Purchasing is a vital contributor to your manufacturing efficiency because it provides the material and subcontract services needed by your jobs.

Manufacturing companies need more item sourcing information than the one supplier typically offered by general accounting systems. Each item's allowable suppliers are designated on this screen, including your default supplier and the item's default manufacturer. A conversion multiplier allows you to buy in your supplier's unit of measure and convert the quantity to your unit of measure upon receipt.

Item reorder levels and lead days are specified here in the MRP Settings screen.

Purchase orders for raw materials and components are generated automatically by MRP based on each item's net demand relative to desired reorder levels. If you purchase items solely for the job, simply set the item's reorder level to zero and a PO will be triggered whenever job requirements materialize.

Planned purchase orders are backward scheduled from their earliest required dates so that items are received on a just in time basis.

Planned POs are assigned to each item's default Supplier, but you can select from other allowable suppliers assigned to this item prior to converting planned POs to actual POs.

The other type of POs that are automatically generated are for subcontract services. During the course of a job, it is common to send parts out for services such as plating, painting, and heat treating. POs for outside services are generated automatically by the Job Subcontracting screen.

After POs are generated, they can be reviewed in the Purchase Orders screen. Here we are looking at purchase order line items. Your quantity and unit cost for each item are listed in the upper grid. Each item's last cost is used by default, unless the item has a price in the purchase prices table.

The lower panel displays the supplier's quantity, unit of measure conversion multiplier, and the supplier price. If a particular manufacturer part number for the item is required, it can be specified as well.

POs can be Emailed to the supplier or printed out. Like all DBA forms, the PO can be customized either system-wide or for particular suppliers.

Open POs are listed in the PO Schedule screen, which enables you to track POs that are late relative to their required dates.

POs are received on this screen. In many cases, the Pre-Fill capability enables all line items to be received in a single batch process.

If the item requires lot or serial number control, lot and serial numbers are entered in this lower grid.

Item labels can be generated as needed directly from receipt transactions and can optionally include PO header information.

Received POs are matched with supplier invoices here in the PO Invoices screen. This confirms that you were billed properly, closes out the PO, and creates the supplier invoice for Accounts Payable or financial transfer.

If you wish to explore these purchasing processes in more detail, see our System Workflow video series. In particular, view these segments: Generate POs, Receive POs, Label Received Items, and Match POs.

Efficient purchasing reduces expediting, lowers costs, minimizes shortages, and reduces inventory. Instead of struggling with generic purchase orders, DBA automatically generates manufacturing purchase orders that are tightly synchronized with your job and inventory requirements.