Creating a purchase order (PO) in Katana streamlines the acquisition of materials and products. This guide shows how to add items, manage supplier information, and integrate additional costs efficiently. It covers all the essential steps from initiation to confirmation of POs.
Purchase order (PO) functionality allows for purchasing materials and products from suppliers, increasing the stock inventory levels. If you want to purchase the manufacturing service of products from a contractor and track required ingredients, create an outsourced purchase order.
Read about purchase order Delivery statuses, Receiving a purchase order, Reverting a purchase order, buying in multiple currencies, or adding costs to purchase order.
In Katana, you can add all the required items from a supplier to a PO within only a few clicks. If you're missing other materials from this same supplier, a notification appears on the PO card to let you know. The required amount for each material is based on the Calculated stock quantity found in the Stock screen.
If you've created multiple Locations that have the Buy functionality enabled, you can choose which Location the items will be received.
Creating a purchase order
POs can be created through the global "+" sign, from a quick-add button on a Manufacturing order (MO), or on the Stock screen.
Click on the global "+" sign and select + Purchase order.
On a MO or in the Stock screen, click on the + Buy button at the end of the line of an item to create a PO for the required item. This is a quick way to create a PO for materials that are required by a MO, for products purchased for resale, or to re-establish optimal stock levels. In the quick-add window, you can choose "Add other missing items from the same supplier to the purchase order".
Each PO has a changeable delivery status. Statuses trigger inventory changes and help to monitor and manage purchasing activities.
General purchase order info
*Supplier
Name of the supplier being used to purchase the material or product.
*Order #
The PO's unique identifier. This is auto-generated but can be edited if needed (example: PO-1, PO-2).
Expected arrival
Date when items are expected to arrive (in full) to your warehouse.
*Created date
Date the PO was created. Set to "today" by default.
*Order currency
Currency of the order. Set to the supplier's currency by default (Standard, Professional, and Professional Plus plans offer multicurrency options).
Ship to
(Visible if you added multiple Locations with the Buy function). Select which Location the items on the PO will be received.
* = Required
Line items
At least 1 item needs to be added to a PO. You can add both materials and products to purchase orders. Only products with the "I buy this product" functionality enabled on the product card can be added to a PO.
*Item
Name of the item you're purchasing. Select an existing item or create a new one by typing in a material name and selecting Create new: [material name]. Only materials can be created via this flow on the PO.
Note: the field value is a combination of Variant code, Item name, and Variant option values (e.g. "[M-1] MyMaterial / White").
*Quantity
Amount of the purchased item. The Unit of Measure for the item can be set and edited on the item card. A maximum of 5 decimal places is allowed.
*Price per unit
Default Purchase Price (excluding tax) set on the item card.
Tax
Applicable Tax rate (e.g. VAT, GST) for the line item. Select a tax rate from the drop-down menu. Manage default Tax rate, edit, create and delete Tax rates from Settings → Tax rates.
Total price
Quantity x Price per Unit. A calculated field.
* = Required
The PO card does not include your company's address info or the shipping address of a specific Location, but address info will display if the PO is printed.
Additional costs table
If you're buying additional services (such as shipping) from your supplier, add these costs to the PO and distribute them between purchased items. Read more.
To add additional costs:
Click on the Additional costs button beneath the Items table.
Add the additional cost information to the row(s).
Columns (Additional costs)
*Cost
The name of the cost you're adding as an additional cost.
*Distribution method
How cost distribution between items will happen - either By value or Non-distributed.
Total price
The price for the added cost (in the order currency) .
Tax
Applicable Tax rate (e.g. VAT, GST) for the cost line. Tax is not distributed between items. Tax rates are chosen from the dropdown menu. You can manage the default Tax rate and edit, create, and delete Tax rates from Settings screen → Tax rates.
Adding missing items
It's easy in Katana to create a single PO for all items required from a supplier.
When you add a Supplier to a PO, Katana checks the stock status for all materials and products purchased from this supplier (based on the Default Supplier value defined on the item card).
If there are items with negative Calculated stock values in "Stock" that are not yet included in the PO, Katana will display a notification at the bottom of the page.
Click Add them... and a list of all missing items from the supplier will display where you can add them to the PO individually or in bulk with a single click.
The items will be added and existing item quantities will be updated on the PO to reflect the missing quantities in stock.
Additional info
In the Additional info section, you can add comments, like instructions for the purchasing personnel, or purchasing details, reference numbers, references to the location of relevant files, etc.
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