How to Generate a Purchase Order

Most monument companies buy stones from vendors (often imported). The Purchase Order is the document you send to that vendor, listing the items you need, their size and color, and where to ship them. It carries the stone's supplier notes, and the order's installation notes when you ask for them.

To generate one, open the order, click Document Generation at the top right, and select Generate Purchase Order from the dropdown.

PO numbers

Every Purchase Order gets its own sequential number (PO-1, PO-2, PO-3, and so on). The number increments each time you generate a PO PDF for that order, so it's tracked per order rather than across your whole account. PO numbers are independent from order numbers.

Single vendor (most common case)

Search for the vendor in the search bar at the top and select them. Their info card (name, address, phone, email) appears below.

The Select Items for This PO section lists every line item from your order (Die, Base, Vase, etc.) as checkboxes. All items are checked by default. Uncheck anything you don't want to send to this vendor.

The Ship all items to line shows your company name and address by default (most common case: vendor ships everything to your shop). Click Different address for each item? if some items should ship somewhere else.

Click Generate Purchase Order and you're done.

Multiple vendors

If you're ordering from more than one vendor, click Different address for each item? or just search and select multiple vendors at once.

The popup splits the vendor cards side-by-side and adds two dropdowns to every line item:

• Assign to: which vendor is supplying this item

• Ship to: where this item should ship (defaults to your own company)

When you click Generate, MonuDesk creates one separate PO PDF per vendor, each with only the items assigned to that vendor and the correct ship-to address. So if you've split items between two vendors, you'll get two PDFs.

To go back to single-vendor mode, click Ship all to same address.

Select images

The popup has a Select images section with a thumbnail for every image on this order. Tick up to two to print them on the Purchase Order; the cap is shown on screen as Maximum 2 images per document. On a multi-vendor job the images you tick go on every PO generated from that popup.

It is not limited to files filed under Drawing. Every image on the quote or order is offered: a design drawing, a sketch from the Sketch & Inscription step, a reference photo, and a shot of the stone you are matching. Only image files (JPG, PNG and the like) can be printed on a document, so PDFs and other attachments are not listed.

The cemetery location map has its own section. Turn on Pinpoint Location on Map on the Cemetery & Logistics step and drop the pin, and MonuDesk saves a satellite view and a street-map view of it on the order. Those two are listed below the drawings under Cemetery location map, with the line "Optional. Pick one view to print the pinned grave location on this document." Neither view is ticked for you. A document has one map slot, so ticking one view unticks the other, and a ticked map does not use up either of your two image slots. On the Purchase Order the map prints like any other image you selected.

The selector only reads files that are already on the order. You cannot upload from inside the popup. If nothing is listed it reads "Upload a drawing or reference image in Notes & Files to include it here." Upload the file under Notes & Files first, then reopen the popup.

What shows on the PDF

Each item appears with:

• Material and color

• Size

• Finish

• Quantity

For slant, bevel, and flush markers, the Finish column prints a per-side finish label for each face, so the vendor can see exactly how each side should be finished. P2 and P3 BRP are available as finish options as well, along with PFT BRP and STL BRP. A stone with a base and a subbase prints as a stacked Die / Base / Sub-base row. Each of the Die, Base and Sub-base lines shows the quantity, the same as on the shop ticket, and the Sub-base line always reads P5. The bulk purchase order prints stone rows the same way.

A slant can carry a dual height such as 10/2. It prints in the Size column exactly as it was typed on the order, so the vendor sees both heights rather than a single rounded number. Sizes can carry part of an inch too, so a 24.25 inch length prints as 24.25".

Footstones and ledgers are named on the PO. A footstone's stone row is labelled Footstone and a ledger's Ledger, so the vendor is not left working it out from the size. In the Purchase Orders create screen a footstone order's stone line reads <Color> Footstone, for example "Gray Footstone". When that stone carries a base, the first line reads Footstone and the colour and size move to the second line.

Named stones keep their heading. A Purchase Order is an item list for a vendor rather than something you hand a customer, so it leaves out the STONE A / STONE B bands that the invoice and shop ticket print. If you have typed your own name for a stone, that name still prints as a heading above its rows, because on a multi-stone order it is the only thing telling the vendor which rows belong to which stone. Nothing changes for a stone you have not renamed.

You can also name a stone without leaving this window: hover a stone's tab in the popup and click the pencil.

A stone with its Foundation Material set to None has no foundation, so no Foundation row is printed for it. If you expected a foundation to reach the vendor and it is not there, open Edit Order and set the foundation material on that stone to Concrete or Granite.

When every item on the Purchase Order goes to one address, the header prints a Ship To: block with that destination's name and address once, whatever the stone type, slant, bevel and flush markers included.

When you choose a different ship-to address for each item, the header reads Ship To: See line items for address, and every row gets its own → Ship to: subline so the vendor can see exactly where each piece goes.

If you don't tick any images, the PDF falls back to a Design Information box that lists the decedents and plot details, so the vendor still has the design context even without an image. Because nothing is ticked for you, this is what you get by default. Tick a drawing in Select images if you want the vendor to see it.

If one of the drawings you ticked cannot be loaded, the Purchase Order is still produced, with the remaining drawings on it.

A service description prints exactly as typed, with its line breaks, blank lines and spacing, and a tab prints as spaces. A long item list continues on the next page.

Your logo prints on the Purchase Order. If you have uploaded a logo it prints at the top of the PDF, in the position you picked for it (left, center or right) and at the size percentage you set for it. MonuDesk uses the logo belonging to the order's own office location when that office has one, and falls back to the company logo on Settings → Company Profile when it does not. If you have no logo anywhere, the Purchase Order prints without one.

The From block is the order's own office. The name and address printed as the sender are those of the office location the order belongs to, not the head company's, so a vendor dealing with one of your branches sees that branch's details.

Every page ends with your company name above Powered by MonuDesk, with page numbers (like 1/2) in the bottom-right corner.

Supplier Notes and Installation Notes

Two blocks of text can print at the end of the Purchase Order.

Supplier Notes prints the stone's supplier notes and nothing else. That is the text you type on the Items & Configuration step: on the Monument tab it is the Order Notes card, and on the Accessories tab the Notes to Supplier card. Both cards edit the same field, so it makes no difference which one you type into. When an order has no supplier notes, the Purchase Order prints no Supplier Notes heading at all.

Payment-terms notes, a service's internal notes and the customer contact's notes do not print on the vendor's Purchase Order. If you have been typing vendor instructions into any of those, move that text into the stone's supplier notes so the vendor still gets it.

Installation Notes is opt-in, per purchase order. The popup has a checkbox Include installation notes directly under Generate in all caps, off by default, with the helper line "Adds the cemetery notes to the purchase order. Leave off when the supplier is not setting the stone." Tick it and the PDF gains an Installation Notes block carrying the order's installation notes, the text under the Installation Notes switch on the Cemetery & Logistics step. It prints only when the order actually has installation notes.

The same checkbox, also off by default, is on the bulk Generate Purchase Order popup you reach from the board. That popup also shows the Total stone weight of the selected orders. On the bulk purchase order each order's items print under its order number, with the family name on the line below.

Each block starts on a new page if it would not fit on the one it is on, and a note too long for one page runs on to the next. Both blocks print exactly as typed, line breaks and spacing included. Generate in all caps uppercases both blocks and their headings along with everything else.

Caps mode

The Generate in all caps checkbox at the bottom of the popup converts every text element on the PDF to uppercase. Some sandblasters require this so they can copy and paste names and inscriptions directly into their machines.

Off by default. Toggle it on per-PO when you need it.

After you click Generate

Each generated PO PDF is saved automatically to the order's Notes & Files under the Financial Document category. Like every generated document apart from the shop ticket, it is saved customer-visible (External), so it shows in the Customer Portal; flip it to Internal if you would rather keep it from the customer. Multi-vendor jobs save each PDF as a separate file.

Email prompt (Pro): on a Pro plan, after 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 to open Conversations 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.

Emailing it to the vendor: when you email a Purchase Order to a vendor by attaching the generated PO to a message in Conversations, the email's own line-item summary is built from the same rows as the attached PDF, so its Material & Size and Finish columns match the document the vendor opens. The email goes to that conversation's email address. When every recipient is the vendor's own email, the vendor confirms with the Acknowledge Purchase Order button in that email and PO Tracking shows the purchase order as Acknowledged; anyone else receives the same email without the button. The full steps are in the article How to Email a Purchase Order to Your Vendor.

Related articles:

• How to Generate a Foundation Order

• How to View and Download Documents

• How to Add and Manage Vendors

• Purchase Order Tracking

• Marking a Purchase Order Completed and Adding the Stones to Inventory