REQUISITIONS AND APPROVAL > Approval > Build documents from approved requisitions >
Once fully approved, Item Requisitions and Purchase Requisitions can be converted or "flipped" into procurement documents (POs, Releases or RFQs), with no duplicate data entry.
The resulting documents can either be 1) sent back to the Requisitioner, or 2) sent to one or more Buyers to work on, or 3) orders can be sent directly to suppliers (see No-Touch POs, below).
Item Requisitions (but not Purchase Requisitions) can optionally be split onto multiple POs or other documents (e.g. if they contain items from multiple suppliers) and/or consolidated with other Item Reqs to save shipping costs.
See Types of Requisitions and Workflow for an overview of how this fits into the overall requisitioning process.
Automatic vs. Manual Mode
There are two utilities that can be used to convert approved requisitions into POs and other documents; Build Using Established Settings (automatic mode) and Approved Req Staging Area (manual mode).
Automatic Mode builds POs and other documents with information already in the system, without the need to review each requisition. Manual Mode is used when Buyers want to review and edit reqs before building the resulting procurement documents.
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“Automatic mode” is the fastest and easiest of the two options and is generally used when requisitions are complete, that is, the reqs have all the necessary information needed to create the resulting documents OR that information can default from the various master files during the build process, which the system will do automatically whenever possible.
Also, while you can build all types of procurement documents from reqs with automatic mode (POs, Releases and/or RFQs), you must generate the same document type for all reqs that you select to build in a particular build session.
Automatic mode does not provide an opportunity to review requisitions prior to the build operation and, while the easier of the two options, may not be practical when reqs are incomplete and significant input is still needed before orders can be placed with suppliers.
That said, if some data entry is needed prior to placing orders with suppliers, it can be done in the various document work areas. See Document Work Areas, below.
TIP: If you use Purchase Reqs (as opposed to Item Reqs), you can also build POs immediately as the Reqs are approved (i.e. rather than running the Build Utility as a separate step).
“Manual mode”, on the other hand, is more flexible and provides additional options for those with more complex environments (albeit, with additional screens and steps).
Manual mode is used when you want to review and possibly edit requisitions prior to building subsequent documents, for example, where master file data and information on the source requisitions may be incomplete, such as in a centralized Purchasing environment where Buyers or other procurement staff typically “fill in the blanks” or otherwise add value before placing orders, such as selecting the supplier, negotiating final pricing, etc.
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Document Work Areas
Other than POs that are sent to suppliers automatically as part of the build process (see No-Touch POs, below), the build process will send documents to one or more users’ PO Work Area, Release Work Area, RFQ Work Area and/or Purchase Requisition Work Area.
You can select who will get the documents with the setting called "Route POs to" in Misc. Approval Rules and Settings.
Depending on how your system is configured and the options you are using, a single build operation may result in the creation of multiple document types, with documents being routed to one or more users. For example, you might built reqs into 10 Purchase Orders and split them up between 3 Buyers.
You can optionally use automatic notifications to let people know that they have new documents to work on.
No-Touch POs (send orders directly to suppliers)
You can send Purchase Orders to suppliers immediately as they are built from approved Requisitions, rather than sending them to a user’s PO Work Area to process and send to the supplier as a separate step.
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If the information on Purchase Orders is complete when they are built from requisitions, you can optionally send POs to your suppliers electronically rather than sending the POs to a user’s PO Work Area to be processed and sent to the supplier as a separate step.
If all of the following are true, then the POs will process immediately and will be sent to the supplier instead of being sent to the user's PO Work Area:
1) The applicable setting is enabled in Miscellaneous Approval Rules and Settings,
2) The user’s profile is configured to auto-assign PO numbers,
3) The new POs pass validation, that is, all business rules are satisfied, all mandatory fields are filled in, etc. For example, if the supplier is not specified on an Item Requisition, obviously a PO cannot be sent. Similarly, if you have specified that some fields are mandatory on POs, those fields will need to be filled in, either on the source requisition, or defaulted from the various Master Files during the document build process (which SpendMap will do automatically whenever possible).
4) The applicable supplier is setup to receive POs electronically (i.e. e-mail or xml).
NOTE: If you’re using this feature and any of the above conditions are not met for a particular PO, the PO will be sent to the user's PO Work Area, since the PO needs additional work before it can be sent to the supplier. This applies on an order-by-order basis so, for example, if you build 10 POs from approved Requisitions and two of the 10 are incomplete, the eight (complete) orders will go directly to the suppliers automatically, and the two incomplete orders will be sent to a user's PO Work Area to finish off and send to the supplier as a separate step. See Document Work Areas, above.
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Unattended Mode
If using Automatic Mode, you can build POs and other documents from approved reqs either by manually selecting the applicable menu option or toolbar button from time to time or you can execute this process unattended.
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Your choice would typically be determined by the volume of transactions, how timely the procurement process needs to be (i.e. how quickly orders need to be placed) and whether Buyers prefer to work on documents in batches or individually.
Some SpendMap users build documents every few minutes (so that orders and sent to suppliers almost immediately as reqs are approved), while some Purchasing Departments prefer to let requisitions accumulate and may only build documents once per day or a few times per week in order to improve economies of scale for transaction processing or to provide for more opportunity to consolidate orders to reduce shipping costs.
In any event, if you run the build operation frequently, you may decide to execute this process using unattended mode as opposed to making it someone’s job to select the applicable menu option or toolbar button throughout the day.
TIP: If you use Purchase Reqs (as opposed to Item Reqs), you can also build POs immediately as the Reqs are approved (i.e. rather than running the Build Utility as a separate step.
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Closed Requisition Log
When reqs are built into POs or other procurement documents, the details of each requisition are also stored in the Closed Req Log for reference purposes.
In the Log, you can see the details of each req, who approved each item and when, and the resulting document that each req was built into.
