How to Generate a Purchase Order

Send your stone vendor a clean, price-free order saying which items you need, how each side is finished, and where to ship them.

Written By Dennis Rodin

Last updated 7 days ago

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. Its Order Notes section pulls together all of the notes on the order (external, internal, supplier, cemetery, and client) so the vendor has the full picture.

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 no longer 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, a shot of the stone you are matching, and the Cemetery Location Map MonuDesk saves when you pin the plot on the map. Only image files (JPG, PNG and the like) can be printed on a document, so PDFs and other attachments are not listed.

Nothing is ticked for you here. The Purchase Order opens with no images selected, so tick what the vendor needs every time. That is the opposite of the quote, invoice, receipt, contract and shop ticket, which open with the monument artwork already ticked.

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 now 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 now available as finish options as well, along with PFT BRP and STL BRP.

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.

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 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.

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). 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 looks exactly as it did before.

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.

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.

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.

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