What is a "Back to Back Purchase Order"?

Within OnRent you can raise a purchase order directly from the Purchase Orders area. However in a lot of instances, organisations will order directly from a supplier for rental items, sales items, third party transport or services that they don't provide themselves.

In many instances these need a purchase order to complete the process accurately with an audit trail of what was ordered with a correct reference, so that when the invoice comes in from the supplier, it can be matched to the approved purchase order.

OnRent allows you to easily raise the purchase orders for the relevant sub rental items, purchased stock or services linking straight from the order - this guide shows you how it's done.

If you are looking to sub-rent equipment you can follow the guide below to see how it's done:

How to add the items you need rent or sell, then purchase from a supplier:

If you add your sub rented items or sales items / services to your order - when doing so, make sure you click the "sub-rent" button or if its a sales item or service this changes to "purchase".

Sub Rented items:

For rental items or service items (recurring costs) you see the Sub Rent button.:

Sales Items / Sub Contracted Services

For sales / non stock sales items (one off costs) you see the Purchase button:

First of all set these to yes.

Specifying suppliers, prices & references:

When that's done you'll see a new set of boxes appear under the item on the quick pick screen. These differ slightly depending on whether the item is a rental or sales item.

If it's a rental / service item you'll see:

If it's a sales / non-stock / transport item you'll see:

Here you can optionally enter:

1: A supplier account.

2: The suppliers rental rate definition if its a rental item.

3: The supplier rental rate or a supplier buying price if its a sales item.

4: The suppliers reference (usually their order number)

5: A setting where you can copy the supplier info entered to the accessories if applicable.

You can also add or edit the above information by clicking the:
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Or by clicking "Edit" on the order item actions (if you have already added the item) - there you can revert the item back to your own stock or edit the details shown above after the line has been added.

If you want to set the same supplier to a selection of items quickly, you can do so from the costing view explained below.
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About the Supplier Reference:

Your supplier may give you different order numbers for different lines on your order, or they may give you the same reference for all lines - or even none at all.

Later, when you raise the linked purchase orders, there will be one purchase order per supplier reference, making it easier for your suppliers to tie a particular purchase order back to their own orders.

Copying the Supplier Information to the Accessories

When selecting to sub rent or purchase, you'll see that the Copy to Accessories button appears - this allows you to copy the supplier information to the accessories to easily add them to the same purchase order, if applicable.

Once it's set, even if you don't add any accessories at that point and add them later, it will set the same supplier information automatically.

If you want to revert back to using your own accessories, you can switch it off at any point.

Time to review the costs and raise the purchase orders!

When you have added all of your lines, click on the Actions menu option at the top of the order and choose Costs:

The costs mode of the order allows you to see all of the costs associated with your order before you raise any necessary purchase orders.

This is a great way of being able to see what you are going to be charged and set all of the required settings before raising the purchase orders.

Within the costs view you can see any items that are to be sub rented or purchased from a supplier. Here by clicking "price" or "discount" you can edit the values directly. You can also click on Action and Edit to edit the line information in more detail - for example to remove the supplier, or change the supplier rate definition etc.

You can use the blue ticks on the left hand side to select the items you want to process an action for.

Creating Purchase Orders

When you've set a supplier, a supplier rental rate or buying price and any necessary supplier reference, you can click the "Create Purchase Order" button to raise the purchase orders.

When you do this, you are asked to confirm - once you have confirmed yes - the purchase orders are created and the following screen displays:

Here you can click through to the linked Purchase Order by clicking on the PO number field or simply view and send it to the supplier by clicking the "Print" button. You'll notice that in the instance above, two purchase orders were created for two different suppliers.

If you have one supplier and the same supplier reference, then there will be one purchase order, if there is one supplier but two different supplier references then there will be two purchase orders.

Viewing the Margin - Costs vs Revenue - on an order:

In order to view the margin on an order you need to first set the "Estimated Return Date" or have a "Non-Open Ended" order.

By setting the end dates, this allows the projected rental charges and costs to calculate because they have a specified end date.

When you do this, you'll notice on the order screen the margin displays as follows in the following section:

FAQ:

What if I am not allowed to authorise a purchase order?

If the user has the permission to authorise a purchase order disabled against their role, the purchase order will not be given a number and will simply be a "Draft" purchase order. A user who has got the permission set to authorise a purchase order will need to go into the Draft Purchase Order, then approve it, to assign a purchase order number.

Changing or setting the supplier for multiple costs:

You can set the supplier for multiple lines at the same time by clicking the Costs button and ticking the costs and then set the supplier for the selected items. This is useful in the situation where

What if the purchase order I created was wrong and I want to regenerate a new one?

If this situation arises, you can simply edit the purchase order and then delete it depending on your permissions. Then this will unlink the purchase order from the costs and you can regenerate a new one by following the process as described above.

Can I find the linked Order from the Purchase Order screen?

Yes - you can see the Source Order link on the left of the purchase order page.

Can I create a new supplier directly from the Supplier selection?

Yes if you are in the "Add Item" or "Edit Item" page (not Quick Pick) where you select the supplier you'll see an "Add Supplier" button if you search for a supplier and one cannot be found. You can then create the supplier and when you click save, it will go back to the edit item page and add them automatically.