Creating a Purchase Order Requisition

1. Log in to Sinai Central. If you've never used Sinai Central before, see the instructions for obtaining a username and password at Activating Your Sinai Central User Account.
2. If the Finance menu is not already displayed, select it from the left menu bar. This opens the Finance menu and displays your Finance home page.



Your home page will display all of your transactions in progress. It also contains an attention area in the upper right, where you'll see notices about items that require your attention. All of this can be customized, which is covered in a different unit. For now, let's proceed directly to the Transactions module where we'll create a new purchase order.

3. From the Finance menu, select Transactions > New > School of Medicine Purchase Order.
   

Creating a purchase order begins with selecting or creating a vendor.

Four Methods of Finding a Vendor

You can use four methods to find a vendor.

Show vendors by alphabetical listing.

Clicking on any of the letters in the Alphabetical Listing area displays all of the vendors whose names begin with that letter. Mount Sinai has a lot of vendors in our database, so if you choose that method you'll probably get a long listing.

Search for a vendor by name.

You can use the Search function to search for a vendor. This is usually faster than the alphabetical listing. From the drop-down list, you can choose to search for names that contain an expression or start with an expression.

Display recently-used vendors.

You can choose to show your most recently-used vendors by clicking the Show button after Your most recently used Vendors:.

Display preferred vendors.

You can display Mount Sinai's preferred vendors by clicking the Show button after Mount Sinai Preferred Vendors:.

Creating New Vendors

In some cases, you will need to create a vendor that is currently not available in the vendor database. To do this, click on the Create a New Vendor button. A short online form displays and you can enter information about the vendor.
Creating a new vendor is information that needs to be verified (or credentialled) before they are recognized as a Mount Sinai Vendor. Once recognized by the Finance Department, the vendor is appended to the current vendor listing for purchases.

About Punchout Vendors

When you select most vendors, Sinai Central displays a blank purchase order form. On the form, you enter the information for the items you want to purchase. In the screen-shot above, some preferred vendors have an online catalog that Sinai Central takes advantage of. Fisher and Corporate Express are examples of Punchout Vendors.

When you select these vendors, you are taken to the vendor's online catalog, where you select the items you want to purchase. This is just like online shopping on Amazon and other merchant sites. There is one key difference: during the checkout process, you are taken back to Sinai Central. The purchase order displays, with the line item information filled in for you. Selecting the Add More Lines button will bring you automatically back to the vendor site so that you can select more items.

In some cases, you will see a vendor name listed with the name of a punchout vendor in the right hand column. Clicking on the vendor name will bring you to the punchout. This is not a mistake. The reason is that the Medical Center will receive a better deal on the materials from the punchout vendor compared to dealing with the vendor directly.

Funding information is never exchanged with the punchout vendor until the purchase order is submitted and approved.

If the vendor uses a "punchout" site (Corporate Express, Fisher, Matthews)...

4. Shop the vendor's site as you would any online shopping site. Just add items to your online shopping cart.
   
5. When you are ready to buy, go to your online shopping cart and check out.
   
6. After checking out, you will be taken back to our online purchase order.
   

All other vendors...

7. Enter each line item into the purchase order form.
   

From the drop-down list, select a delivery location for this PO. This list contains the address(es) that you entered into your Personal Profile. You should have set up your Personal Profile the first time you logged in to Sinai Central. If you did complete your Personal Profile, see the viewlet that show you what to do during your first login.

8. From the Fund No: drop-down list, select a fund number for this PO.

If the fund you need is not listed, you must contact the fund owner or departmental administrator for that fund. They will grant you access. If you are the fund owner or administrator, contact the Finance Department for access.

9. From the Object Code: drop-down list, select the classification code for this purchase.

In the Comments: field, enter any special instructions. These will be seen by the approvers and the vendor.

To submit the PO, click . The status of the PO displays at the top of the page. If the PO needs additional approvals, it will have the status of Pending Approval.

After the PO has achieved the status of Ready to Order, you should fax it to the vendor. The only exception is for vendors with a punchout. If you used Corporate Express, Fisher, or Matthews, the order is automatically transmitted to the vendor after it is approved, and you will see it has the status Ordered.

You don't need to fax orders created with a punchout vendor. For all other orders, print and fax them to the vendor. Or, click the Fax link in the left menu bar.

After the items have been delivered to you, log in to Sinai Central, select the PO, and select Receipts from the left menu bar. Then, confirm that you have/have not received all of the items in the order.