The procurement workflow

When you add an inventory product to your quote, the New Quote Item page shows the number of stocked items available at all inventory locations. You can reserve stocked items for your quote to be sure that they will still be available when you close your deal. Refer to Reserve stocked items for product quote items (Procurement required).

When you close the deal and run the Won Opportunity Wizard, the wizard creates ticket, project, or contract charges for quoted items, and a sales order to track the charges. Refer to Activate/Create/Associate.

• The charges subject to procurement will go through the procurement process. Items not subject to procurement are updated to Ready to Deliver/Ship and will appear on the Delivery/Shipping tab.
• The sales order collects all the information related to the order in one place, including notes and to-dos. It lets you track the items until they are delivered and the order is fulfilled. Refer to Searching and managing sales orders.
• Charges added directly to a ticket, project, or contract that are based on a product subject to procurement will also go through the procurement process. You can pick items for the charge and transfer or deliver/ship items from the charge. Refer to Picking a stocked item for a charge and Delivering or shipping a stocked item on a charge.

Non-inventory quote items must be purchased when you close the deal. If these items are subject to procurement, when you run the Won Opportunity Wizard, their status is set to Need to Order/Fulfill. Then they are automatically routed to the Purchase Approval page (if required) or to Purchasing. Refer to Closing opportunities you have won.

Your company may require approval for purchases over a set amount. These purchases will be routed to the Purchase Approval page. From this page, users with the correct security permission can approve or reject the purchase. Refer to Purchase approvals (Procurement required).

The approval requirement and the amount that triggers it are set by a system setting. Refer to Inventory system settings.

When the status of a charge is set to Need to Order/Fulfill, and purchase approval is granted (if required), the item is routed to the Purchasing & Fulfillment page.

• An email is sent to the purchasing team to let them know that the items need to be ordered. The purchasing team is set up through an Inventory system setting. Refer to Purchasing Team.
• The Purchasing & Fulfillment page lists all charges that need to be ordered. From here, you can select multiple items and click a button to create a purchase order that contains all selected items. Although you can select items from multiple vendors, the purchase order can have only one vendor.
• When you submit the purchase order, the charge status of the items on the purchase order changes to On Order. The items are forwarded to the Receiving page. Refer to Creating POs from the Purchasing & Fulfillment page (Procurement required).

Purchase order items with a status of On Order will appear on the Receiving page. On this page, you can select one or more items from the same purchase order and click Receive Full/Partial to open the Receive Purchase Order page. From here, you can receive ordered items.

• If you don't receive the full quantity ordered for an item, the units you do receive are set to Ready to Deliver/Ship and they move to the Delivery & Shipping page. The remaining units stay on the Receiving page with the status set to Need to Order/Fulfill.
• If units of the charge are set to different statuses, the charge can appear on multiple procurement pages.
• If all purchase order items are fully received, the purchase order status is set to Received Full. Otherwise, the status is set to Received Partial. Refer to The Receiving page (Procurement required).

When a purchase order sets the Ship To address to Selected Organization, received items are drop-shipped to that organization and the charge status is automatically set to Delivered/Shipped. All other items are set to Ready to Deliver/Ship.

All items appear on the Delivery & Shipping page. This page contains two tabs, one for items Ready to Deliver/Ship and another for items with a status of Delivered/Shipped.

• On both tabs, you can print pick lists or packing lists for the selected items. If you select items for shipping to different destinations, a separate list is generated for each destination.
• When the items are on their way, you can click Deliver/Ship to change the status to Delivered/Shipped. A transfer record is created in Autotask. The items are forwarded to the Delivered/Shipped tab.
• The Delivered/Shipped tab lists all items with the status of Delivered/Shipped. If needed, you can cancel the delivery or shipment of items from this list and create pick and packing lists. Refer to The Delivery & Shipping page (Procurement required).
• From this page you can click to select items that you are ready to deliver or ship.

NOTE  You can also deliver or ship items from the New Charge or Edit Charge page. Refer to Delivering or shipping a stocked item on a charge.

When the last unfulfilled items on the sales order are shipped/delivered, you have the option to set the sales order to Fulfilled. Or, you can manually edit the sales order and select the Fulfilled status. Refer to Searching and managing sales orders.

NOTE  The sales order status is never automatically set to Fulfilled.

Like all charges, the items that go through the procurement process appear on the Approve & Post page. You can post the charges at any time, depending on your company's workflow, regardless of the item status.

IMPORTANT  If delivery or shipment of a charge is canceled and the charge has been posted, the posted charge is not automatically removed.

As the status of a purchase order item is updated, the procurement process can automatically send notifications to stakeholders:

• The charge owner (the user who created the charge)
• The ticket's primary resource for a ticket charge
• The project lead for a project charge
• The opportunity owner for a quoted item
• The sales order owner (if different from the opportunity owner)
• In addition, when items are forwarded to the Purchasing & Fulfillment page, a notification is sent to the purchasing team if the Purchasing Team system setting has been set up.

Refer to Enable/Disable Inventory Notifications.