After entering the purchase order and – if required – finishing the approval process, the purchase order shows the approval status “Approved”. In this status, you can optionally post the purchase inquiry before posting the required purchase order confirmation.
In case you are using the vendor portal in Dynamics AX, post a Confirmation request (instead of the purchase inquiry) for vendor validation on the portal.
3.4.5.1 Purchase Inquiry
The purchase inquiry is an optional document, which you can send to the vendor for validation purposes. It does not create physical or financial transactions. After posting the purchase inquiry, the approval status of the order is “In external review”.
In order to post the purchase inquiry, click the button PURCHASE/Generate/
Purchase inquiry in the action pane of the purchase order. In the posting dialog for the purchase inquiry, you can select settings for posting and printing as described for the purchase order confirmation below.
If the vendor wants you to apply changes on the purchase order, you can update the order and – if change management applies – approve the changes through the approval workflow before posting another purchase inquiry for the same order.
3.4.5.2 Purchase Order Confirmation
The purchase order confirmation is a mandatory document, which you have to post before you can record the product receipt. In parallel to posting the order confirmation, you usually print it (physically or electronically) and send it to the vendor.
Confirming a purchase order means to save it unchanging and separately from the current purchase order. The confirmation is an evidence of the document which has been sent to the vendor. It does not create physical or financial transactions.
In order to confirm a purchase order, click the button PURCHASE/Generate/
Confirmation in the action pane of the purchase order form after selecting the particular order. Alternatively, you can click the button PURCHASE/Actions/
Confirm executing the same functionality without showing the posting dialog.
The option to confirm a purchase order is also available on applicable tabs in the tabbed list pane of the Purchase order confirmation workspace and the Purchase order preparation workspace.
3.4.5.3 Posting Dialog for Order Updates
When posting an update of the purchase order (e.g. a purchase order confirmation), the posting dialog shows following options:
Parameters / Quantity – “Ordered quantity” is the only option for the purchase order confirmation, posting the total quantity of all lines. Additional options are available for other transactions (e.g. for the receipts list described later).
Parameters / Posting – If set to “Yes”, the order confirmation is posted. If set to
“No”, the output is a pro forma document.
Print options / Print – When selecting multiple orders for a summary update, the option “Current” prints documents separately while posting, whereas
“After” starts printing after the last document has been posted.
Print options / Print purchase order – If set to “Yes”, the document is printed.
Otherwise, posting is without printing (reprinting is possible nevertheless).
Print options / Use print management destination – If set to “Yes”, print settings specified in the form Procurement and sourcing> Setup> Forms> Form setup (button Print management on the tab General) or in the vendor form (button GENERAL/Set up/Print management) are used. Otherwise, print settings specified by clicking the button Printer setup in the toolbar of the posting dialog apply.
In order to finally post the document, click the button OK in the posting dialog. If the slider for printing in the posting dialog is set to “Yes”, Dynamics AX prints the document on a printer or saves a file as specified in the printer selection.
Figure 3-20: Selecting to print in the purchase order confirmation dialog
3.4.5.4 Pro Forma Document
In the posting dialog, you can select to print a document while setting the slider Posting to “No”. Dynamics AX generates a pro forma document in this case. A pro forma document, which can be required for purposes like customs declaration, is not a posted document. For this reason, it is not possible to reprint or display the document independently from the purchase order once printing is finished.
Another way to generate a pro forma confirmation is to click the button PURCHASE/Generate/Pro forma confirmation in the action pane of the purchase order. In the posting dialog for pro forma documents, the setting of the slider Posting is always “No”.
3.4.5.5 Summary Update
Apart from posting a document through the appropriate button in the purchase order form, you can run a periodic activity for summary updates.
The summary order confirmation (Procurement and sourcing> Purchase orders>
Purchase order confirmation> Confirm purchase orders) shows the same posting dialog as the button for order confirmation in the purchase order. But whereas a filter selecting the current order automatically applies when accessing the posting dialog from a purchase order, the summary update requires manually entering a filter.
You can do this by clicking the button Select in the toolbar on the tab Settings of the posting dialog, which opens an advanced filter for selecting purchase orders.
After closing the filter dialog, the selected orders show on the tab Overview of the posting dialog. If you do not want to post a particular order listed there, simply delete the appropriate line before posting the document by clicking the button OK.
3.4.5.6 Inquiring and Reprinting Purchase Documents
After posting a document in the purchase order, the posted document is stored independently from later amendments in the current order.
If you want to view the posted purchase order confirmation, open the menu item Procurement and sourcing> Purchase orders> Purchase order confirmation> Purchase order confirmations or click the button PURCHASE/Journals/Purchase order confirmations in the action pane of the purchase order form.
If you want to view the posted Purchase inquiry document, click the button PURCHASE/Journals/Purchase inquiry in the action pane of the purchase order form.
Figure 3-21: Selecting to reprint in the purchase order confirmation inquiry
The order confirmation inquiry form shows all posted purchase order confirmations on the tab Overview. After selecting an order confirmation header on this tab, the tab Lines displays the related order lines.
If you want to display a print preview of the posted order confirmation, click the button Preview/Print/Copy preview or Preview/Print/Original preview in the inquiry form. From the preview, you can reprint the document. Alternatively, you can print one or more order confirmations directly in the order confirmation inquiry by clicking the button Preview/Print/Use print management (printing to the printer specified in print management).
3.4.5.7 New in Dynamics ‘AX 7’
Items which are new in purchase order confirmation refer to the new vendor portal using the confirmation request.