Lab Spend Update – Order Status
Lab Spend is designed to work with how research labs commonly order products. Initially, a researcher requests a product, the product is visible in a dashboard that the entire lab can view, Lab Spend looks for savings, if we find savings you can purchase through Lab Spend or continue with your current vendor.
If you continue with the outside vendor (not Lab Spend) it’s referred to as an external order. This is because the order needs to be placed outside of the Lab Spend website. For example, if you request a printer from Amazon and we cannot find savings, you would need to go to Amazon and place the order directly. While we help with customer service for all our orders it can be difficult to monitor the status of each product from outside vendors. To help, Lab Spend has expanded the level of detail that you can communicate with your lab about an order.
Previously, you could provide two updates either enter back ordered dates or add tracking information. Now in the Order Status section of Lab Spend, you will see a new button called Status:
After clicking on the Status button, you can select Change Status, Split (more details below), Return, Cancel and Add Tracking. If clicked on, you can provide reasons why a product was returned or cancelled.
If you click on Change Status as indicated by the arrow above, you can change the status (image below) to Started, Placed (you’ve placed the order with the external vendor), Confirmed (vendor sent you a confirmation), Back ordered (you can add the estimated ship date), Shipped (can add tracking) and Received (you can add to your inventory from this point).
Split Feature:
Let’s say you order 10 cases of gloves and they have different status such as 3 are back ordered and 7 have been received (image below). The Split feature allows you to ‘split’ or divide the units and assign each lot its own status. This feature is flexible so that you can assign as many statuses as needed to each order.
In addition, you can add packing slips once shipments arrive. This update extends the ability of Lab Spend to monitor the status of ordered products and improve communication.