Multiple Parts/Vendors, Same PO?

[BoomerAuto]

We are still fairly new to using Mitchell and the Purchase Orders are much different than our old system. I have searched through the forums and have found no direct answer. First of all, can someone explain what the biggest benefits are to using the POs in Mitchell as the process seems to be a little complicated at times. Second, my main issue is that we order many parts from multiple vendors all for one job and we like to use the same PO # for each unique job. The main problem is though we can only attach one vendor to a PO. We are kind of struggling to really use the PO screen efficiently or effectively, so any help would greatly be appreciated.

[ricmorin]

Hi there and welcome to the Forum.

The benefits to using the PO system are many, but here are a few.

1. You know when something has been ordered.
2. You know when a part is due and when it is late.
3. You have an audit trail to trace a part, it's origin or it's price history.

In Manager, PO's are vendor centric; ie: there is only one vendor per order. You'd typical create one PO per order per vendor, but you don't have to. There is a feature where you can create ONE PO for a single vendor for ALL the parts needed on ALL your open Orders. Keep in mind this is still for a single vendor, just multiple orders. I don't use that feature much. It's the button in the upper right corner of the PO screen called 'Pick List from Orders".

If you add the vendor invoice number to your PO Ref/Inv field, those numbers will transfer over to the individual parts when received, making tracking a defective or warranty part much easier. The process should include closing the PO once all the parts have been received.

I've worked with three SMS's over the last 30 years and all of created PO's in this manner. Did your previous SMS create a single PO for multiple vendors? To me, THAT would be weird.