How to Email a Purchase Order to Your Vendor

Once you have generated a purchase order, you can email it to your vendor straight from MonuDesk. The vendor gets a branded email with the PO attached and a single button to confirm it, and PO Tracking shows the moment they do, so there is no chasing by phone.

Send a purchase order

1. Generate the purchase order on the order as usual. The PDF is saved to the order's documents. See How to Generate a Purchase Order.

2. Open Conversations and open, or start, the email thread with your vendor.

3. Connect the order: link the thread to the order the purchase order belongs to. Linking is what lets you attach the order's files and keeps the vendor's reply next to the order.

4. Attach the PO: in the composer, attach the generated purchase order from the linked order's documents. The composer turns into a branded purchase order email on its own.

5. Add a short note in the box reading "Write a note to the vendor…" and check the Subject. The PO summary, your signature and the footer are filled in for you.

6. Click Send purchase order.

Straight after generating: when you generate a purchase order for a single vendor that has an email address, a prompt appears at the bottom left: "Purchase order generated. Do you want to email it to [vendor] at [email]?" Click Send in Conversations and Conversations opens on that address, reusing your existing thread with them or starting a new message. Generating purchase orders for several vendors at once shows no prompt.

You can also start from PO Tracking: the Send a PO straight to your vendor button at the top right lays out the same steps and has an Open Conversations button.

Check it before the vendor sees it

• Send me a test sends the email to the mailbox you are sending from, and only there. The vendor gets nothing and the purchase order is not marked as sent. Hover the button to see the address it sends to. Once the test is sent, the button shows Sent for a moment.

• Preview full email shows the whole email on screen, with the PO number, the vendor and the line items.

The line items in the email are built from the same rows as the attached PDF, so the email and the document the vendor opens always match.

Extra attachments

Any other files you attach to the message, such as a drawing or a photo of the site, go out with the purchase order email. All attachments on one message must total 25 MB or less.

If you would rather send the PDF as an ordinary email, click Send as a plain attachment instead. To switch back, click This is a Purchase Order — send it as a branded email instead.

How the vendor confirms

The email carries an Acknowledge Purchase Order button. One click confirms they have received the purchase order and will fulfil it, and they do not need a login.

The purchase order goes to the email address of the conversation you send it from, which can be someone other than the vendor's saved email. The Acknowledge Purchase Order button is included only when every recipient is the vendor's own email address; anyone else receives the same purchase order email without the button. In that case, press Approve in PO Tracking once the vendor confirms.

In PO Tracking, the Status column follows along:

• Not sent: the purchase order has not been emailed yet.

• Awaiting: emailed, waiting for the vendor. An Approve button sits beside it for a vendor who confirmed another way, for example on the phone.

• Acknowledged: the vendor clicked the button, or you pressed Approve.

Either way, the Confirmed date fills itself in. If you had already typed a confirmed date, MonuDesk keeps yours.

Sending the same purchase order again

Attach a purchase order that was already emailed and the button reads Send again. MonuDesk asks you to confirm first. The vendor gets a new email with a new confirm button, and the button in the first email stops working. If the vendor had already confirmed it, sending again asks them to confirm it again.

Related articles:

• Purchase Order Tracking

• How to Generate a Purchase Order

• Linking Emails to Contacts and Orders

• Getting Started with Conversations