 100+ features that you’ll find in the totally free version of SpendMap.

Spend wisely, dear friends.

-FP

Item Catalogs in your Free Purchase Order Software

Most new SpendMap users get pretty jazzed about the Item Master File (item catalog) in SpendMap.  They love that they can put a list of approved items in front of their users.  They love how most of the data entry goes away when entering new Purchase Orders (since item descriptions, pricing, account coding, etc. will default on new POs based on the selected item).  And they love how they can run reports to get accurate spending history by item/part number.

But at some point the reality sets in and then comes the inevitable question, “You mean I have to set up all my items?”.

This post outlines some options for (and alternatives to) maintaining item catalogs in SpendMap…

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Importing Items (parts, products) into your Free Purchase Order Software

Abdul needs to get 9,000 items/parts/products into the free version of SpendMap and he isn’t about to type all that information in manually…

“We have about 9000 products. Do we have option to upload products in bulk?  Because if I add one by one it will take months to finish this task.”

For sure, manually typing in 9,000 items would take way too long!

You can import your items into SpendMap’s Item Master File to save all that data entry. It’s a two-step process as follows…

1) First you need to set up an Import Configuration to tell SpendMap where the specific pieces of information (fields) are in your Excel spreadsheet, TXT or CSV file. Here’s the menu path…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Configure import file layout

2) Then, to actually run the import utility and bring in all your items, use this…
– PURCHASING > Utility > Data Interfaces > Item master file > Item data > Import > Import into Item Master File

When you run the import utility (#2 above), it will prompt you to select the Import Configuration that you set up in #1 above, and then you will select your file to import.

But before you get started, may I suggest that you review the following section of the Online Help in SpendMap…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Integration Tools > Overview and General Information

Click the “YouTube” icon at the top of that Help section, to watch a video tutorial on importing data into SpendMap (the video actually uses importing of items in its examples).

Also, as you will see during the video tutorial, in the Evaluation Copy of SpendMap (the one that comes preloaded with sample data), we included a sample Excel spreadsheet with a few sample items to import, and there is an Import Configuration already set up to match that spreadsheet.  So give it a try in your Eval Copy first, to see how it works, before actually importing your items into your Live Copy of SpendMap.

Finally, here are a few other blog posts related to importing data.

Hope that helps.

-FP

“Add” vs. “Replace” when importing data into your Free Purchase Order Software

Peter works at a hotel/resort in Florida and had a great question about importing data into SpendMap…

“When I import my items, it just keeps adding the new items to the items that are already in the system.  Is there any way to start over and replace everything with the next list of imported items?”

Yes, by default all Master File imports in SpendMap will add to what is already in the Master File.  This is true not only of brand new items, but also new or changed fields for a particular item.  So, for example, you can import the same items over and over again, perhaps to update pricing or other details on an ongoing basis.

But if you’d like to start over, just enable the setting “Allow purging of master files when importing“, in the [Permissions] folder of the User Master File, and then you will see the following prompt the next time you run any of the Master File imports…

import-refresh

Move line items to another PO in your Free PO Software

To save time, you can “cut” line items from one Purchase Order in your PO Work Area and then “paste” the line items onto a different PO, rather than starting a new Purchase Order from scratch.

Perhaps you made a last-minute decision to use a different supplier for certain products or services or maybe you want the items moved to a different PO for some other reason.

Just use the [Copy/Cut] button at the bottom of the PO Header Screen to “tag” the applicable line item(s)…

Cut PO Line Item

Then move to the other PO and click the [Add] button to add the line items to the bottom of the list.  Or use [Insert] to add the items in between existing items on the PO…

Paste PO Line Items

All of the line item details will be carried forward to the new PO, including all data entry fields, any internal notes and attachments, split-charge account coding details, etc.

TIP: Use the [Copy/Cut] button to tag as many line items as you like, rather than moving them one at a time.

How to display ONLY those items from the supplier on your Purchase Order

There is a new feature in version 14 of SpendMap that you can use to limit the items that your staff can select while entering Purchase Orders, such that they will only be able to select the standard items that you have set up for that supplier in advance.  That is, you can prohibit the use of non-standard items/suppliers.

Just use the new setting in PO Entry Settings, which you can find here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system> Purchase Order settings > PO entry settings

Listing only-items-for-supplier in PO Software

Alternatively, without this formal restriction, users can also search for items by supplier while entering new POs.

Finally, if you forgo the restriction and allow your staff to select non-standard items/suppliers but still want to know when it’s happening, you can use the setting “Log if non-standard supplier is chosen”, in System Alert Log Settings…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > System alert log settings

How to copy items, suppliers and other Master File codes in your free PO Software

On the heels of last week’s blog post on time-saving tips, John makes custom t-shirts and was asking if he can copy items to save time…

“Is there any way of duplicating an item? I have several items that are all the same except for item (part number) and description.”

Yes, you can copy items, suppliers, account codes, and most other Master File codes in SpendMap to save time and reduce data entry.

Just go into the applicable Master File and click the [ADD] button to get a blank screen, then enter an existing code in the Code Field and you will be prompted to copy the existing code to a new code.  All details (fields) will be copied to the new code, any of which can then be modified as required.

This section of the Online Help has more information about generic features that can be used across all Master Files in SpendMap…
– System-Wide Features and Information > Master Files > About Master Files

Copy-item