Issue purchase orders directly

Overview

Alpha. This feature is in early development and may change based on feedback.

Issue a purchase order directly when your team has already approved a purchase and only needs a PO to send to the vendor or match to a bill. A directly issued PO is approved when you issue it. It doesn't use a Spend Program or an approval workflow, and it doesn't appear as a row in your procurement Requests list.

Who can issue purchase orders directly

To issue a PO directly, you need the Issue purchase orders permission. Owners and Admins have it by default, and it can be added to a Custom Role. See Customizing roles and permissions to edit a role, or ask your Ramp Admin to grant it to you.

Your business must also have Ramp Procurement. If you don't see Procurement, see Find Procurement in Ramp.

Some options in the form need other permissions:

• Virtual card: To create a virtual card with the PO, you also need the Issue and edit virtual cards on purchase orders permission.
• New vendors: To add a vendor from the form, you need permission to create vendors. See Choose a vendor for when you can add one.

Issue a purchase order

1. Open Purchase orders and select Issue. You can also open the New menu on your Ramp home page and select Purchase order.
2. Optional: select Start from existing purchase order to copy details from an eligible PO.
3. Optional: to fill in the form from a document, select the entity and currency first, then upload an order form, contract, quote, or screenshot under Pre-fill your purchase order. Review the values Ramp fills in before you issue.
4. Complete Who is this purchase for? (the PO owner), Who is this billed to? (the entity), Vendor, and Currency.
5. Add line items with a Description, Quantity, and Rate.
6. Optional: open Advanced to set fields such as Payment terms, Expected delivery date, Billing and shipping, Note to vendor, PDF options, and Invoice matching.
7. Select the issue button. Its label depends on your vendor email settings. See Vendor emails and the PO PDF.

After you issue it, Ramp opens the new PO. It starts in Open status. Ramp assigns the PO number automatically and names the PO after the vendor.

Note: Ramp doesn't save drafts of this form. If you leave before issuing, your changes are lost.

Purchase order form defaults and options

• Billing and shipping addresses start from your entity's purchase order settings.
• Invoice matching uses 2-way match by default. You can select 3-way match when it's available for your business. See 3-Way Match with Ramp Procurement.
• Custom fields and Virtual card appear under Advanced only when they're available to you.
• PDF options includes PO PDF attachments. A document you upload under Pre-fill your purchase order fills in the form and is kept on the PO as an internal document. It isn't sent to the vendor.

Choose a vendor

You must select an active vendor.

• If new vendors require approval: you can't add a vendor from the form. Create the vendor in Vendors, wait for approval, and then select it. See Creating vendors.
• If new vendors don't require approval: you may be able to add a vendor from the form if you have permission to create vendors.

Vendor emails and the PO PDF

Whether Ramp emails the vendor depends on the entity's setting to automatically email approved POs to vendors. Admins can check it in purchase order settings.

• Automatic email on: The PO PDF preview is shown by default, and the button reads Issue and email purchase order. When you issue, Ramp emails the PO to the vendor if the vendor has a valid contact email.
• Automatic email off: Ramp doesn't email the vendor. The button reads Issue purchase order, and the PDF preview is hidden. Select Show preview to see it.

After issuing, you can select Download PDF or Send PDF to vendor from the PO's menu.

Issue a purchase order from a bill

If no existing PO fits a bill, you can issue a new one from the bill's purchase order matching. This works for saved bills and drafts.

1. Open the bill and go to its purchase order matching.
2. Select Issue purchase order.
3. Review the form. Ramp fills in the vendor, currency, and line items from the bill. If the bill has an entity, Ramp also fills in the entity and permitted accounting fields. Choose the PO owner.
4. Select Issue and match to bill. If your entity emails approved POs automatically, the button reads Issue, email, and match to bill.

Ramp links the new PO to the bill and matches bill lines to the PO lines. If Ramp shows Purchase order issued, but it wasn't matched to the bill, the PO was still issued. Match it from the bill. See Matching bills to purchase orders in Ramp.

Edit a directly issued purchase order

• With the Issue purchase orders permission: select Edit on a PO you can access to change it without a change order. Ramp records each edit in the PO's history.
• Without it: depending on your role, you may still be able to edit some fields directly. See Editing purchase orders. For changes you can't make directly, select Request changes to submit a change order.

Who approves change orders: change orders on directly issued POs go to the Issued PO change approvals workflow. Ramp sets up this workflow automatically when your business issues its first PO, so you don't need to set it up.

• Approvers: by default, any one Admin can approve. This includes an Admin who submitted the change order.
• Direct edits: if someone edits the PO directly while a change order is pending, Ramp cancels the pending change order.

Sync directly issued purchase orders to accounting

Directly issued POs follow the same accounting sync as other Ramp POs. See Syncing Ramp Purchase Orders into accounting.

Important: Directly issued POs can't sync to Sage Intacct yet. Ramp shows "Directly issued purchase orders cannot be synced to Sage Intacct yet" when a sync is attempted.