purchase order system

Hope you Like our new System Overview Tutorial

Hey there fellow SpendMappers,

Exciting plans are in the works to expand the Free-Procurement Project and we’ll need to explain what we do to a bunch more nice people like you, so we put together this little System Overview video.

If you have a Google account, please Like the video on YouTube to encourage others to give SpendMap a try.

Thanks for your support.  We hope you like the new System Overview tutorial and the other updated tutorials that we’ve been working on.  Even more coming your way soon.

Hope your day is super so far!

-Stacy

SpendMap System Overview Video

We got you some free PO Software for the holidays

Happy holidays!

This year we got you a totally free Purchase Order software system and support.

Hope it fits.

Feel free to re-gift to your friends and business associates.  Everyone loves free PO Software in their stocking, from your lawyer to your dentist to your contractor.

Have fun and be safe everyone.

– Your friends at the Free-Procurement Project and SpendMap.

A gift for you.

People are still skeptical of free Purchase Order Software

skepticalMore than two years into the Free-Procurement Project, we’ve given away more than 20,000 free Purchase Order systems to SMBs in over 100 countries, yet people are still skeptical.

Susan works in a Hospice in Florida, a non-profit organization helping families when they need it most.  Hers is exactly the type of organization that we’re trying to help with this Project.

Susan kindly responded to the survey that we send out a few weeks after people download the free software, and wrote…

“The purchase orders are great. The problem I had was the inability to email the purchase orders out. I received error messages and determined that this software program really isn’t free.  The act of misleading the end user is what I was most disappointed in.”

The message she is referring to says that the e-mail module needs to be set up, not that it needs to be purchased.  I think perhaps Susan must have had an underlying assumption that a totally free Purchase Order System, worth literally thousands of dollars, is too good to be true, which led her to jump to a wrong conclusion.

And Susan is not alone.  Despite our best efforts, people still think there’s a catch.

So for all you skeptics out there, I’m here to tell you that the free version of SpendMap it just that, totally free.

Trust is a pretty hard thing to earn on the Internet these days but we’re trying.

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.

Skype support for free Purchase Order Software

Our Support Group is now supporting Skype for our worldwide users.

So if you buy a Service Plan, per-incident support or other professional services, you can now call us free of charge from anywhere in the world.

Seems like a nice complement to the free Purchase Order Software.

As always, you can still get totally free support with the free support ticket system.

We’ll provide you with our Skype contact details when you place your order for services.

Have a great day!

Installing your free Purchase Order Software on a network for multi-user access

There seems to be some confusion about multi-user access to the free version of SpendMap.

We’ve had quite a few questions about upgrading to the (paid) web-based version of SpendMap in order to have more than one person using the system at the same time, but upgrading is often not necessary.

So to set the record straight, in this post I’ll outline how you can install your free Purchase Order Software on a network server for multi-user access, and I’ll also outline the additional benefits of (optionally) upgrading to the web-based version of SpendMap.

So for the record, “web-based” and “multi-user” are not the same thing.  The free (Windows/desktop) version of SpendMap can be installed on your server, and you can roll it out to as many people as you want.  Each user will run the software on their PC workstation, while accessing the shared database on the network server.  So when someone creates a Requisition or a Purchase Order or whatever, other users will be able to see and work on the order as well (provided you give them the ability to see other people’s orders).

To install your free Purchase Order Software on a network for multi-user access, just follow the instructions in the Getting Started Documentation that came with your free software…

Free Purchase Order Software network installation instructions

So why do I need the web-based version of SpendMap?

You might not!

If you’re working in a small business or a small buying group of a larger organization, you might not need a web-based e-procurement system.  If you don’t mind setting up software on each PC workstation, then our free Purchase Order Software might certainly be enough for you.

But if lots of people need to access your Purchase Order System, then you might consider upgrading to the web-based version, which runs inside your web-browser, so your staff can access it from anywhere, without having to set up software on their PCs.

So for most companies, it comes down to ease of deployment.  While there are some other benefits, in general the more users you have, the more benefit there is to upgrading to the web-based version.  But if you don’t have too many users, then the free version is probably all you’ll need.

And yes, you can start with the free version and upgrade to the web-based version down the road if you like, with no loss of data…everything in your free version will be brought forward automatically, including Master Files, settings, Purchase Orders and other transactions, etc.

Your Free Purchase Order Software is Here

Did you hear the “pop”?  That was us celebrating the arrival of the world’s first free e-procurement system.

You can download your copy here.

We’ve tried to predict your questions and we put that knowledge into the online help system and the first round of tutorial videos.  But we aren’t expecting to hit a home run right out of the gate, so please send us your feedback and let us know what else we can do to help.

And don’t forget to sign up for this Blog.  As we add to the software and our library of tutorials or other resources, we’ll be making blog posts to let you know that there’s something new to help.  If you don’t follow the blog, you won’t find out about the new stuff.

Thanks again for trying the free version of SpendMap!

Summer 2011 Release

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been 9 months.

Lots of work but the improvements in this summer’s release, especially the many “ease-of-use” features, along with the new Help System, will definitely help new users get up and running with the system fast.  A definite prerequisite for this Free endeavour.

Next step is infrastructure to support mass-distribution of Free version (downloads, automatic updates, etc.).

Very exciting!