TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Purchase Order Entry Screen
- Putting An Order Together
- Saving a Purchase Order
- Searching for Existing Purchase Orders
- Receiving Goods
Introduction
The Merac back office software has the ability to create, amend and deliver orders using the ‘Purchase Order’ module. This module enables you to enter and track the order through it’s different stages, which helps to ensure better control, accountability and auditing of the ordering and delivery of stock items in the Merac software.
Purchase Order Entry Screen
To open the ‘Purchase Order’ screen:
Click on 1. the ‘Setup’ Icon, next 2. click ‘Stock’ Icon, then finally 3. double click the ‘Purchase Order’ icon.
The first step when creating a purchase order is to ensure all supplier and recipient details are correct within the ‘Purchase Order Entry’ Screen. This is done by filling in all the detail fields highlighted in the following pages
Supplier, Department and Stock Location Fields
Supplier:
Select the supplier you wish to order from using the dropdown menu. If you have a large number of suppliers, you can use the ‘Look up’ (glasses) icon to find the correct one more easily.
Department:
Select the specific ‘Department’ that is raising the Purchase Order from the dropdown menu. N.B. this can then be used later to filter existing orders by a specific ‘Department’, when looking for existing orders in the ‘Purchase Order list’ screen.
Stock Location
Pick the stock location this stock will be delivered into (added to) when processed as delivered. This does not have to be done at this point but will need to be selected before stock is marked as delivered.
Purchase Order Details Fields
Order No:
This is a unique number automatically generated by the system.
Our Reference:
This is the order reference for your business, this should be a unique alpha numeric code, this is how you will be able to identify this order in the future.
Order Date / Delivery Required by:
These can be selected from their respective drop downs menus, take care inputting these, as it is possible to back / future date both fields.
Notes:
If there’s any further details for the supplier, they can be entered in this field.
Delivery Details Fields
The next step is to ensure all the ‘Delivery Details’ information is inputted, to ensure the order is dispatched to the correct address and the supplier can reach the correct contact if required.
Please note the default delivery address can be set in the ‘Branch’ setting (found in Setup > Branch).
‘Delivery Address:’
Please note the default delivery address can be set in the ‘Branch’ setting (found in Setup > Branch).
If this needs to be amended, this can be done by clicking the ‘Delivery Address’ button.
This will open the delivery address input screen shown below. Enter the data as required, then click ‘Ok’.
In this form you can enter the usual contact email address for receipt of deliveries.
This will also update the 'Contact Email' in this section of the main 'Purchase Order Entry' screen (see below *)
Our Reference
This serves exactly the same purpose as entering the 'Our Reference' in the 'Purchase Order Details' section.
Delivery F.A.O.
Enter here the usual contact for receiving deliveries here (see below**)
Clicking 'Ok' on the above screen accepts any data entered and goes back to the main 'Purchase Order Entry' screen.
The other below fields in the 'Delivery Details' section are then explained below and can be populated with data as required.
Main Telephone No.:
You can enter the required contact telephone number here.
Fax No.:
You can enter the required fax number (if applicable) here.
Deliver F.A.O.:
This serves exactly the same purpose as entering the 'Delivery FAO' in the above pop-up address form.
You can also enter the required contact for receiving deliveries here (serves the same purpose as above **)
Contact Email:
You can also enter the required contact email address here. (serves the same purpose as above *)
Warehouse notes Sales/Breakage Fields
The ‘Warehouse Notes:’ fields are shown in the screenshot below.
Warehouse notes:
Enter any information/instructions for the staff overseeing the receipt of the goods here.
Show sales for the last ‘X’days:
Displays how many of the stock items have been sold within the time scale given.
This information is then displayed on the items to order section when a stock item is selected.
Reason code for Breakages:
This field is for receiving goods, assigning a reason if there are breakages.
There are several pre-set options but additional options can be added using the 
‘lookup’ icon.
Items to order fields
The ‘Items to Order’ fields are shown in the screenshot below.
Code:
This is the code assigned to the stock item.
Description:
This is the stock item description.
Sales Suffix:
If a sales suffix is applied to this stock item, it will be shown here.
Unit:
The unit of measurement this stock item is ordered in (each, litres, kilograms etc.).
Sold last ‘X’ Days:
Displays sales data for this stock item (as defined by using the ‘Show Sales for’ X ‘Days’ dropdown).
Qty in Stock:
This field shows how many of this stock item are already in stock.
Qty on Order:
This shows the quantity of this stock item currently on order (awaiting delivery) on other purchase orders
Qty Ordered:
The quantity of this stock item that you are ordering.
Latest Cost:
The last delivery cost of this stock item.
'Set to Barcode Order' Button
This button can be pressed once there are stock items in the order, to order them by barcode order.
Please Note:
The ‘Rec/ Received/of which broken’ field is covered later in this guide.
Putting An Order Together
There are two ways you can add stock items to your Purchase Order:
(a) Manually, i.e. by entering a stock item at a time.
(b) By clicking the ‘Auto Generate’ button and using this functionality to create the order.
Manually Adding Stock Items
You can begin to add stock items onto your purchase order by using the ‘Search’ icon, located in the ‘Items to Order’ section of the ‘Purchase Order Entry’ screen.
This will open the ‘Stock Index screen’.
The “Supplier” field is auto-filled, using your original selection.
Click the ‘Search’ button.
Click on the stock item you wish to add to your purchase order, so it becomes highlighted.
Click the ‘Use Selected Item’ button.
You will now be back at the main ‘Purchase Order Entry’ screen.
Items to Order Fields.
Next, ensure you have selected the correct item.
Check the ‘Qty Ordered’ field.
N.B. if you have set a ‘Re-Order qty:’ on this stock item, the ‘Qty Ordered’ will be is with this quantity. If required, you can edit the quantity by clicking in the ‘Qty Ordered’ box and enter the required value.
When you have clicked ‘✓’, the item and qty information will be added to the order.
Please Note:
If you entered a ‘Pack Size’ when you set up this item, if the quantity entered is not a multiple of
the specified pack size, a message will pop up “WARNING: this is not a multiple of the pack size!”.
This is just a warning you can still place the order with the non-standard quantity.
Likewise, if you entered a ‘Max Qty’ when setting up the stock item, if the quantity (i) in this single order, or (ii) for all pending orders, exceed the ‘Max Qty’ then a message will pop up “WARNING: this will result in over stocking!”.
Again, this is just a warning you can still place the order with this quantity.
If you see the above message, click ‘Ok’.
You can then adjust the quantity as required, or proceed with the quantity entered.
You will automatically have a blank field highlighted yellow (as seen below).
To add your next stock item to the order, click the ‘Search’ (binoculars) icon and repeat the above process to above to check and specify the quantity you want to order.
When all items have been added, they will now appear in the below screen.
At this point check the all the information in the purchase order.
Once you are sure all the details are correct, proceed to the section entitled Saving a Purchase Order.
Auto Generate Feature
Click on the ‘Auto Generate’ button to view a list of options you can select from.
Please note if you have selected a specific stock location (using the 'Location' dropdown) then following pop up appears.
If you want to view quantity information across all stock locations then change then click cancel.
Change the stock 'Location' in the dropdown to 'Not specified at this stage'.
You can then alter the stock location to be as required before you receive the items on the purchase order.
The options are an easy to use tool for quickly re-ordering multiple stock items.
Orders are generated using stock items that fit the criteria supplied using these tick boxes:
Order all items from this supplier where the quantity is less than the re-order level
Clicking this option adds all stock items with a current quantity lower than that of the re-order level.
(to use this functionality you must set the re-order quantity and re-order level on the relevant stock items)
Order all items from this supplier
Clicking this option adds all items purchased from the selected supplier.
You can remove individual stock items you do not want order, in the ‘Purchase Order Entry’ screen.
Take into account other undelivered Purchase Orders
Ticking this box will take into account stock items on other already on other, undelivered purchase orders.
Include items where the re-order qty is zero
Ticking this box will include stock items that don’t have a set re-order quantity.
(this will add items where no re-order quantity has been set on a stock item)
Only include items sold in the last X months
Ticking this box will generate an order including items sold within the time period selected.
This is useful because you may not want to re-order items
Include items listed as Alternate Supplier
Ticking this box adds stock items to the order, with this supplier selected as the alternate supplier (‘Alt Supplier’).
Select applicable tick boxes and Click ‘Ok’.
You will be redirected to the main PO screen.
You will find listed, all stock items that fit the "Auto Generate" criteria selected.
The Qty Ordered field is auto-filled using the reorder number assigned to the stock item. You can edit the Quantity by clicking in the Qty Ordered box and entering the value. Click ‘✓’, and the item quantity will be updated.
If you need to remove an item from the order, simply highlight it and click the ‘X’.
If there’s an additional item you’d like to add to the list, you can use use the search icon to find and add other stock items.
This is covered in detail in the section entitled 'Manually Adding Stock Items'.
Once all items are added to the order, the summary data is shown in the bottom right hand corner of the screen
Total Order Cost: This is the total cost of your order.
Received so Far: This is for tracking your received items.
Damaged: This shows how many damaged items received.
Outstanding: Total outstanding amount on PO.
Saving a Purchase Order
At this point no data has been saved. The 'Order Status' can be seen in red text in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Currently you will notice the 'Order Status' is set to 'Order not saved'.
Once you have selected all stock items to order in their correct quantities, Click ‘Save’ to save the order.
Please note if you have missed any mandatory purchase order data you will be reminded you need to enter this first.
Once you have clicked 'Save' you will notice the 'Order Status' has now changed to 'Entered but not printed or sent'.
N.B. after this data has been saved, you can then close the purchase order screen if you want to come back and work on it later. Please note once saved and closed, saved purchase orders can be found in Setup > Stock > Purchase Order List. However, we will proceed with the process of completing a purchase order without exiting it, to show the end to end process.
To process the order to the next stage, you must click either the Email’ or ‘Print’.
You will then be asked if you wish to ‘Lock purchase order from further amendments’ Select ‘Yes’.
(1) If you clicked 'Print' this will open the Merac purchase order report which can be printed in the usual way.
If you want to just view the report then close it, this will be treated as though it has been printed (to save actually printing it)
(2) If you clicked 'Email' Merac will try and open Outlook and attach a PDF version of the above order.
So this requires your IT Team to install Outlook (and check Outlooks own 'Trust Center Settings' allow 3rd party app access)
The Supplier record in Merac must also have a valid email address entered for that supplier.
You can then enter any additional and amend the email content as required and send the email via Outlook.
Once either 1 or 2 has been done you will notice the 'Order Status' has now changed to 'Awaiting Delivery'.
Please note If you see this message: “The Order has not been checked and/or authorised – so it will be a draft”, you will need to click the Order Checked and Order Authorised tick boxes if you have the appropriate permissions to do so.
If you cannot do this you will need to ask a colleague with the relevant permission to do so, or ask a colleagues that can amend Merac 'Users' to change your 'Security Group' to one with permission to do this. N.B. order checking / authorising requirements can be disabled by those with access to Setup > System > System Options. These can be disabled in system options menu in the 'Stock' tab by unticking the options to 'Require Purchase Order Checking?' and 'Require Purchase Order Approval' then clicking 'Apply' and then 'Close'.
If order checking / authorisation is in place, once this have been done, you will need to Email or Print the order as above.
Please note if you need to amend a locked purchase order, you can unlock it by clicking ‘Unlock’. Again this requires your Merac 'User' to be in a 'Security Group' with the correct permission to do this.
Once unlocked you can then add or deduct stock items from the Purchase Order as before. When you have completed any amendments, simply click ‘Save’ again. The you will need to again repeat the above process to wither Email or Print the order, when it will go back to "locked" and the 'Order Status' goes back to 'Awaiting Delivery'.
Typically at this point you would then click 'Close' to exit this screen and wait for the order to be delivered.
Searching for Existing Purchase Orders
Once you have created any purchase order and got as far as saving that purchase order, or any stage beyond saving then all purchase order history can be found in the 'Purchase Order List' option. So to find any order that meets the above criteria, e.g. the order you just placed that was status 'Awaiting Delivery' you need to be in the 'Purchase Order List' option.
This is found in Merac by:
(1) click on ‘Setup’ then click (2) ‘Stock’, then double click on (3) ‘Purchase Order List’.
By default this screen will not show any purchased orders.
However if you simply click 'Search', the default selection criteria will find all 'Outstanding' purchase orders.
This would include the purchase order that was awaiting delivery, but could also contain many other orders.
To refine the search results you can first select the following criteria to help find your specific order
Supplier: Select purchase orders for a specific Supplier
Order Status: Select the purchase order status you want to find,
Stock Item Barcode: Search by Specific Stock Item Barcode.
Orders Placed From/To: Search by PO’s within specified date range.
Departments: Select the 'stock location' that a purchase order was for. specific Department.
Location: Select the 'stock location' that a purchase order was for.
With the required selection criteria selected click 'Search' to see the search results.
To open an order to receive / amend it, then double click the line for the relevant order.
Receiving Goods
After the Purchase Order has been sent via post/email and the stock arrives, there is s a simple process to ensure each item is accounted for accurately.
If the order is cancelled, this can be actioned by clicking ‘Cancel Order’(1)
If all items in the initial order are delivered, you can select (2)‘Receive All’.
Click ‘Save’ and you will be prompted to select a stock location. After selecting the correct location click ‘OK’.
A prompt will appear asking if you ‘want to spool barcodes for items received’.
Click ‘Yes’(if set up previously this will print barcodes for each item) or ‘No’.
Another prompt will follow asking if you ‘want to print goods inwards receipt’.
Click ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
Alternatively you can (3) individually receive each item line and alter the quantity received.
Receiving a Partially Delivered Order
Sometimes you may receive only part of an order. For example, you may have ordered 480 of a specific stock item.
The supplier only delivers 240. In this scenario you would need to adjust the ‘Qty to Rec’ve’ to be 240.
To do this, first click on the specific stock item, so it becomes highlighted yellow.
Click the ‘Qty to Rec’ve’ field and input the correct number of received items (e.g. 240)
N.B. if receiving items that are damaged, input the quantity that are damaged into ‘of which broken’ field.
Click the ‘Receive’ button.
If an item has not been delivered click ion the item so it' highlighted yellow, then click ‘Cancel Line’.
N.B. the program will automatically highlight the next stock item.
Repeat the steps detailed to receive / cancel any stock items as required.
N.B. by default any completed/cancelled lines will disappear from the order.
These can be viewed by ticking this 'Show completed / cancelled lines' box.
The items that have been completed (received) or cancelled with then show.
Please now check if the 'Stock Location' selected is correct using the relevant dropdown selector.
This is the stock location the stock will be delivered into.
If not you will be prompted to select the stock location, do this using pop up screen below.
After selecting the correct location (if required( click ‘OK’.
Once the stock location has been checked and selected, hen click ‘Save’ at the bottom of the screen.
A prompt will appear asking if you want to spool barcodes for all the stock items received’.
This is only for those customers who have purchased from and had installed by Merac, barcode label printers.
Click ‘Yes’ if you want to print barcode labels for the entire quantity of items in this order.
If you do not want to print any barcode labels at this point, click ‘No’.
Please note, if you select Yes, and proceed with printing, this will print a barcode label for each of the items in
the order. For example, if you ordered 500 Book A’s and 500 Book B’s, the system will then print 1000 barcode labels!
Click ‘Print’ to proceed with printing the labels.
Click 'Cancel' to exit this screen once any labels have printed (or if you decide not to print labels).
Next, a prompt will appear as follows.
Click ‘Yes’ to print this report, or ‘No’ if you do not want to at this point.
If you clicked ‘Yes’, the following screen will be displayed.
Clicking print will print a hard copy to the printer that has been selected.
Clicking screen will open this report on screen, so you can view it.
You can print a hard copy / export a report from this screen as usual from this screen.
Click ‘Close’ to exit the above screen.
You will now be back at the ‘Report Parameters’ screen, click ‘Cancel’ to exit this screen.
You will now be back at the ‘Purchase order Entry’ screen, click ‘Close’ to exit this screen.
You will notice that in the above example the order status now changed to 'Part Delivered'.
This is because we only delivered in 240 of the 480 Mars Bars ordered.
As this is the partial delivery it remains as an order until the remainder are delivered, or the remaining order is cancelled.
How this remaining stock on this partial delivery is processed is dealt with in the next section.
Receiving a Second Delivery
If an order was partially delivered, the remaining items would arrive in a second delivery.
In this scenario, it would be necessary to find and re-open a purchase order to receive the remaining items.
This would be done using the Purchase Order List screen.
Select the status 'Partially Delivered' will assist finding a partially delivered order quickly.
However you may want to add to he selection criteria as required, to narrow down the search more quickly
Once you have found the required Purchase Order, double click on it. This will open the Purchase Order Screen.
From here you can follow the instructions in the section of the guide entitled Receiving Goods.
In this case there is only one item in the order ‘Receive All’ can be clicked to receive all remaining items.
Alternatively, to receive only specific items, simply click on the item you wish to receive .
Please note, the ‘Qty to Rec’ve’ will autofill with the remainder of your order.
You can now cancel / amend / receive each line as required and detailed in the previous sections.
Once you have processed all necessary items, click the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the above screen.
Next, you will be prompted to select a ‘Stock Location’, if one was not already selected.
After selecting the correct location using the dropdown, click ‘Ok’.
As explained previously, a prompt will appear ‘Do you want to spool barcodes for items received?’.
Click ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as required.
As explained previously ‘Do you want to print goods inwards receipt’.
Click ‘Yes’ (to view / print the ‘Goods Inward Note’) or No’ as required.
You have now completed the purchase order.
Click the ‘Close’ button at the bottom of the ‘Purchase Order Entry’ screen to exit this screen.
Next, the ‘Close’ button at the bottom of the ‘Purchase Order List’ screen to exit this screen.