Buying from Your Vendors

Procurement is how your business buys things it needs — supplies, parts, equipment, services — from the companies that sell them to you (your vendors). Kamo keeps every purchase in one place, from "we need this" to "it arrived".

You'll find it in Commerce, on the tab of any market whose line of business is Procurement. The list has three views: Purchase Requests, Vendor Orders and Vendors.

The steps of a purchase

1. Someone asks. A team member raises a purchase request: which vendor, what's needed and roughly what it costs.
2. Someone approves. Everyone who can approve purchases gets a notification. They open the request and either Approve it or Reject it with a reason. The person who asked is told either way.
3. The order goes out. An approved request becomes a vendor order. Send it to the vendor however you normally do (email, phone, their website), then press Mark as Sent.
4. Things arrive. When a delivery comes, press Record Delivery and enter how many of each item arrived. Deliveries can come in several parts; the order shows what has arrived and what is still to come.
5. You finish. When everything has arrived — or you're not expecting the rest — press Close Order.

Raising a purchase request

1. Open the Procurement market's tab and choose New Purchase Request.
2. Pick the Vendor. If they're not in the list yet, press New Vendor and add them right there.
3. Add a line for each thing you're buying: what it is, how many, and what each one costs. The total adds itself up.
   • Buying something that doesn't break into items, like a repair? Leave the lines empty and type an Estimated Amount instead.
4. Use Notes for anything the approver or vendor should know, such as a delivery date.
5. Customer Account is optional. If the purchase is for a customer's job, choose their account and it will show on that customer's Orders tab. Leave it empty for things your own business needs.
6. Press Send for Approval.

Until it's approved or rejected you can still Change the request, or Withdraw it if it's no longer needed.

Approving or rejecting

You need the Approve Purchase Requests right. Open the request from the notification or from the list (it shows as Waiting for Approval), check the lines and total, then:

• Approve — creates the vendor order straight away.
• Reject — closes the request. You must give a reason; the person who asked sees it.

Changing your mind about an order

• Cancel Order is available until anything has arrived. Tell the vendor you no longer need it, then cancel it here with a short reason.
• Once some items have arrived, use Close Order instead: it keeps a record of what did arrive.

Vendors

The Vendors view lists the businesses you buy from, with their contact person, email and phone (click either to call, text or email them). A vendor can serve one market or every market.

A vendor you no longer use can be Deactivated. It disappears from the vendor picker but stays on every past request and order, and you can Activate it again any time. Vendors are never deleted, so your purchase history always stays complete.

Markets

Every request and order belongs to a market, chosen when the request is raised (or taken from the vendor). Each market's tab shows its own purchases. Requests made before markets were recorded show in every Procurement market with No market; open one and use Market › Choose Market to file it.

Who can do what

• Create Purchase Requests — raise, change and withdraw requests; send, receive, close and cancel vendor orders; manage vendors.
• Approve Purchase Requests — approve or reject requests.

Your administrator sets these in your security settings.