Product Catalog Configuration and Classes
The session opens with a comprehensive overview of ConnectWise PSA's product catalog structure, which serves as the foundation for all procurement activities. Anit Junaid explains the five product classes available: agreement, bundle, inventory, non-inventory, and service. Each class behaves differently when added to records like tickets, projects, or agreements. Non-inventory products are ordered on-demand and don't maintain warehouse quantities, while inventory products track on-hand counts, committed quantities, and support serialization with cost-by-serial capabilities. Service class products flow to the finance tab rather than the product tab during conversion, with price attributes determining billing methods (fixed fee, time and materials, not-to-exceed, or override rate). Bundle products act as containers grouping multiple products together, with phase bundles creating project phases automatically. Critical fields like product type, category, and subcategory drive GL mapping to accounting packages, ensuring revenue tracking aligns with financial systems.
Procurement System Settings and Defaults
The webinar details essential procurement configuration settings found under System > My Company > Honors tab. Key settings include costing method selection (average, FIFO, or LIFO) which must match the accounting package, and the critical 'disable system updates to product catalog costing' checkbox that prevents ad-hoc PO cost changes from updating the master catalog. The auto-pick setting determines whether received products automatically pick against demand or require manual picking, impacting inventory variance between PSA and accounting systems. Auto-close options for purchase orders and line items streamline workflows when approval processes aren't required. The approval workflow can be enabled to route purchasing demands through designated approvers before PO creation. Text defaults control whether sales tax, purchase order tax, and freight tax automatically populate on new records, with options to source tax codes from shipping addresses or vendor companies.
Complete Procurement Workflow Demonstration
A live demonstration walks through the entire procurement lifecycle starting with opportunity creation. When a bundle product containing inventory items is added to an opportunity and converted to a won sales order, PSA intelligently recognizes which components require procurement action. Products with available on-hand inventory flow to picking screens, while products lacking inventory generate purchasing demand. The demand moves through purchasing approvals (if enabled) to the purchasing screen where POs are created. Upon receiving products, users can enter packing slip numbers for partial shipments or allow the system to use PO numbers as defaults. The receiving action adds inventory to on-hand counts and syncs to accounting packages. Products then flow to pick and ship screens, with the final shipping action triggering invoice creation capability. The demonstration emphasizes how auto-pick settings affect this flow and the importance of maintaining inventory accuracy between PSA and accounting systems throughout the process.
Cleanup Strategies for Legacy Procurement Data
The session addresses a common challenge for partners beginning to use procurement features: clearing accumulated demand records from purchasing screens. For non-inventory products already invoiced, the recommendation is to ship them directly from the purchasing screen since they don't affect on-hand counts. For inventory products, partners must evaluate whether items are invoiced, require POs, or represent obsolete demand. Products that are invoiced but stuck in purchasing can be picked and shipped directly. Obsolete demand can be cancelled using the 'cancel products' action. For situations requiring PO creation to clear screens without impacting accounting, partners can create POs, receive and ship products, but prevent accounting sync by removing records from the unposted procurement queue in the interface. This multi-scenario approach allows partners to clean historical data while establishing proper procurement workflows going forward.
