Modify a PO that is in "Ordered" Status?

[charlottesmith]

I searched out our PO questions and couldn't find an answer or the answers I found were developer oriented.   I apologize if this is not in the correct forum however it seemed as though most PO questions were in the IT Business Management category.  

We are new to ServiceNow and in the Procurement module/application we occasionally have a situation where we have placed a PO with a vendor, the vendor is not able to fulfill on an item, and then we need to modify the PO. Our previous PO system would allow us to have one "master" PO within which we could source from multiple vendors.   A project entailing 20 line items say where not all items come from a single vendor, be we are able to use a single PO to track the project purchases/inventory/spend.  

With ServiceNow we now add those 20 line items to a cart, checkout, approve the REQ, Source the items via a Service Catalog Task, then multiple POs are created by ServiceNow (one for each vendor), and we begin processing each of those individually.   We're trying to understand why when we click "Order" on the PO screen it locks us out of doing changes to the PO instead of allowing us to make changes.

Once the PO has been "Ordered":

1) We might need to cancel one of the line items and source it with another vendor (example: Laptop A is not available after the PO has been placed and we cannot substitute the model so we now are sourcing Laptop A with a different vendor).   Is there a way to do this without creating a whole new REQ to be approved, sourced, and turned into another PO?  

2) Or we might need to cancel one of the line items and source it with the same vendor (example: Laptop A is not available and we're going to buy Laptop B instead with same vendor).   In which case what is the danger of adding a line item directly in the PO versus creating a whole new REQ, again to be approved, sourced, and then we have another PO number generated.   Currently the PO screen in ServiceNow shows a vendor on the main screen, yet when we go into the POL we can change a vendor there (it does not change the vendor on the main PO screen).   Why is that even an option?

Thank you in advance.

[larstange]

Hi Charlotte

In my opinion the standard procurement process in servicenow not very mature and frankly I only consider it a "suggestion" on a basic process.

You will need to do many modifications to the functionality to get an effective process which can handle all the exceptions which can occur.

As defaullt, once the purchase order has been Ordered, it is then meant only to be handled by the Receive Order screen, but as you say exceptions will occur the the Receive Order screen cannot handle.

So there is no other way, than to modify the default setup to match your needs.