Change, Cancel or Close a Purchase Order in NUFinancials

This guide will walk a Requester/Buyer through the Process of Closing, Canceling and Changing a Purchase Order

Important Notes:

  • You may need to remove receipts and/or have vouchers removed to make changes to a purchase order.
  • You may want to save and print the purchase order (View Printable Version, bottom left of the page) before you start to make changes. If your changes are denied, you must put the purchase order back to its original state.

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  • Before submitting your change for approval, please include comments to provide the details of your change for your approver. Not including comments could result in your request being denied or delayed.  See the Other Options When Reviewing Your Purchase Order section to get more details about adding comments.
  • When multiple changes are required to a purchase order, make all the changes before clicking Save.

Change a Purchase Order

When should a change to a PO be initiated?

  • Change the chart string
  • Change the line item description, price, or quantity
  • Resolve a match exception resulting from line item price or quantity discrepancy
  • Add a new line item to the purchase order
  • To change a PO from receive by quantity to receive by amount

Note:  To close or cancel a PO or cancel a PO line, submit a PO Change Request Form.

When should a change to a PO not be initiated?

  • If the requisition has not yet been sourced into a PO. In this case, you can still make changes to the requisition.
  • If a change to chart string information is needed after payments have already been made. You must submit a Correction Journal.

Who can change a PO or submit change order requests?

  • School/department users with the role of Requester/Dept Buyer

How does this process typically work?

  1. The change to the PO is made immediately and submitted for approval via add/update PO in NUFinancials.
  2. The changed PO is then routed to Procurement and Payment Services (PPS) for review and approval.
    • Next, if approved by PPS,
      • it goes through the department chart string approval path.
      • if approved by the department and is under $25k, the PO status will be updated to Dispatched and the changes become active.
      • if approved by the department and is over $25k, it will route to PPS for administrator approval.
      • if approved by the department and is grant related, it will route to ASRSP for final approval.
  3. If requested, the modified PO is re-dispatched to the supplier with the changes.

Cancel or Close a Purchase Order via the PO Change Request Form

Why should a PO be cancelled or closed?

  • The purchase order item(s) are not needed.  Make sure to contact the supplier to inform them the order is no longer needed.
  • There are items remaining on the PO that will not be delivered/invoiced and you need to close the PO to release encumbered funds.

If all items have been received and paid on the PO, there is no need to submit a request to close a PO. POs that have been fully invoiced and paid will automatically close 15 days after the last payment was made.

How does this process work?

 

  1. The PO Change Request Form is completed and submitted by an end user.
  2. Procurement and Payment Services (PPS) reviews the request.
    • If the PO is a subcontract, once it has been approved by PPS, it is routed for approval by ASRSP.
  3. The PO is cancelled or closed and if applicable, the supplier is notified of cancellation.  Note that cancelled marketplace items or purchase orders are not re-dispatched to the supplier. You should contact the supplier representative directly to confirm cancellation.

Change a Purchase Order

To get the purchase order number and/or verify that a purchase order has been created, use Manage Requisitions > Lifespan > Purchase Order icon.

Step 1: Locate Purchase Order via Add/Update POs.

Navigation:  Navigator > Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Add/Update POs

  1. Select Find an Existing Value.
  2. Enter PO number.
  3. Click Search.

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Step 2: Make Edits to the Purchase Order

Important Note: You may want to print and/or save a copy of the purchase order before changes are made.  To retrieve a copy of your purchase order, click View Printable Version (lower left corner) before you make changes.  This link gives you an unofficial PDF copy of the PO in its current state.

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 Select from the change options described below, enter a change reason, and click Save to save your work. (see Finalizing Steps below.)

Options:

  • Edit quantity in Lines > Details.
  • Edit price in Lines > Details.
  • Click plus + to add one or more lines to the purchase order.
    • When adding lines, include quantity, price, UOM, description, category, and chart string.
  • Edit Category in Lines > Details.
  • Edit Ship To code in Lines > ShipTo/Due Date tab.

Note: To cancel or remove a line, you need to submit a PO Change Request (see Cancel or Close a Purchase Order via the PO Change Request Form below). Do not zero out lines to cancel.

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  • Change the chart string
    1. In Lines > Details, click the Schedule icon.

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  1. In Schedules > Details, click the Distributions/ChartFields icon .

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  1. In the Chartfields tab, change the chart string or add additional chart strings. Click  plus icon to add one or more chart strings. (You may need to scroll right to see plus icon.)
  2. Click OK.
  3. Once all changes have been made, click Save.

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  • Change description (do not touch Item field).
    • Click Line Details icon . LineIcon

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  • Click Change icon .

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  • You will be routed back to the PO home page and the Description field is now enabled.
  • Update the description.
  • Once all changes have been made, click Save.

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  • Change PO from receive by quantity to receive by amount
    1. In Lines > Attributes, check Amount Only.

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  1. You may get the following pop-up message. When you change a PO from receive by quantity to receive by amount, the PO Qty will now need to be 1.  Click Yes to continue.

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  1. You may get the following pop-up message regarding creating the change order.

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  1. In Lines > Details, you will need to change the Price to the full amount for PO.

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Finalizing Steps

When you change the price or quantity and click Save, you will get a message about creating a Change Order (Note:  you will not get this message if you are just updating the chart string):

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Click Yes to continue.

After making a change to your PO, you will be prompted to enter a reason code and describe the change(s) made.  To view all available reason codes, click the magnifying glass located by the Reason Code field.  Provide as much detail as possible and add a comment if the purchase order should be re-dispatched to the supplier. (Note:  You will not be prompted with the Reason Code if you are just updating the chart string.)  

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You will get a reminder to check the budget for these changes:

Click OK.

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To check the budget, click the Check Budget icon .. BCICON

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 Once the budget checking process is complete, click Save.

You may get a pop-up message to update the Accounting Date to Today’s Date on a purchase order.  Do not update the PO Date.

  1. Click Header Details.

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  1. Update Accounting Date to today’s date.
  2. Click OK.

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Click Save to save your changes.  The PO status will be updated to Pending and the change(s) has now been submitted for approval.

Other Options When Reviewing Your Purchase Order

Click links such as Add/Edit Comments or Document Status for more information about the purchase order.  Note there is a Select Lines to Display section to navigate to specific lines on the PO.

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Click on the Add Comments link (or Edit Comments link if there are already comments that exist). The PO Header Comments dialog appears.

You should add comments to the PO Change Order as an explanation to Approvers.  In order for Approvers to be able to see these comments, you must select the Approval Justification checkbox.

  1. Check the Approval Justification checkbox and enter your justification comment(s). Click OK.
  2. Click Save on the main page.

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Cancel or Close a Purchase Order via the PO Change Request Form

To get the purchase order number and/or verify that a purchase order has been created, use Manage Requisitions > Lifespan > Purchase Order icon. The purchase order must be in a dispatched status in order to submit a change order request form.

 Navigation:  NUFinancials > My Forms tile > Fill out new form > PO Change Request

 Note: If you cannot locate the My Forms tile, you can utilize Global Search to find the forms functionality.  Search by keywords ‘My Form.’

 Step 1: Enter Form information

  1. Enter Description with purchase order number first followed by action.
  2. Enter description of change.

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  1. Enter PO number.
  2. Enter Supplier Name.
  3. Select to Close or Cancel PO or to Cancel a specific line.
  4. Select whether PO should be re-dispatched to the supplier. If a marketplace PO, cancel directly with the supplier representative. PPS does not sent cancelled marketplace POs to the suppliers.
  5. Option: If this is a subcontract purchase other, select the toggle and include additional information.
  6. Enter your contact information.
  7. If applicable, add attachments.
  8. Click Save. (upper right corner)
  9. Click Submit. (upper right corner)

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What happens next?

Your request is submitted to PPS for review and processing.

  • Note:  Your request to close a PO or to cancel a PO or PO line will not need department approval unless it is a subcontract. If your PO cancel request requires department approval, you may find and view your purchase order status using the Add/Update Purchase Orders search. PO Status will reflect the status of the change.

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View Pending Change Requests

Navigation: NUFinancials > My Forms tile

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View History

Navigation:  NUFinancials> NavBar > Purchasing > Purchase Orders > Manage Change Order > Review Change History

Search for purchase order.  Changes can be seen under the Ship Changes tab:

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For additional assistance please contact the IT Support Center at 847-491-4357 (1-HELP) or email servicedesk@northwestern.edu.

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Details

Article ID: 1126
Created
Thu 5/12/22 12:38 PM
Modified
Thu 1/12/23 10:48 AM