Managing Purchase Orders (PO) in Neto goes beyond simply creating and sending orders to your suppliers. The platform provides a range of powerful tools to help you stay organised, reduce manual effort, and maintain full control over your procurement workflow.
This article covers four key capabilities that enhance how you manage your purchase orders:
- Attaching Files to a Purchase Order: Keep invoices, delivery notes, and other supporting documents directly linked to relevant purchase orders, eliminating the need for external file storage.
- Merging Purchase Orders: Consolidate multiple purchase orders for the same supplier and location into a single order to reduce administrative overhead and the risk of receiving separate shipments.
- Duplicating Purchase Orders: Quickly create a new purchase order based on an existing one, saving time when you regularly order the same or similar products from your suppliers.
- Exporting Purchase Orders: Generate a CSV file of your purchase orders, filtered to just the orders you need, and download it for reporting or analysis. Every export is saved to your export history so you can revisit and re-download it later, without having to regenerate the file.
Together, these features streamline your purchasing process and help ensure your records remain accurate and easy to manage.
Attaching a File Linked to a Purchase Order
The Attach File feature allows you to link relevant documents and images directly to a purchase order, keeping all associated files in one place rather than storing them separately. By utilizing this functionality, you can upload and store supporting documents and images within a purchase order. This removes the need to maintain files in external locations or manually link them with your purchase orders.
Follow the steps shown below to attach files to a purchase order:
1. Navigate to the Purchase Orders section in your control panel. You can find this section under Stock Control > Purchase Orders.
2. Either create a brand-new purchase order or open an existing one currently in "Draft" or "Pending" status.
3. If you’ve chosen an existing purchase order, click on Edit to proceed.
4. Within the purchase order details section, select the Attach Files button.
5. A modal window opens up. You can either manually drag and drop your file (max 10 MB each) into the designated area or click to choose a file by browsing your device. Once a file is selected, it's displayed in the upload region. Proceed to upload the attachment.
6. After a file has been uploaded, you can view or delete it directly from the modal window.
7. Each purchase order supports a maximum of 5 files. Supported file extensions include JPG, PNG, GIF, PDF, and WebP, respectively. Once you're ready, click Save Attachment to finalize the upload.
Important: If you encounter an error while uploading, please ensure the file type is compatible with our Neto system and its size doesn’t exceed 10 MB. Should the issue persist, please reach out to our support team for further assistance.
8. Your attached files can be accessed under the Actions column of the purchase order overview page. Clicking View will open the file in a new browser tab.
Merging Purchase Orders
The Merge Purchase Orders feature allows you to combine multiple purchase orders for the same supplier and delivery location into a single consolidated purchase order. This is particularly useful when your supplier has already received multiple purchase orders and is shipping the goods together in one shipment, helping you avoid the manual effort of recreating orders and the risk of receiving separate shipments that could have been combined.
Follow the steps shown below to merge purchase orders:
1. Navigate to the Purchase Orders section in your control panel under Stock Control > Purchase Orders.
2. From the Purchase Orders (PO) page, select multiple POs by checking the checkbox next to each one. Once multiple POs are selected, click on the Merge Orders button to move ahead.
3. The system displays a pop-up confirming your purchase orders' merge request. Click Merge Orders again to proceed.
4. The system validates the selected purchase orders. They must not only be from the same supplier and location to be eligible for merging, but must also meet a certain eligibility status. If the selected purchase orders don't meet the validation criteria, the following error messages will be displayed:
- Different suppliers: An error appears if the selected purchase orders are not all assigned to the same supplier.
- Ineligible status: Purchase orders having a “Received” or “Cancelled” status cannot be merged. A pop-up warning is displayed if any of the selected purchase orders don't have an eligible status.
5. If the selected purchase orders are eligible for merging, the most recent order gets merged into the oldest one and is tagged with a “Cancelled” status, while the remainder is tagged with a “Draft” status. Once the merging process is complete, the system displays a success message to confirm the same.
Duplicating Purchase Orders
The Duplicate Purchase Order feature allows you to create a new purchase order based on an existing one, carrying over the same line items and details. This is useful when you frequently send the same or similar orders to your suppliers, removing the need to recreate purchase orders from scratch every time.
Follow the steps shown below to duplicate a purchase order:
1. Navigate to the Purchase Orders section in your control panel under Stock Control > Purchase Orders.
2. Locate the purchase order you wish to duplicate. A duplicate icon is displayed next to every order ID, regardless of its status.
3. Click the duplicate icon. A prompt appears, asking you to select a Supplier and a Location for the new purchase order. The details will be pre-filled with the original purchase order’s values, but you can change them if needed. Click on the Duplicate button to confirm.
A confirmation message gets displayed to indicate the duplication was successful.
4. You are then redirected automatically to the newly created purchase order, which is set to “Draft” status and contains the same information as the original order.
Note: The duplicated purchase order is always created in "Draft" status, regardless of the original purchase order’s status. You can then review, modify, and approve it as needed before sending it to your supplier.
Exporting Purchase Orders
The Export Purchase Orders feature allows you to download your purchase order lines as a CSV file, making it easy to analyse your data outside of Neto or share it with other systems and stakeholders. You can also revisit and re-download any of your past exports at any time before they expire.
Follow the steps shown below to export purchase orders:
1. Navigate to the Purchase Orders section in your control panel under Stock Control > Purchase Orders.
2. From the Purchase Orders page, click on the CSV Exports dropdown, then select Export PO lines to CSV.
Tip: Apply filters, for example, Order Date, Supplier, or Status, before exporting if you only want a subset of your purchase order lines included in the file.
3. A modal window opens to let you know the file is being generated. The system will first check how many lines match your filters, then begin generating the data file. This process usually takes less than a few minutes, depending on the file size.
4. Once the file has finished generating, the modal updates to confirm "Your CSV is ready." Click on the Download CSV button to save the file to your device.
5. To access your previous exports, click on the CSV Exports dropdown and select PO Export History. This page lists all CSV exports you've started, along with their Status, Created by, Created at, and Expires at dates. You can filter this list by date range or status and download such files directly from the Download column.
Note: Exported files are only available for download until their listed expiry date. After this, you'll need to generate a new export if you require the data again.