Purchase Orders
Transaction records for buying materials from suppliers, tracking orders through delivery and fulfillment.
A purchase order (PO) is an order for buying materials from a supplier. It tracks what you ordered, what has been delivered, and what remains outstanding.
What a purchase order includes
Each purchase order has:
- Supplier: the vendor you're purchasing from
- Line items: each line specifies a material, quantity ordered, and unit price
- Addresses: bill-to and ship-to, defaulting from the supplier record
- Terms: payment and delivery terms for this order
- Status: where the PO is in its lifecycle
Purchase order lifecycle
A PO moves through a defined set of statuses:
- Quoted: the PO is being drafted. Line items, quantities, and pricing can be edited freely.
- Ordered: the PO has been sent to the supplier. Issuing triggers an acknowledgment email to the vendor.
- Fulfilled: all line items have been fully received.
Status actions:
- Issue: moves from Quoted to Ordered and sends the supplier an acknowledgment email
- Unissue: reverts an issued PO back to Quoted (before any deliveries)
- Close: manually closes the PO at any point
- Open: reopens a closed PO
Line item tracking
Each line item tracks quantities separately:
- Quantity Ordered: what you requested from the supplier
- Quantity Received: what has been physically received so far
- Completion Rate: percentage of the ordered quantity that's been received
Cost calculations on each line:
- Total Ordered: quantityOrdered x unitPrice
- Total Received: quantityReceived x unitPrice
- Total Yet to be Received: the remaining cost of undelivered items
These totals roll up to the PO level for an at-a-glance view of spend and outstanding commitments.
Related
- Suppliers: every PO is linked to a supplier
- Deliveries & receiving: deliveries are created against PO line items to record what arrived
- Inventory: stocking a delivery creates inventory receipts that update on-hand quantities
Next: Deliveries and receiving