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Creating a Purchase or Sales Agreement

Purpose

It records a Purchase (you buy) or a Sales (you sell) agreement, with the goods on it.

Who does this

MK office staff who record an agreement with a customer or supplier.

Before you start

  • You have the right account (see Permissions and Access).
  • The record and date you are working on are correct.
  • Words you do not know are in the Glossary.

Access

Shipping > Commercial Orders

Before you create anything

  1. Set a date range and filter by type, status and keyword.
  2. Check there is not already an agreement for this deal. Creating a second one is hard to undo.
  3. Decide whether it is a Purchase or a Sales, and who the other party is.

The list shows at most a thousand rows. If you cannot find what you expect, narrow the dates rather than assuming it is missing.

What to enter

Some fields are filled in for you as a starting point. A filled-in value is a suggestion, not a fact — check each one against the deal you were given.

  • Confirmation date, reference, contacts, due date
  • Terms, ports, planned containers
  • Documents, memo, signatures
  • At least one line: commodity, quantity above zero, unit, rate, and a memo if needed

Check anything where the format matters — numbers, dates, and text that will be read by the other party.

Saving

  1. Save once.
  2. Search for the number that was created.
  3. Open it and compare the header, the items and the totals against what you entered.

A success message on its own does not mean it saved correctly.

Linking a Purchase to a Sales

When the same deal is both bought and sold, you can link the two agreements.

  1. Create both the Purchase and the Sales first.
  2. Open the Purchase.
  3. Choose the matching Sales row in Linked SO.
  4. Save, then check both sides.

You link from the Purchase side. The Sales side shows the link but you cannot set it there.

The two must be in the same company, must be opposite types, and cannot be the same record. Other conditions — status, and whether one Sales can serve several Purchases — are not checked by the system. Check them yourself.

Changing an agreement

Before any work has started on it

You can change the lines freely. Replacing the lines gives them new identities, so anything that referred to the old line numbers will no longer match.

Check that nothing has started using this agreement before you replace its lines. An empty execution list is not proof — it only means no whole-agreement link was found.

After work has started

The line controls are disabled. You can still change some of the header fields, but you cannot change the order type, and the existing lines are kept.

If you need a line changed after work has started, do not force it. Check the header and the references, and report anything that does not line up.

Setting the status

Pick one of the available statuses and save.

The system does not work the status out for you. It will not set "partly done" or "finished" by itself. Set what is actually true, and if you are unsure, ask.

Reviewing and printing

  1. Select one row — printing several at once is not a check.
  2. Open the print view.
  3. Check the agreement number, type, the other party, dates, terms, lines, documents, memo and signatures.

If something goes wrong

Situation What you do
The agreement is not in the list Narrow the dates, then reload. It may just be outside what you asked for.
It saved but the details are wrong Reopen it and correct the fields. Do not create a second agreement.
A line disappeared after an edit Replacing lines gives them new identities. Check the new line numbers before using them.
Two people edited the same agreement The last save wins. Reopen and check the values you expect.
The line controls are greyed out Work has already started on this agreement. Change what you can and report the rest.
The link will not save The two records must be in the same company, be opposite types, and be different records. Check all three.

Who owns the next step

MK office staff own the agreement. Once it is in use, execution belongs to the warehouse and outbound teams — see The working day, step by step.

The full step-by-step

This page is the short version. The screen-by-screen procedure with every field and recovery step is here: