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Using Work Order Vs. Purchase Order

Document Definitions (for documents used in Vendor Interactions):

  • A Vendor Work Order is a document listing the items that must be completed by a Vendor within a Vendor Contract.
  • A Purchase Order for Extras (POE) is a document that informs a vendor about upcoming upgrades and extras.
  • Purchase Invoice is a document processing a line-by-line breakdown of charges for anything from a vendor. This can be related to Work Orders, POEs, Purchase Orders, or just a fee to be paid.
  • Purchase Order is a rarely used document in HomeBuilder as it is replaced with WO and POE. If you have inventory items that you need to store and do not have them, go directly to a Lot, you may want to use this document.
  • The posted Purchase Invoice is the posted version of the Purchase Invoice. The posting of the Purchase Invoice produces this document, deletes the original Purchase Invoice (when all lines are fully posted), and posts the GL, tax, and other ledger transactions.

Why Work Orders instead of Purchase Orders?

  • You can create a Work Order automatically from a list of Planning Lines. Planning Lines are typically created from Vendor Contracts. Note that you can also populate a Purchase Order from Planning Lines however the process is less intuitive and less automated.
  • The system will automatically gather all Planning lines that you select and merge all lines into one Work Order per vendor.
  • If you select Planning Lines from multiple vendors, the system will automatically create a Work Order for each vendor, potentially saving time.
  • Work Orders have a process flow. There are multiple statuses of Work Orders so that you can track them through the system; these statuses are viewable from the Work Order and the Planning Lines.
    • New (the default status upon creation).
    • Issued (When ready to send Work Order, you will issue from within HomeBuilder).
    • Reported (this can be done within the system, on a mobile device or PC, or this can be done by the vendor in the Contractor’s Portal if you have turned this feature on and setup permissions).
    • Completed (Work is complete and indicated as such in HomeBuilder. This status change will also update the Task Operations and automatically update the timeline of the construction of the Lot).
    • The relationship between Task Operations and Work Orders is bi-directional. This means that your process (to indicate the task is complete) is via the Task Operations screen rather than the Work Order. Once you have marked all Task Operations as complete, the Work Order will automatically be marked as complete.
Note

Work Orders are used for any Planning Line tracking mechanism however you should consider that they are primarily setup to be used for Base Contract task initiation and tracking.

When it comes to selections (aka Color Chart), Purchase Orders for Extras (POE) are typically used. Partly because these have a price by default on the document, but also because they indicate that a new purchase has been initiated. Unlike base contract items where the vendor knows that they will be working on this task at some point, POEs are an addition to the base contract.