Purchasing Associate

Job Summary: Purchasing Associate 1 contributes to the efficient purchase order operation for the branch office by providing administrative support to the purchase order (PO) team and their upper management in accordance with the company’s Standard Operation Procedure (SOP). This job performs a range of general and specific/clerical tasks that can be learned on the job such as filing, copying, and collecting documents, answering phones, ordering, and distributing supplies, and PO/ Internal Requisition (IR) data entry. Other tasks may include but are not limited to maintaining supplier records, sorting, and distributing, incoming /outgoing mail, and/or receiving phone calls from suppliers. Works under the close direction of senior personnel in the functional area.

Job Functions:

Prepare Purchase Order:

• Purchasing Associate 1 prepares and processes accurate purchase orders.
• Purchasing Associate 1 works closely with the sales department to obtain sales planning quantity, seasonal items quantity, and import order items quantity ensuring that purchases are recorded at the time of request and submit these orders to get approval from the Branch Manager or Deputy Branch Manager.

Schedule Shipping

• Purchasing Associate 1 schedules incoming and outgoing shipments. A major part of this duty is preparing records to reflect when purchased items arrive and ensuring that all materials arrive.
• Purchasing Associate 1 may also schedule outgoing shipments for return if necessary.
• Purchasing Associate 1 follows up with suppliers to check in on late or missing shipments or to report damaged goods.

Interact with Suppliers

• Purchasing Associate 1 obtains pricing and product specifications.
• Responsible for verifying inbound information, order pricing, and acknowledgment.
• Process new vendor registration to set up with form.
• Purchasing Associate 1 speaks directly with supplier’s representatives to gather order pricing data, compare supplier’s offers for shipping rates and material prices, and maintain supplier’s contact information.

Maintain Purchase Records: maintains detailed records of purchases, including quantities, shipping information, and costs associated with the purchase. They may provide these records to department heads to aid in budget and financial management or maintain purchasing department files to support future activities. The Purchasing Associate 1 may also submit these records to the company’s financial departments to aid in the budget resolution.

Import-related Job: Supervise handling and arranging the custom clearance for all merchandise including communication with custom brokers and vendors. Support routine administrative import-related jobs as needed.

Others as assigned

• Ensure that each employee, customer, clients, and vendor receive outstanding customer service by providing a friendly environment which includes greeting and assisting everyone by maintaining outstanding product knowledge and all other components of customer service related to the office operation.
• Ensure to follow company guidelines including attendance.
• Physical inventory preparation and support.
• Other office work as needed.