You can store information about your Manufacturers and Vendors within the Product Element. First, it’s important to understand the difference between the two and which you should classify as vendors versus manufacturers within the Product Element.
Manufacturers would be companies that make things you use or sell. For example, ABC Company manufactures tables. They do not sell directly to consumers, but rather sell to vendors. Vendors would then sell the tables to the consumer. In Elements, the
Manufacturer’s section is more of an organized “address book” of manufacturers that you may need to contact with questions from time to time. You can not create purchase orders or do any other functions with these contacts within Elements.
Vendors in Elements CRM are individuals, companies or others that you purchase from.
This could be the company you purchase water jugs from for the office, or it could be the supplier of the products that you resell. By classifying a company as a vendor, you then have the ability to create purchase orders for them within Elements.
Adding Manufacturers To add a manufacturer:
1. Navigate to the Product Element > Manufacturers > Manufacturer Management.
2. Click on the icon in the lower left side of the Data Editor. If no manufactures are currently entered in the system, an Add Manufacturer button will appear in the middle of the Data Editor.
3. Fill in their name in the box that appears.
4. Click Add or Save & New.
Editing Manufacturers
Once added, manufacturers appear in the Data Viewer with their details stored in the multiple tabs of the Data Editor where information can be added and edited.
To edit information about a manufacturer:
1. Select the manufacturer in the Data Viewer.
2. In the Data Editor, click in the field you want to update and begin typing.
3. Click on the icon to save your changes or the icon to reset the field.
There are many tabs in the Data Editor for tracking manufacturer information including:
• General: General contact info about the manufacturer.
• More: Additional contact information.
• Description: Description of the manufacturer. Appears in the Data Viewer list.
• Notes: Any special notes to store about the manufacturer.
Need to delete a manufacturer? Click on the icon to the right of the Manufacturer.
Adding Vendors To add a new vendor:
1. Navigate to the Product Element > Vendors > Vendor Management.
2. Click on the icon in the lower left side of the Data Editor. If no vendors are
currently entered in the system, an Add Vendor button will appear in the middle of the Data Editor.
3. Fill in the details in the box that appears.
4. Click Add or Save & New.
Editing Vendors
Once added, vendors appear in the Data Viewer with their details stored in the multiple tabs of the Data Editor where information can be added and edited.
To edit information about a vendor:
1. Select the vendor in the Data Viewer.
2. In the Data Editor, click in the field you want to update and begin typing.
3. Click on the icon to save your changes or the icon to reset the field.
There are many tabs in the Data Editor for tracking vendor information including:
• General: General contact info about the vendor.
• More: Additional contact information.
• Financial: Stores your balance and credit limit information and allows you to set a few default settings with shipping and terms.
• Notes: Any special notes to store about the vendor.
Next to each vendor, you may see multiple icons. The chart below displays the icons and what each represents.
ICON DESCRIPTION
Indicates the vendor is active. Click to deactivate.
Indicates vendor is inactive. Click to activate.
--- Indicates that that information has not been entered for the vendor.
Click to send an email to the vendor using your mail server.
Opens the URL associated with the vendor.
ICON DESCRIPTION
Indicates the vendor has a Messages account. Click on the icon to initiate a Messages conversation.
Deletes the vendor. Protected with “Are you sure?” alert.
Creating Purchase Orders (Managers Only)
The Product Element > Purchase Orders tab can only be accessed by system
administrators and managers. Those with only User level access can create purchase orders in the Product Element > Products > Product Management by clicking on the Inventory tab of the item they would like to reorder and clicking the Reorder button.
Users cannot review or approve purchase orders.
How to Create a Purchase Order To create a purchase order:
1. Navigate to the Product Element > Purchase Orders > Add Purchase Order.
2. On the top right side of the screen, change any dates or form numbers, if applicable.
3. Select the vendor in which you are creating the form for.
4. Select the terms. (Terms are created by System Administrators.) 5. In the middle of the header, choose a “ship to” address.
6. Search for products to add to the purchase order in the Search field, and select them by clicking on the icon just to the right of the product's name. To add a new
product on the fly, click on the icon to the right of the Search field.
7. Adjust quantities and the rate if applicable.
8. Add an optional note to appear below the item on the purchase order by clicking on the icon.
9. Enter any credits, shipping charges or taxes. Note: taxes will only auto-fill if the product has been setup as a “taxable item when bought” in the Product Element and the vendor has been assigned a tax rate in the Product Element > Vendors > Vendor Management under the Financial tab of the Data Editor.
10. Click the Add Purchase Order button.
11. On the Confirmation screen, you can do a variety of functions:
• Click Send to create an email with the invoice attached. Note: your outgoing emails settings must be properly set up in the Message Element > Prefs in order for the email to send.
• Click View Purchase Order to view it, to save to your desktop, or to print.
• Select an optional activity (add a to-do item, etc).
12. Check the box if you wish to create another, and click the Continue button.
In the Product Element > Prefs > Settings, you may opt to have Purchase Orders require approval. Checking this box would apply to anyone with User level access.
Check the “everyone” box and it would apply to everyone except for the designated purchase order approver. If you are the employee designated for purchase order approval, you will receive a system message notifying you each time a purchase order is added to this page. These messages can be viewed in the Message Element >
Switchboard > System.
To approve a purchase order:
1. Navigate to the Product Element > Purchase Orders > Approve.
2. Select the desired purchase order from the list in the Data Viewer.
3. In the General tab of the Data Editor, click on the Edit button found at the very bottom.
4. Review the purchase order, make any necessary changes and click on the Save Purchase Order button.
5. If you wish to open an purchase order and reprint, email or duplicate it, click on the associating buttons at the bottom of the Data Editor.
6. In the “Appr” column of the Data Viewer, to the right of the purchase order, click on the icon to approve it.
7. If you choose to void the purchase order, click on the icon in the “Void” column.
Delete by clicking on the icon.
Note: Purchase orders are not able to be edited once saved. The purchase order must be deleted and re-created.