Purchase Order Tracking: How to Track Purchase Orders and Optimize Efficiency

Purchase orders tracking is necessary to keep the world as we know it running today. The booming e-commerce community, the global shipping community, and the day to day operations of the coffee shop down the street all depend on purchase orders and the tracking that monitors the goods in question.

How does purchase order tracking work? Why should companies, especially smaller ones, care? And why do the old ways fail?

Starting with the definition of purchase order tracking, let’s take a look and see how companies can move forward today by using software as a service to meet these needs.

What is Purchase Order Tracking?

Purchase order tracking, also called PO tracking, is the step-by-step process of tracking a purchase order from conception to the final delivery. Depending on the item in question, multiple purchase orders may track the same goods at different points in time.

In the past, this tracking had to be done manually. It generally involved a lot of paper and miscommunication. Today, modern purchase order tracking standardizes the process and boosts company efficiency to levels that were undreamed of thirty years ago.

How Purchase Order Tracking are traditionally tracked

It can be hard to understand improvements in any industry if you don’t know what people originally used. In order to understand how purchase order tracking has improved over the years, let’s look at the traditional way that purchase orders were tracked and how that used to work.

In this example, we’ll follow the needs of a department that needs more paper.

Example: A department needs more goods

Your department needs more paper, so they set the whole train in motion. The first step is getting people who can purchase the paper on board.

Step 1: The department contacts the purchasing department

Your department contacts the purchasing department at your company with a request for more paper. The purchasing people need to make sure that the goods are within budget before they can move ahead.

Step 2: The purchasing department fills out a PO

Once a manager evaluates and approves a budget, the purchasing department approves and fills out a PO addressed to the company paper supplier.

Step 3: Purchase Order Tracking is then sent to suppliers

The purchasing department manually sends a PO to the paper suppliers that the company uses. Usually, this happened through the mail. It’s then up to the paper suppliers to deliver the paper to the company.

Step 4: Department can now call suppliers to ask for current status

After the paper suppliers have your PO, your department can call the paper supplier, give them the PO number and ask for the status of the delivery.

Why this process is outdated

These traditional PO tracking methods are outdated and slow. Modern technology today can speed up every single part of the tracking process. Here’s why and how modern PO tracking makes sense for companies who value speed and efficiency.

Quicker processing

Once a department needs something, they can easily send in a PO electronically. Now the forms arrive almost instantly, no matter what. They are also automatically organized and filed.

Standardized forms

In a purchase order tracking software, most forms are standardized for most suppliers. This means you don’t have to find an individual supplier’s form before you make a PO. In addition, they are also automatically sorted so that everyone can use them.

Less costly

Moving up to a higher level, the entire process, when done digitally, is far less costly than traditional PO tracking. It saves money, time and resources across the board for every employee concerned.

Easier tracking

Finally, the actual tracking process is streamlined. With the latest CMMS software like UpKeep, you can track POs straight from your dashboard and enjoy perfect visibility all the way through the process.

It’s worth noting that these benefits don’t necessarily apply to all PO tracking software solutions. What should companies look for as they evaluate the options available to them? The answer can be condensed into five key features.

Four features to look for when choosing Purchase Order Tracking software

The four features that a quality purchase order tracking system should have are:

• Automatic quantity updates
• Reporting abilities
  Technician submission abilities
• Additional feature capabilities

What are some questions you should use to evaluate different systems and their capacities in these four fields?

Automatic quantity updates

When you send in a PO for 700 rubber bands, does your PO software automatically update your quantity +700, or do you need to do this manually? When items are used, can you see that in your PO software solution? How much manual work do you need to put into your quantity updates?

Reporting abilities

Does your PO tracking software give you spending reports to know how much you spent this month or the last? Can you customize reports to meet your business needs or are you forced to work within a narrow frame of templates?

Technician submission abilities

Can your techs send in POs and can you approve/deny them easily? How much special training (if any) is needed for you and your employees to use the software? What kinds of equipment need to be purchased and how much will they cost?

Additional feature capabilities

Are you buying into a PO tracking software that only tracks POs, or is your CMMS already enabled for PO tracking? The best PO tracking software is part of a larger software solution, just as the different departments of a business should integrate smoothly together.

The answers to these questions provide you and your company with a great starting point to evaluating your different options. In general, the simpler a system is to use and the greater flexibility it offers, the easier it will be to integrate into your company’s existing systems.

However, depending on your existing systems, you may not need a PO tracking system. The best PO tracking systems are only part of a larger whole: your computerized maintenance management system.

How to find the best Purchase Order Tracking solution for your needs

Ultimately, the best purchase order tracking solution can only be determined by people within the company or organization that is in need of it. Generally, that solution is only part of a larger solution, just as the accounting department of a company is only part of the company.

The UpKeep purchase order tracking solution works in just that way. This is ideal because our CMMS solution keeps the different processes of a company working together. Unlike other piecemeal solutions, when you work with UpKeep, you are able to consider the entirety of your company in one place, from one dashboard.

Just as purchase order tracking makes no sense when divorced from the company as a whole, so the process of purchase order tracking needs to be integrated into your company.

And that’s precisely what the UpKeep CMMS offers you and your company today.