Within Procurify, there is both an internal Purchase Order (PO) number, as well as an external PO number. Understanding how these numbers work is your first step toward creating your own PO labeling system. First, let's break down the two types of PO numbers. Customers who use Auto PO cannot choose to configure their sequence unless they set this up before enabling Auto PO.
Article Contents
- Internal PO Number
- External PO Number
- Things to Know Before You Get Started
- How to set your PO Numbering
- Duplicate PO Numbers
- Disable PO Numbering Sequence
Internal PO Number
An internal PO number exists for each Purchase Order. The internal PO number will include "PF" preceding the number, starting at "PF1", and will increase incrementally with each new Purchase Order created: PF1, PF2, PF3... The internal number will always be assigned to Purchase Orders, even if you choose to use an external PO number.
External PO Number
The external PO number is a custom numbering format that you can assign to POs. The number on the external PO will automatically increase by a value of 1 each time a new PO is created. This field can be updated to a different value when needed. If you do not use the external number field, the external number will default to the internal PO number.
Things to Know Before You Get Started
It is possible to have a set of letters that appear within your external PO numbers. It is best to decide the structure before you create your first PO with an external number. After creating the first external number, the following Purchase Orders will include a PO number with that same structure.
There are some ways around this, but this would require you to enter your Purchase Order number each time manually. For more info on this, see below Choosing your PO Number During Purchase Order Creation.
When setting up your External PO formatting for the first time, it's important to keep in mind that:
- The External PO Number can be set up as a combination of letters and numbers.
- Example: Dash101
- Numbers can appear before letters/words, but the format must end with a number.
- Example: 2Dash101
- Only the number after the last letter increases incrementally, and the other numbers prior to the last letter will not increase.
- Example sequence: 2Dash101, 2Dash102, 2Dash103 etc.
- If there is no number after the last letter, 0 will be set as the last number and will increase sequentially.
- Example sequence: 2Dash, 2Dash1, 2Dash2 etc.
- The next external PO number is always increasing incrementally, and if a new greater number interrupts the sequence, the number sequence could be permanently increased by the most recent change.
- Example: My sequence was PO-100, PO-101, ... If a Purchaser manually types in PO-1000 into the "Custom" external PO number field, the next time a PO is created, the system will generate PO-1001.
Choosing your PO Number During Purchase Order Creation
When selecting a Purchase Order number, you are given three options. Read below to get more information on which option will work best for you.
None
The option to select None, for no external PO number, means that the PO will be labeled and tracked using the internal number (Example: PF34).
Use Next
Selecting Use Next will set the PO number as external. If this is your first time choosing this option, and you have not yet decided what your formatting should be, first check out the Things to Know Before You Get Started above.
Custom
The Custom option will allow you to create a custom PO number that does not follow the same formatting of the internal or external numbers. As long as the format of the entire label does not match the structure of the external PO number, the number that you use will not alter the order of the next external PO number. Based on the image above, we can see that the last used PO number was "30180519". If I create a new PO with the number "Brayson-30180520", the next PO number will still be "30180520" the next time "Use Next" is selected.
How to set your PO Numbering
You can only set up your PO numbering when creating a Purchase Order.
- Select the Procure tab on the left-hand navigation bar and select Procurement
- Check the box beside each item you intend to add to a Purchase Order
- Select Add to list
- Select Create Purchase Order
- On the next page, you will see an option at the top left-hand side of the screen External PO
- Select Custom to create a custom PO
- Finish creating the Purchase Order
Duplicate PO Numbers
It is possible to create duplicate PO numbers. In an instance where the PO number matches another Purchase Order number within the system, a pop-up window will alert you before creating the Purchase Order.
Disable PO Numbering Sequence
Select None when creating a new Purchase Order. Doing this will disable the PO sequencing and revert it back to the original number sequencing.
