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The Purchase Order Assistant

3 minutes

📍 How to access this feature?
Customer quote or order record > “Purchase Order Assistant” button

The Purchase Order Assistant automatically generates supplier purchase orders from a customer quote or order, based on the supplier offers for your standard products.

1. Overview #

When a customer quote or order contains standard products, the assistant analyzes available supplier offers and proposes to generate the corresponding purchase orders, grouped by supplier.

Note: The assistant only processes lines containing standard products. Regular products (non-standard) are not handled by the assistant.

Difference with “Create Purchase Order” #

Customer quotes and orders offer two distinct actions for creating supplier purchase orders:

Action Function
Create Purchase Order Creates a single supplier purchase order by directly copying the document lines. The supplier must be chosen manually. Works with all products.
Purchase Order Assistant Analyzes standard products, automatically selects the best suppliers from available offers, and generates one purchase order per supplier. Works only with standard products.

Tip: Use “Create Purchase Order” for simple procurement from a single supplier. Use the assistant when your lines contain standard products with multiple supplier offers.

2. Launching the Assistant #

  1. Open the record of a quote or customer order
  2. Click the “Purchase Order Assistant” button in the document actions

The assistant opens and automatically analyzes the document lines.

Note: The button only appears if you have creation rights on the Supplier Purchase Orders module.

3. Assistant Screen #

The assistant displays a table with the document lines containing standard products:

Column Description
☑ Check or uncheck to include or exclude the line
Standard Product The product from the quote or order
Specific Product The actual product to order (editable)
Supplier The selected supplier offer (editable)
Purchase Price Unit price of the selected offer
Lead Time Delivery time in days
Quantity Quantity taken from the source document
Line Total Price × Quantity

The grand total is displayed at the bottom of the table and updates in real time.

4. Customizing Choices #

Before generating the orders, you can adjust each line:

  • Change specific product: select another specific product from the dropdown list
  • Change supplier: select another supplier offer from the dropdown list
  • Exclude a line: uncheck the box on the left
  • Select all / deselect all: use the checkbox in the column header

Note: Quantities are taken from the source document and cannot be modified in the assistant. If you need to adjust a quantity, modify it directly on the supplier purchase order after creation.

5. Generating Orders #

  1. Review your choices in the table
  2. Click “Generate Purchase Orders”
  3. The system automatically creates one supplier purchase order per distinct supplier
  4. You are redirected to the first purchase order created

What is created:

  • One supplier purchase order per distinct supplier among the selected lines
  • Each purchase order contains the lines for the corresponding specific products
  • Prices are those of the selected supplier offers
  • Quantities are identical to the source document
  • Purchase orders are created in draft status

Important: Supplier purchase orders are created as drafts. They must be reviewed and validated manually before being sent to the supplier.

6. Warnings #

The assistant may display warnings in a banner at the top of the screen:

Warning Cause Recommended Action
“No specific for…” The standard product has no linked specific product Create a specific product linked to the standard
“No valid offer…” No valid supplier offer for the specific products Add supplier offers

Lines with warnings are disabled (grayed-out checkbox) and cannot be included in the generation.

Note: Offer validity is evaluated at the source document date (for example, the quote date), in order to select offers applicable to the relevant period.

7. Typical Workflow #

Here is the complete usage workflow:

Step 1 — Prepare the catalog:

  1. Create your standard products with their pricing parameters
  2. Link specific products to each standard
  3. Create supplier offers on the specific products

Step 2 — Sell:
4. Create a customer quote or order with the standard products (sales prices are already calculated)

Step 3 — Procure:
5. From the quote or order, click “Purchase Order Assistant”
6. Review the choices in the assistant and adjust if necessary
7. Click “Generate Purchase Orders”
8. Review and send the supplier purchase orders

8. Frequently Asked Questions #

The “Purchase Order Assistant” button does not appear #

Verify that your profile has creation permission on the Supplier Purchase Orders module (Settings > Profiles).

The document does not contain any standard product #

The assistant displays an information message. Only lines containing standard products are processed by the assistant. For other products, use the “Create Purchase Order” button.

Can I modify purchase orders after generation? #

Yes. Purchase orders are created as drafts and are fully editable: you can adjust quantities, prices, add or remove lines before validating them.

What is the difference with “Create Purchase Order”? #

“Create Purchase Order” copies the document lines to a single purchase order, without analyzing supplier offers. The assistant automatically selects the best offers and creates one purchase order per supplier. See the comparison table in section 1.

Related References 🔗 #