Automatic Purchase Orders in Ubik: Turn Purchase Suggestions into Scheduled Drafts

Inventory planning is valuable because it catches the products your clinic may need before someone is standing in front of an empty shelf.

But the next step still matters. A Purchase Suggestion is only a signal. Someone still needs to create the purchase order, review the quantities, confirm the supplier, and send it at the right time.

Automatic Purchase Orders help with that middle step.

When the setting is enabled, Ubik can use nightly Purchase Suggestions to create normal draft purchase orders for approved suppliers. The draft stays visible in Purchase Orders, your team can edit it, and Ubik can send it automatically after the review window if nobody cancels or disables auto-send.

The goal is not to remove staff control. The goal is to remove the repetitive draft creation work while keeping the review step clear.

Why Automatic POs Help

Most clinics already know the pattern:

The team starts the day with a purchase suggestion email.
Someone means to create the supplier order.
The day gets busy.
The order is created late, duplicated, or forgotten.
Inventory pressure shows up again at the worst time.

Automatic POs make that flow less fragile.

They help your clinic:

Create supplier PO drafts from nightly Purchase Suggestions without manual copying.
Keep suggested orders in the same Purchase Orders workflow the team already uses.
Give staff a review window before anything is sent.
Limit automation to suppliers you explicitly approve.
Keep supplier setup problems visible instead of sending questionable orders.
Preserve normal draft editing, canceling, sending, and receiving behavior.

In practice, this means the person responsible for ordering can open Purchase Orders in the morning and review drafts that Ubik already prepared.

How It Works

Automatic POs still start with Purchase Suggestions.

Each night, Ubik reviews inventory planning data and stores purchase suggestions by supplier. After those suggestions are computed, Ubik checks the Automatic POs setting for each account.

Ubik creates an automatic draft only when all of these are true:

Automatic POs are enabled for the account.
The supplier is explicitly selected in the Automatic POs supplier list.
The supplier is ready for Ubik PO sending.
The cadence is due for that account and supplier.
There is not already an open automatic draft for that supplier.
There is not already a draft tied to the same Purchase Suggestion.

When Ubik creates the draft, it is still a normal purchase order draft. It appears in Purchase Orders > Send Orders with an Auto PO badge, a generated date, and a scheduled send date.

Your team can edit quantities, remove lines, add notes, save the draft, send it manually, cancel it, or disable auto-send for that one draft.

Editing the draft does not stop the automatic send. If the draft should not send automatically, use Disable auto-send or cancel the PO.

What Each Setting Means

You control Automatic POs from the account configuration.

Enable Automatic POs

This turns the feature on for the account.

When it is off, Ubik still creates normal Purchase Suggestions, but it does not create automatic PO drafts.

This setting is off by default.

Cadence

Cadence controls how often Ubik may generate an automatic PO for the same supplier.

Common options are:

Daily: Ubik may create a new automatic PO draft every day when there are due suggestions.
Weekly: Ubik may create one about every 7 days.
Monthly: Ubik treats monthly as every 30 days.
Custom days: Choose your own number of days.

Cadence is counted from the previous automatic PO generation for that supplier, not from the calendar week or calendar month.

Weekly is a practical starting point for many suppliers. Daily is better for high-volume suppliers where the team already reviews orders every morning.

Review Time

Review time controls how long the draft waits before Ubik sends it automatically.

For example:

0 days means the draft can be sent by the next morning auto-send check after it is created, if setup is still valid.
1 day gives staff roughly one day to review the draft.
2 or more days gives the team a longer ordering review window.

Review time is useful when the team wants automation but still wants a predictable chance to adjust quantities before the supplier receives the PO.

Suppliers

The supplier list is an allowlist.

Ubik does not automatically generate POs for every supplier. A supplier must be selected before Automatic POs can create drafts for that supplier.

This is intentional. Some suppliers may not use the PO sending flow well, may require a different ordering channel, or may need internal review before any order is sent.

For normal suppliers, Ubik checks whether the supplier has the required supplier tax ID and WhatsApp contact information for PO sending. If a supplier is not ready, Account Settings shows the reason so the setup can be fixed before selection.

The supplier selector is searchable, so you can filter by supplier name, DBA, tax ID, phone, email, or WhatsApp number while choosing the allowlist.

Partner suppliers can also participate when the partner purchase order and inventory transfer setup is ready.

What Staff Will See

Automatic drafts appear in Purchase Orders > Send Orders.

Each automatic draft includes:

An Auto PO badge.
The generated date.
The scheduled send date.
Current automatic status.
Any reason the automatic send needs attention.

The draft can still be edited like any other draft. Staff can adjust quantities, remove lines, add notes, and save.

If the automatic send should be stopped for that draft, choose Disable auto-send. The purchase order remains an editable draft; it just will not be sent by the automatic morning processor.

If the supplier setup or account configuration becomes invalid before the scheduled send, Ubik blocks the automatic send and leaves the PO as a draft for staff review.

A Practical Starting Configuration

If you are turning this on for the first time, start conservatively.

Use:

Enabled: On
Cadence: Weekly
Review time: 1 day
Suppliers: One or two reliable suppliers with clean WhatsApp and tax setup

Let the team review those automatic drafts for a few ordering cycles. Once the workflow feels predictable, add more suppliers or shorten the cadence for fast-moving categories.

Schedule a Free Demo or Send Us a Message

We would be happy to show how Ubik can help your clinic turn inventory planning into a cleaner purchasing workflow.

WhatsApp: 1-612-383-6374

Website: goubik.com

Email: [email protected]

Or send us a message on Facebook

Instructions

Turn On Automatic POs

Open Account Settings.
Go to the account configuration area for Inventory & Sales.
Find Automatic POs.
Turn Automatic POs on.
Choose a cadence: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Custom.
Set the review time in days.
Search for and select the suppliers that are allowed to receive automatic PO drafts.
Save the account.

Review Automatic Drafts

Open Purchase Orders > Send Orders.
Look for drafts marked with the Auto PO badge.
Open the draft.
Review the supplier, generated date, scheduled send date, items, quantities, and notes.
Edit the draft if needed.
Save the draft.

Stop One Draft From Sending Automatically

Open Purchase Orders > Send Orders.
Select the automatic draft.
Choose Disable auto-send.
Continue editing the PO as a normal draft, send it manually when ready, or cancel it if the order is not needed.

Check Why a Draft Was Not Created

If you expected an automatic draft and do not see one:

Confirm Automatic POs are enabled on the account.
Confirm the supplier is selected in the Automatic POs supplier list.
Check whether the supplier has the required tax ID and WhatsApp sending details.
Check whether the cadence is due yet.
Check whether there is already an open automatic draft for that supplier.
Check whether a draft already exists for the same Purchase Suggestion.
Review the morning summary email for automatic PO created, sent, blocked, or disabled results.