Why Use VPO Templates?

Vendor Purchase Orders are often created directly by PMs for their Jobs. For Job Costing purposes, it is essential that VPO Line Items be correctly aligned to a company's Fieldclix Financial Accounts. A company's FA structure is often customized per the intentions of the financial management team, which means that structure may not be fully understood by subordinate team members (like PMs) at the outset. It is therefore best practice to create and use VPO Templates to free PMs from having to manually allocate VPOs to the right FAs. It makes things easier for the PM and ensures accurate Job Costing.

This article explains how to create / edit VPO Templates.

VIM PO Template Creation Workbook

As your company is getting started with VPOs, you may want to design the VPO Template collection as a whole. To do this, you may use a “VIM PO Template Creation Workbook” created for you by FCX. We can adapt this workbook to your company's configuration. The below links to the base workbook based on a typical company configuration:

Google Sheet FCX AP VIM PO Template Creation Workbook (View Access)

Note that if you want to add multiple VPO Templates at once (as in initial configuration) it may be easier for FCX to mass-import these for you. For more information, reach out to your Implementation Manager at FCX.

Access to VIM PO Templates

There is a default set of VIM PO Templates in your instance. However, users of the groups “Accountants and Bookkeepers” and  “Project Library Managers” have full access to VIM PO Templates reference. So they can add a new template or edit existing ones. To do this, open the Purchase Order Templates (VIM) reference.  

Create / Edit Single VPO Template

The below are instructions on how to create / edit a single VPO Template.

1. Open Reference, Purchase Order Templates (VIM), and Create Record.

• Navigate to the VIM PO Template Reference via Quick Launch → “Purchase Order Templates (VIM)”
• In this Reference, in the upper-left corner of the ribbon Home tab, click “Create Record” to create a new Template.
• Fill-out all Required Requisites.

2. Assign VPO Template Name.

Give your Template a Name that will tell users what to expect when selecting it for use in creating a new VPO.

3. Assign VPO Template to a Project (LOB)

• Select the “Project,” AKA “Line of Business” under-which your Template should be available.
• VPO Templates must be Project-specific, so if you want to use a similar template for other Projects, you should copy this Template, select a different Project and change its Name.

4. Add VPOLs as Table Rows

• Click-into the table under the Project field, just beneath the table column headers, to add a new row.
• Fill-out each row of the table to represent each VPOL Item that should be part of the Template.
• These Line Items will populate with the default info into any new VPO to which this Template is applied.
• Note that all VPOL values can be edited prior to sending the VPO to the vendor.

5. Fill-Out Default VPOL Description of Services

The “Description of Services” will push to the VPOL as seen by the Vendor when the VPO is sent to them. This description will explain the good or service they are expected to provide and charge against this VPOL.

6. Enter Default VPOL $ Total

The POL Total is the dollar amount the VPOL should be set at by default.

7. Select VPOL FA

• Select the Financial Account to which this VPOL should charge. This directly affects the Financial Distribution that will be created and therefore the relevant Job Costing.
• VPOL totals will show up as PO totals under this FA on BP Budgets and in various financial dashboard columns.
• Vendor Bill Line Items charged to these POLs will likewise show up under “Actuals” on BP Budgets and in dashboards.

8. Add Account or Service Item

Select Account or Service Item to which VIM PO Line amount will be distributed in the VIM Invoice.

VIM PO Template Account and Service Item → populate to the VIM PO → populate either Account or Service Item to the VIM Invoice, depending on the expense distribution type.

9. Add Additional Rows as Desired

To add a new row, click-into any field in the last row and press the “down arrow” button on your keyboard.