What we use:
On our productions, we use DPO (Digital Purchase Order) to process our POs. This service uses an online system to obtain approval from the necessary people for the department of the purchase; each department can have a custom approval chain set.
To set up DPO for your production, please contact Production IT. Terms & Conditions for the purchase orders and production information (address, company name etc) will be required.
All purchases and rentals to be paid through accounts payable must first be authorized via an approved purchase order
Required Approvals & Steps
Purchase Order and Check Request Approvals
All purchases and rentals to be paid through accounts payable must first be authorized via an approved purchase order. All purchases to be paid upfront by check must first be authorized via an approved check request. Required Approvals for All Orders (Purchase Orders and Check Requests) The following people must approve all orders:
- Department Head
- UPM
- Accountant
For more information on POs see page 10 on the Accounting Production Manual
Creating a POs done by filling out a quick form that is then sent for approval to the pre-determined approvers for that department..
How are POs created and sent for approval?
How department heads approve POs.
The fastest way to get this done is your personal approval list. Here you will find all Purchase Orders where you are next in line to approve. Therefore you can’t miss any PO and accidentally let someone wait.
If you click on one PO you will see on the left side the approval chain of your purchase order. In the middle section you are able to review who has ordered the PO. If you click on the name, you are also able to send a direct email to that person. On the upper right side you can find all supplier information.
Below you are able to see the items of the Purchase Order. If you have been assigned to enter an account code, please enter the relevant codes for each item.
Once all information have been reviewed you can add either an approval or a user comment. If there are previous comments you are able to read them here as well.
Last but not least you have the option to approve this Purchase Order or decline it. In some cases you have the additional possibility to send the PO back to a previous approver. In this case don’t forget to include a comment why this PO has been sent back.
How to create a Purchase Order
Creating a PO within the Digital Purchase Order Software is quite simple. Just select your department from the dropdown list. Then, enter your supplier. You can either select an existing supplier or generate a new one, if your PO book admin has allowed that. To get to the next page, click next. In this demo PO book, we have set up a user-defined field called “Component,” where you can select a job number. However, depending on your admin settings, you might see something different here, or there might not be a field here at all.
In the last step you can create your items. Simply click on “Add Items” and add an item name, a description, the quantity, the net price, and the currency. Depending on your admin settings, you might also need to add an account code and a budget for this item. Similar to the supplier section, you might also be able to select pre-existing items. In that case, DPO will auto-fill all predefined information.
To finalize this Purchase Order, please click “Create New PO”. You have successfully created your first purchase order. As you can see, the system has assigned a unique Purchase Order ID to this PO already
How to amend a Purchase Order
Before you get started, please make sure, that you have the permission to amend purchase orders. If you open any PO, you should see a plus sign at the upper right corner. If don’t see this button, please ask your PO book administrator to give you this corresponding permission or make this change as an admin yourself. Simply click on your email address at the upper right corner, select administration and then go to the users tab. In there edit your own profile and activate the box “can amend”.
Going back to your PO, please click on the plus button and confirm your intention to amend. This will bring you back to the interface, where you usually create Purchase Orders. You can either add new items, edit the existing ones or modify the department, supplier or component information.
Sometimes it will happen, that you need to amend a PO many times. If this happens we made it simple for you, to keep the overview. Just click on the pdf button of your revised Purchase Order. The system will merge automatically the most recent revision while also including all previous versions into one document. That way, you have the complete history of the Purchase Order summarized in one file.
How to void a Purchase Order
Open the relevant purchase order and click the void button in the upper right corner of the PO. After confirming by clicking on the red button, your Purchase Order will be voided. One last note: This does not mean your PO has been deleted. The PO itself still exists and can be found in the filter of voided Purchase Orders. Digital Purchase Order does not allow the deletion of purchase orders. That way no Purchase Order ID can ever be lost.