A purchase order is a promise, written down before the money moves.
It names a supplier, the goods, the price, and where they should be delivered. Everything that happens afterwards — the delivery, the invoice, the cost of a unit — is checked against it. So it is worth ten careful minutes.
This page covers:
Before you start
Have four things settled before you open the form.
- The supplier. One order, one supplier. Two suppliers means two orders.
- The delivery address, as a location. Warehouses, retail counters and production partners can all receive goods. Consignee and event locations cannot, so they are not offered in the picker.
- The products and quantities. One line per product, for example 200 of
SKU-001. - The agreed price and currency. If the supplier invoices in a currency other than your own, the form also asks for an exchange rate, so the order can be totalled in MYR.
Freight, customs, tax and handling fees are not part of a unit price. They go on the order as separate costs, which keeps the price per unit honest.
Create the draft
- Open Purchase orders and click New PO.
- Choose the Supplier. Products already linked to that supplier appear as quick-add chips, so common reorders are one tap each.
- Set the Receiving location. This is where the goods will physically land, not where they usually live.
- Fill in the Order date, and Required by if you have a date you need it.
- Check the Currency, and the exchange rate if it is a foreign one.
- Add the goods. Click Add line, pick the product, then enter the quantity ordered, the unit price and any discount. Add line stays disabled until a supplier is chosen, because prices are read from that supplier's price list.
- Add any Additional costs — delivery, customs, tax, a surcharge, a service fee. They show separately in the order total and are shared across the lines later, when the delivery is costed.
- Use Notes for anything internal. Notes are never sent to the supplier.
- Click Create draft PO.
The order number is assigned for you. An order with no lines cannot be saved. One order holds up to 200 lines and 50 additional cost rows, which is well past anything a normal reorder needs.
Ordering the same thing again
Open the previous order and duplicate it. The copy carries the supplier, the lines, the prices and the extra costs into a brand-new draft, whatever state the original is in. Change the quantities and save. It is the fastest correct way to reorder, and much safer than editing a delivered order.
Authorise the order
A draft is a private sketch. An authorised order is a live commitment.
The difference matters for one practical reason: a draft cannot be received against. When someone books a delivery, the picker only offers orders that are Authorised, Incoming or Partial. Goods arriving against a forgotten draft have nowhere to go, and that is the most common cause of a delivery stuck at the door.
- Open the order and check the lines one last time.
- Click Authorise PO.
Authorising needs the approval permission, which is deliberately separate from the one that lets you create orders. If you can build an order but the Authorise PO button is not there, your account creates and someone else approves. Send them the order number rather than working around it.
Three moves are available afterwards:
- Mark incoming — you have paid and the goods are in transit. It is a label, not a stock movement, and the order stays receivable.
- Revert to authorised — undoes the above.
- Revoke to draft — pulls a live order back for editing. Blocked once material has been sent out to the supplier against it.
Only drafts can be deleted. An authorised order that is never going to arrive is closed, not deleted, so the history of what you committed to survives.
What each status means
Six statuses, in the order an order usually walks through them.
| Status | What it means | Can a delivery be booked against it |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Being written. Not committed to anything | No |
| Authorised | Live. The supplier is expected to deliver | Yes |
| Incoming | Paid for and in transit | Yes |
| Partial | Some of it has arrived, some is still owed | Yes |
| Received | Everything ordered has arrived | No — it is finished |
| Closed | Stopped early. The balance is no longer expected | No |
Draft, Authorised, Incoming and Partial are all counted as active work. Authorised, Incoming and Partial together are what the list calls Awaiting receipt — the orders somebody still owes you goods for.
Explore
Deciding what to order in the first place. The planner explodes a finished product into its parts and tells you what is short. Learn more →
Recording the delivery when it turns up. Receiving against the order is what puts the units on the books. Learn more →
Stopping an order that will never arrive. Closing ends it without destroying the record. Learn more →