Overview

Overview - Purchase Orders

Previous Top Next

Campground Master isn't designed to be a complete accounting system like QuickBooks, so it doesn't handle things like cost accounting, inventory valuation, average-cost or LIFO inventory cost updates, etc. However, some basic functionality has been included for easily entering order details and printing purchase orders that you might be able to use when re-ordering inventory -- or at least serve as a list for each vendor that you can give to the person in charge of ordering.

Of course these are simply called purchase orders due to their basic function, as an "order" to purchase inventory items. If you don't actually issue purchase orders but rather pay up front, that's between you and the vendor. Basically a "purchase order" here is a list of inventory items that you want to order from each vendor, with basic vendor information included to look like an official purchase order. You can add some specific information on the orders, either by vendor or for all orders. You can also add extra line-items like shipping or other charges so that they appear on the printed orders.

The basic procedure for handling purchase orders is:

1.	Select the items from inventory you want to order (and/or automatically add all items below their re-order threshold or other filter criteria).

2.	Adjust the quantities and cost of each item if necessary, and perhaps change vendors as needed.

3.	Add any extra line items (shipping, fees, etc.)

4.	Create the purchase orders (this creates the order records and puts them in the Print dialog ready to be printed).

5.	Print the purchase orders.

6.	Print mailing labels or envelopes if needed.

Later...

7.	When an order is received, go into the Receiving function, verify the quantities, and 'Receive' the items to update inventory and confirm the order has been fulfilled.

Note: The Campground Master database doesn't store complete purchase orders -- it works just like transactions, so that it simply keeps a list of the line items. Each line item is given an appropriate P.O. #, and that's what ties the line items together. It's smart enough to assign the same P.O. # to every line item ordered from the same vendor (in a single session), and when these are printed they will come out as coherent orders for each vendor. However there is no function that will show a complete purchase order on a single dialog -- they will always be listed as individual line items, similar to the Transaction History for a customer, or the Transactions tab view. You can locate purchase order items by P.O.# of course, to show all items that were on and order and even re-print it if necessary.

QuickBooks note: While it's feasible to get QuickBooks exporting set up to properly update item inventory levels for each item sold (because quantities are included with the daily sales reports exported to QuickBooks), the purchase orders and received items are not exported to QuickBooks at this time. So if you're trying to keep inventory levels accurate in both systems, the quantities of items received will have to be manually updated in either Campground Master or QuickBooks (depending on which system you use to create and receive purchase orders). It's probably better to only worry about the quantities in Campground Master (assuming you want the associated warnings and reports to function), and only update the inventory in QuickBooks if and when reports are needed for tax accounting.

Topics: