Supporting Multiple Invoices with Ecotrak’s New Purchase Order Functionality

Accuracy in purchase orders, invoices, and associated physical inventory is one of the core challenges in facilities management. Vendors don’t always follow a standard format for payment and receiving; invoices and orders may arrive in many different ways. Regardless, it’s essential to track critical details correctly.

Ecotrak’s new purchase order (PO) enhancements include supporting multiple invoices matched to one central purchase order, addressing a key workflow for facilities management. When suppliers send partial or split invoices against a PO, in the case of separate shipments with different timelines, this functionality creates new flexibility and accuracy in PO reconciliation.

Tackling complex POs

Generally, for every purchase order created, a facilities management team is interested in tracking two events:

1. When that shipment was received and the goods arrived at the storage location on the purchase order

2. When the invoice was received

However, in many cases, the invoice may arrive first, with the shipment, or even be split into multiple invoices. If the shipment and the invoice do not arrive at the same time, this recordkeeping can pose a challenge for operators.

Invoices contain key information, such as the final costs and stock adjustments, that are critical to have correct once the PO is reconciled. The ability to track these nuances is key for facilities management.

Ensuring accurate shipment quantities (no matter when they arrive)

With Ecotrak’s new PO enhancements, when operators input an invoice into the system, they are prompted with a key question: “Have you received this shipment”?

The workflow addresses multiple possibilities:

• If a partial shipment has been received, customers can enter exact quantities received

• If the shipment isn’t yet received, a new “pending delivery” status can be applied to the invoice

This functionality prevents stock being added to inventory before it is actually physically received, ensuring pending parts aren’t applied to existing work orders.

Tracking invoices and shipments on the new Invoice tab

To address multiple invoices and complex shipments, purchase orders in the Ecotrak system now have an “Invoices” tab.

If an invoice is received prior to the full or partial shipment, a customer can still submit the invoice information into the system and assign it to a PO. Multiple invoices can be associated with one PO under the Invoices tab, and these invoices can also be assigned a status. A customer can mark items as pending or received, which integrates directly with stock adjustments.

With this feature, operators have easy visibility into what’s outstanding on a purchase order, even if the order is split, and have the ability to update statuses quickly. Once all parts are received for a purchase order, it can be reconciled and the invoice can be moved into the approval workflow. Purchase orders feature is also available on the ecotrak and ecotrak tech apps.

Additional PO and invoice improvements

Ecotrak’s new PO functionality also includes a few other improvements to the purchase order and invoices workflow:

• Enhanced line-level details for purchase order creation, including tax and freight fields.

• Purchase order note functionality that allows customers to add detailed notes to suppliers when ordering.

• New field formatting, modified PDF display, and consolidated information optimized for accounting exports.

With these new improvements to Ecotrak’s PO features, facilities management teams can better tackle some of the most challenging elements of parts procurement: accurate recordkeeping.

Successful facilities management involves tracking many levels and layers of details. With the support of a sophisticated CMMS tool like Ecotrak, organizations can meet the challenges of procurement and power seamless operations.