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Purchase Orders

Purchase Orders

Purchase orders act as a binding contract between Vista Industrial Products, Inc. and your company. Therefore, it is crucial for the information on the purchase order to be as detail oriented as possible, especially in regards to the pertaining quote letter. The information that is on the quote letter is a guideline as to what information needs to be present on a purchase order. For instance, the quote letter includes the following information that needs to match the PO:

  • Part number
  • Part description
  • Revision
  • Quantity
  • Price
  • Exceptions and/or conditions*
  • Lead time

All this information, less the exceptions and/or conditions, are provided by the customer. If any information is missing, such as a revision or part number, we can provide them and will illustrate it on the quote letter. When a PO is submitted, it is very important to have the information listed above match what is on the quote. That way both VIP and the customer have a common understanding of what is to be fabricated and the documentation matches each other.

There have been several instances where customers will put incorrect information. In this case, we will send the PO back to be revised to illustrate matching information to the quote letter. Here are a couple examples of PO issues:

  1. *Exceptions/Conditions: These need to be approved when your order is placed. We cannot confirm an order if these are not approved and agreed upon before fabrication. The exceptions/conditions are our way of listing deviations, suggestions, changes, or other information on how we quoted the part. There are three ways of approving exceptions:
    • Roll Revision: Since the exceptions/conditions are generally used as redlines on the drawing, it is best to approve these changes by implementing them onto the drawing and rolling the revision. This is by far, the best method of approving exceptions. Keep in mind that when a revision is changed, we need to update our records and quote. Please see Conditions for a Requote for more information.
    • PO Approval: List the approval of the exceptions/conditions on the PO. For example: “Exceptions/Conditions approved” or by listing the exact exception/condition on the PO under the pertaining line item.
    • Email Approval: When submitting your PO via email, many times the customer will approve the exceptions/conditions in the email with the PO. This is the easiest way.
  2. Part Number: part numbers are shown on the print provided by the customer. On rare occasions, some prints do not provide this important information. As a result, VIP will assign the part number to the part and illustrate it on the quote letter. We have seen several times where the PO will have it's own name or part number that wasn't provided orginally to us. As a result, we will ask the customer to change the information to match the quote letter. The reason the information needs to match is because our system and document control all illustrate the information that is shown on the quote letter. Therefore, if the part number changes, everything will have to be changed and require us to go back and quote. That is why it is so important for POs to match the quote letter.
  3. Revision: the revision on the PO needs to match what we quoted. Many times we see a new revision on the PO that we have not quoted to. We cannot accept the PO and would have to go back to requote to the new revision.
  4. Pricing: for most of our customers, we quote multiple quantities per part based on the customers' request in order to see the different price breaks (quantities 5, 10, 25, 50, 100). A common issue we find is when customers have a quantity on their PO that we didn't quote to, but they somehow use the larger price break quantity, which is incorrect. For instance, if they were to put a quantity of 80, the unit price should match the quantity 50 price break because it hasn't reached the 100 piece price. However, we always see people try to use the 100 piece price, in which we have to return the PO to be revised.
  5. Due Date: our quote letters illustrate the lead time of how long it would take us to fabricate the parts. However, many times companies ignore this and will choose their own due date that is not within the specified lead time. In this case, we would confirm the PO back, but will correct the due date to be within the lead time we provided.
  6. Terms: our quote letter also provides the terms that we have established with your company. For new customers we require 50% upfront and 50% COD until terms are established. The PO needs to illustrate the right terms. Many times we see customers on their first order show Net 30, but we have yet to establish terms with them. The terms on the PO need to match the terms that are illustrated on the quote letter.

To make things simple, your purchase order needs to match what we quoted. This ensures you are getting the right part fabricated and that all of our paperwork matches to make this binding contract valid.

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