Purchase Order Uses in Business

purchase order authorization Some of the search terms that bring visitors to OrderGen.com include questions like "What is a purchase order?" and "What is the basic concept behind purchasing order (procurement) software."

First of all, a purchase order is an official, binding document issued by a company's purchasing department, authorizing funding for the payment of products and/or services; payment is to be disbursed at some agreed-upon time either before or after receipt of the products or services.

A purchase order can be a simple hand-written form using a blank p.o. page torn from a purchase order book obtained at a local office supply store. Note, however, that some companies or agencies issue dozens or hundreds of purchase orders during a typical quarter, making such hand-written POs highly impractical. Also, there may be some concern about how professional such documents appear, and how seriously they may be taken by suppliers. This issue is very significant for many small businesses.

In fact, the basic concept behind purchase order software is to implement some fairly uniform and automated mechanisms for creating purchase orders. This has clear benefits when an organization needs to place repeated orders with the same vendor for the same collections of products and services. Using purchase order database software, all relevant information can be saved for subsequent usages. Database software also allows companies to audit and analyze such things as: what has been purchased, when, by whom, from whom, and how much money has been spent on what.

Attractive, professional-looking, custom purchase order reports can be created using software.

PO Software: Three Generations

Applied Analytic Systems first developed version 1.0 of OrderGen in 1995 - 96, initially for in-house usage, then made available to customers of our invoicing software products. The first version was a 16-bit, basic database program developed with Borland's ObjectVision™, using Paradox™ database tables, designed to run both in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, which had recently been released.

OrderGen v. 1.01
Last Revised, July 1996

The database could accommodate vendor company data, vendor product data and purchase order transaction data. Reporting was limited to the actual generated purchase orders, and a report listing all purchase orders created to date.

OrderGen 2.0 was another 16-bit version (1997) that upgraded OrderGen 1.0 from an ObjectVision runtime application to a Windows executable using the same Paradox database tables. This version had a limited release, and was never really marketed, since everyone was well into the process of migrating their operating systems from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.

OrderGen 3.0 was a complete rewrite of the software. Initially developed in Windows 98, the database structures were completely redesigned, although Paradox continued to be the database engine driving the product.

OrderGen v. 3.1.9
Last Revised, Sep, 2011

The database was designed to support both single workstation usage and multi-user network access, and contained multiple reports on the vendors, products, and the purchase order transactions. This version was developed in late 2000 - early 2001, and released in 2001. Windows 2000 and Windows ME were the operating systems that were being used at the time. Naturally, this version was referred to as OrderGen 2000.

In 2005, OrderGen 3.0 received a thorough upgrade, developed in Windows XP Pro. This release updated the database structures and added internal requisition creation module. Instead of releasing a major upgrade (4.0), upgrading the software to OrderGen v. 3.1 allowed the existing user base to continue using the software without needing to purchase a new license.

A list of all updates since 2006 can be viewed at support.ordergen.com. The current "production version" is 3.1.9.842, released Sep 23, 2011. This version has been tested on Windows ME, 2000, XP (32-Bit), and Vista (32-bit).

OrderGen P.O. Form 1.0.1.45
Last Revised, May, 2010

Purchase Order Form 1.0 is a separate software program consisting of the OrderGen 3.1 purchase order report only. This application was created after many small businesses indicated that their need for purchase order creation may be limited to only four or five times per year. This is NOT a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet. This stand-alone Windows software module costs around $20 USD.

The P. O. Form software has no database connected fields. The data entered into the form can be saved as an individual purchase order form file (*.pof) for future editing; however, there are no vendor lists or product lists to facilitate data entry. Since users of this software create very few purchase orders, the absence of vendor and product lists is not a major disadvantage.

Purchase Order Form performs all the necessary mathematical calculations, including discounts, deposits or prepayments, and tax percentages. The output report (i.e. the purchase order) looks exactly like the purchase order from the OrderGen 3.1 database software.

OrderGen Software News

New version 3.1.9.842 released on Sep 23, 2011. The Build 842 updates apply to network workstation and single-user desktop or laptop licensees.

Users of the latest version will be able to add a purchase order terms and conditions page to each transaction (a database update is required by users of earlier versions to support this functionality).

Registered users should use the OrderGen Update feature to download the latest changes automatically.

The latest setup for OrderGen supports installation on 64-Bit versions of Windows® VistaTM and Windows® 7, by automatically installing into the Program Files (x86) directory.