setup

Date Format in your Free Purchase Order Software

Emma reached out to us, asking how to change the format of date fields in the Free Version of SpendMap…

“I have just registered but the date setting is incorrect. We are in the UK so the date needs to be formatted as DD/MM/YY whereas currently it is set to MM/DD/YY.”

Sure thing, Emma, you can change the format of your date fields in step 6/14 of the Setup Wizard that runs automatically when you log into your Live Copy of SpendMap for the first time.

After that, you can change it in User Defined Field Settings…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > User defined terminology and settings > User defined field settings

Separately, you can also fine-tune the date format for your printed Purchase Order forms, using the setting “Printed Date Format”, in PO Printing Settings…
– PURCHASING > Setup system> Purchase order settings > PO printing settings > Settings

New year, new budget period in your free Purchase Order Software

Marina from California jumped on a chat with us yesterday, asking how to set up a new budget period for 2021…

“We are currently using SpendMap but I do not have the instructions to open a new period.”

If you are tracking time-based budgets in SpendMap (e.g. yearly, monthly, quarterly, etc.), you need to create/enable each fiscal period before you can enter the budget amounts for each Cost Center (department, project, etc.). Do this using the [CREATE NEW FISCAL PERIOD] button, in here…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > Cost center history/budget settings

TIP: If your new year’s budgets are the same or similar to a previous year’s budgets, when you create the new fiscal period per above, you will see an option to [Copy] a previous year…this will duplicate each Cost Center’s budgets, so you don’t have to enter the new year’s budgets from scratch. You can then modify/tweak the budgets for each Cost Center if you like.

You can enter or modify the budgets for each Cost Center, in the Cost Center Master File, in here…
– PURCHASING > Master Files > Cost Centers > Add/Modify/Delete

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)

Budget Setup in your Free Purchase Order Software

This post reviews how to set up the budget tracking feature in your Live Copy of SpendMap.

If you’d like to see the budget tracking feature in action before you get started, it’s already set up in your Evaluation Copy of SpendMap (the copy with the sample data), and there’s a Walkthrough Tutorial called “Budget Tracking” that you can try, using the drop-list at the top-right of the Main Menu in SpendMap…

OK, here’s what you do to set it up in your Live Copy…

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Codes or Descriptions in your Free Purchase Order Software?

Did you know that you can display master file descriptions rather than codes on screens throughout SpendMap?

For example, if GL Account “0-663-1” isn’t meaningful for your users, you can display “Office Supplies” instead.  This applies to all of the main Master Files, including all account code fields, item/part numbers, supplier codes, and so on…

Display Description Instead of Code

If you would like SpendMap to display descriptions rather than the codes for one or more Master Files, here is where you can set that up…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > Master file settings > Master file code/description display options

Alternating Between Codes and Descriptions On-The-Fly

Regardless of whether you’re displaying codes or descriptions per above, you can alternate between the two at any time by pressing the <F2> key on your keyboard

Alternatively, you can hover your mouse over fields, like this…

Sorting Look-Up Lists

Drop-down lists can also be sorted either by code or description, using…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > Master file settings > Additional sort options for master file lookups

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.

 

Manual PO Numbers in your Free Purchase Order Software

By default, the Free Version of SpendMap will automatically assign incrementing PO numbers to each new Purchase Order that you enter in the system.  You can set up your “Next PO number” during the Setup Wizard that runs automatically when you log into your Live System for the first time.

But if you prefer to enter your PO numbers manually for each new order, just select the following menu in SpendMap…
– PURCHASING > Setup system > Incrementing document number sets > POs

Then modify PO Number Set A as follows.  From that point on, whenever you enter a new PO in your PO Work Area, the PO Number will be blank and you can enter it manually for each order.

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