Purchases

A Purchase Order (PO) represents a formal request to procure items from an external vendor. In Hegemi, purchases are designed to:

• Document the parts needed and their costs.
• Optionally route through an approval workflow.
• Export to PDF for sending to vendors.
• Increment inventory automatically upon receipt.
• Leave a full event history for auditing.

Creating a Purchase

You can create a purchase manually from the Purchases tab by clicking New purchase, or generate POs automatically using Inventory Analysis.

The Purchase Lifecycle

Purchases move through a series of phases, displayed as step indicators at the top of the purchase editor:

Without Approvers

If no approvers are assigned, the flow is simple:

1. Purchase: The PO is created. Click Mark purchased once you've placed the order.
2. Receive: The items have arrived. Click Mark received to record delivery.

With Approvers

If you assign one or more approvers, the flow adds approval gates:

1. Define: Add items to the PO. When ready, click Submit to send for approval.
2. Approve: Approvers see the PO in their notifications and can Approve or Reject with a comment.
3. Purchase: Once approved, click Mark purchased.
4. Receive: Click Mark received when items arrive.

Rejections & Re-submission

If an approver rejects a PO, the creator can make changes and re-submit. Rejection comments are recorded in the event history.

Purchase Editor

Info Tab

Configure the purchase details:

• Vendor: Which vendor you are ordering from.
• Purchase number: A reference number (auto-generated or manual).
• Description: Notes about this order.
• Deliverable: Optionally link this PO to a Deliverable to track costs against a customer order.
• Approvers: Users who must approve before the purchase proceeds.
• Additional followers: Other users who should receive notifications about this PO's progress.
• Shipping address: Select from your saved locations or enter a custom address.
• Custom Fields: Any custom fields you've configured for purchases.

Items Tab

Add and manage the line items in this purchase:

• Click Add item to add parts to the PO.
• For each line item, specify quantity, unit price, vendor part number, and notes.
• The total cost is summarized at the top.

Export Options

From the Items tab toolbar menu, you can:

• Export as Excel: Download the PO as a spreadsheet.
• Export as PDF: Generate a PDF suitable for sending to the vendor. The PDF includes the PO number, line items, shipping address, and total.

Receiving Items

When items arrive from the vendor:

1. Navigate to the purchase and click Mark received.
2. Choose whether to Add to inventory:
   • Yes, add to inventory: Automatically increments the unserialized inventory count for each item.
   • No, just mark received: Only updates the PO status without modifying inventory (useful if you want to manually process the receipt).

Unlocking a Purchase

If you need to make changes after a PO has progressed past the "Created" state (e.g., it was approved but you need to add an item), you can click Unlock. This reverts the PO back to the Created state, requiring re-approval.

Tracking Costs via Deliverables

When you link a PO to a Deliverable, the purchase costs are rolled up into that deliverable's Total Spent metric. This allows you to track how much you've spent on procurement to fulfill a specific customer order.

You can view all purchases associated with a deliverable in the Deliverable editor's Purchases tab.