Using Purchase Order Authorisation in TBS

It is a very common thing to want to restrict the use of Purchase Orders by way of requiring an order to be authorised prior to being able to print that order.

TBS Purchase Orders always use the in built authorisation, however by default, a Purchase Order in TBS is simply automatically authorised upon initially being saved. Once you change the system preference to require the use of authorisation, then an order - upon initial saving - remains unauthorised, until a suitably approved user can authorise the order. Until an order is authorised it cannot be printed.

When Purchase Order Items are entered, they require having a Purchase Account Code set against them. And it is these Purchase Account Codes which are the key here for the authorisation system.

Each individual account code can be set as being 'held by' any given user. You can also set any number of 'additional authorisers' per account code :

Note : any account code which is NOT set to be being 'Held By' anyone will allow any user to authorise any order on that account code

There are some hidden options too, such as there is a preference to be able to check, for any Purchase Order for 'labour' (so primarily crew PO's) - to force a check that the supplier has valid insurance on file (in the Insurance tab of the Clients entry) - to tag such an account, set the purchase account entry Account Type field to a 'B'

Budgets

Budgets can be set up in various different ways : Annual (split monthly - spend it or lose it), Annual (split monthly - balance at end of month is rolled over to next), Annual (no monthly split, this allows for budgets which are used in seasonal type situations)

Next years budgets can be set up in advance of your year end - and when the period 12 month end update is run, next years figures are then automatically used to start the calculations for the period 1 budget. Rollover budgets lose their carry forward balance at a year end

Locking Accounts

If you need to put a temporary hold on spending for a while on any give account code (cashflow crises affect us all from time to time), then you can use the Account Locked box of a code. This doesn't prevent orders being entered but will prevent them being authorised whatever the budget allowable figure may be.

Working with the budgets

If you view the Account Budgets list, then you will see a list of currently active PO items against that account code, where you can view unauthorised entries, as well as authorised entries along with the authorised date :

Note : the 'Current Month Authorised' button does exactly as advertised and shows you all entries against that account code authorised in the current month.

Note : in the Purchase Order list, Special menu, you will find an option to 'Unauthorise' an order (an order which has been invoiced can only be unauthorised by an administrator) - and in the list of transactions against a purchase account code, you will authorisations as well as unauthorisations - as these can occur in different periods.

Note : when a budget is used up in any given period, a TBS administrator user can authorise any order whether within budget or not.

Communications around PO authorisations

TBS is designed to make for better communication both with your clients and amongst internal users. The PO authorisation section is no exception to this rule.

In the Purchase Order list - the Special menu allows anyone who has created a new Purchase Order (which at that stage is really a Purchase Request until it is authorised) to highlight an order, and choose the option to 'Request To Authorise PO' which will send an email to the account holder (and any others set as additional authorisers) asking for the PO to be authorised. Similarly an email will be sent to the originator of the order when it is authorised.

If you routinely have multiple authorisers for all account codes, there is a preference to email all authorisers upon a PO being authorised. This is more to follow up on the email asking auhtorisers to authorise a PO - so they know it has now been done by someone else ! This option is held as a Refs entry entitled : 'EmailAuthorisersOnAuthorise'

Individual suppliers can be tagged to prevent PO's being authorised against them by selecting the 'Refuse PO's' checkbox ticked. In this case, if an order is attempted to be authorised, an email is sent to the parties concerned to alert them of the refusal of the approval.