A purchase order (PO) is a document (much like a contract) that a buyer sends to a seller to request services or goods. In Limble, POs can be easily managed and sent to your vendors.

You also need to have at least one vendor set up in Limble in order to create a PO, as both are tied to the process.

If you limit PO permissions to managers or finance personnel, your other users can make purchase requests for services, parts, and non-stock items.

In this article, you’ll learn how to set up and create purchase orders.

Where to Start a PO

Initial PO Setup

Adding Items to a PO

Additional Fields

PO Comments & Notifying Users

Moving to Ready to Receive & Sending the PO

Setting Reminders & Printing POs

There are lots of places within Limble where you can start a PO, including:

From within a task, find the green “+” button on the bottom right corner of the screen.

From the expanded list of options, select the PO icon.

(Note: users without purchasing permissions can select the “Request a Purchase” option, the shopping cart icon, to submit a request for items to users with PO permissions.)

From the new menu, select which type of PO you need: a part, service, or other.
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After you make your selection, you will be taken to the PO screen.

To get to the Purchase Order page, go to Locations > Select Your Location > Purchasing.

From the Purchase Order page, click “+ Add a Purchase Order.”

The PO screen will appear.

To get to the Manage Vendors page, go to Locations > Select Your Location > Vendors.

From the Manage Vendors page, click “POs.”

The PO screen will appear.

To get to the Manage Parts page, go to Locations > Select Your Location > Parts.

From the Manage Parts page, click “POs.” From the dropdown, select “Add a Purchase Order.”

The PO screen will appear.

Once you access the PO screen, you can fill out your purchase order.

Since the PO is the official contract between you and a vendor, we need to select a vendor. Click “Pick Vendor,” choose your desired vendor, and then click “Select.”

Your budget will automatically be your default budget. Enterprise customers change can customize this and create additional budgets with custom workflows, and set default budgets for different types of orders.

Assign the PO to the person authorized to approve purchases. By default, a PO is assigned to the person creating it. This can be changed when setting up a purchasing budget workflow, so different users can be the default approver depending on the budget.

After verifying the vendor, budget, and PO assignment, you can edit or add additional PO details.

By default, the PO Details section only displays the PO date and expected delivery date.

Premium can also add custom fields and even autofill them with specific vendor information. Commonly added custom fields include vendor contacts, terms (like net 15 or net 30), or asset name to quickly identify the asset in need of parts/services.

To add a custom field, click “New Field.”

From here, you can:

Once you’ve finished setting up your PO, you’ll be ready to add items such as parts, services, and other purchases.

If you’re adding items from the PO screen, select “Add Item.”

From the pop-up, select part, service, or other.

Once you’ve selected your item(s), you’ll be taken back to the PO screen. You can adjust the following line items:

(Note: general ledger is only available for Enterprise customers.)

Once you’ve finished adding items to your PO, you can add notes to the vendor, your “Bill To” address, and your “Ship To” address.

You can set default values by hovering over the field name and selecting the gear icon that appears.

From the new pop-up, add your desired default information and click “Submit.”

You can add comments to a PO similarly to how you can add them to a task. You can also notify other users about comments on a task.

To add a comment, select “Add Comment.”

Enter your desired text. You can also attach a file by selecting “Attach File.”

If you want to notify additional users of comments being made on a PO, click “Who will be sent notifications?”

From the new pop-up, you’ll see a list of users who will be notified of any comments. Typically this is the user who created the PO, and the user assigned to the PO, if they are different people.

To add another user or team, select “Add Someone.”

From the new pop-up, select the users, teams, or roles you’d like to be notified about comments from the PO.

You can also enter email addresses for external users you want to be notified about comments. If you’re entering more than one email, be sure to separate them with a semicolon.

Once you’ve chosen all of your desired users, click “Select.” When you’re finished, click “X” to return to the comment screen.

(Note: not all users may show up on the notifications screen. If you try to add a user who is already on the notification list, Limble will provide a warning message that the user has already been added to the list.)

Once you’re satisfied with your comment, attached desired files, and added users to the notification list, click “Submit.”

Your PO will remain in the setup status until you are ready to submit your PO. This allows you to make changes to your PO before you send it to your vendor.

Once you have added all of your desired items and filled out the necessary information, select “Start Next Step…” depending on your budget workflow, this may be an internal approval step or something else before you are sending the PO to your vendor.

In this example, we’ll assume that the user has full permissions and there are no additional approval steps, so we’ll select “Start Next Step: Ready to Receive.”

In the new pop-up, you will be able to edit and send your PO to your vendor. In this window, you can:

(Note: You can also create default PO templates with customized subject lines and messages. To do this, select “Default Template.” If you choose to do this, make your desired changes and click “Save.”)

The PO itself will generate as a PDF from the information you entered into the PO screen. Once you are satisfied with the email, click “Send Message.”

Your vendor should receive an email (with the PO as an attachment) that looks something like this:

If you have not added additional steps to your budget workflow, the PO will enter the “receive items” status.

You can schedule reminders for yourself or other users to follow up with vendors.

Open the PO and select the bell icon.

From the new pop-up, select a date (and a specific time if desired) to send the message.

Next, add emails. If you wish to send the notification to multiple users, separate each email with a semicolon.

Edit the subject line and message as desired. When you are ready to schedule the reminder, click “Set.”

You can also print your PO. Select the arrow icon. From the dropdown, select your desired print type.

The file will automatically download as a PDF.

Setting Up a Purchasing Budget and Workflow

The Purchase Approval Process

Purchase Requests vs Purchase Orders

Submitting a Purchase Request

Still don’t see what you’re looking for? Check out our YouTube channel for more tips and tricks! You can also reach out to us anytime at support@limblecmms.com.