Create a purchase order

A purchase order is what you send a supplier to order goods or services. It works like your sales documents, but points the other way — at a supplier record rather than a customer.

Step 1 — Open a new purchase order

From the menu bar, open Procurement and click Purchase orders, or the plus icon beside it to go straight to a new one.

Step 2 — Fill in the basics

With the create purchase order form open, complete the supplier and the purchase order date — that is the only date on this document.

Selecting the supplier fills in the contact person, delivery address and billing address automatically, where those are available on that supplier’s record. If the supplier is not in your list yet, see Add a new supplier.

Step 3 — Add your products

Add what you are ordering with Add line, or Choose products to pick several from your catalog at once. The line table carries a Supplier# column alongside the description, quantity, price and VAT, so a supplier’s own article numbers travel on the order.

There are also options to add intro text, closing text, attachments and an internal note at this stage — see Add an attachment to your document.

Step 4 — Preview, save or finalize

Three buttons sit in the top-right of the purchase order card.

Preview shows you the purchase order as it will look when it reaches the supplier.

Save stores it so you can send it later. It stays a Draft until you finalize it — see Why do my documents say Draft/concept?.

Finalize opens a menu of six ways to issue it:

1. Finalize — finalises the document and nothing else.
2. Make Final and Print — finalises it and prints it.
3. Finalize and email — finalises it and emails the supplier.
4. Finalize, email and print — all three at once.
5. Send to Peppol — issues it over the Peppol network.
6. Send to Peppol and Email — both.

Once the goods arrive, the purchase order’s Action menu turns it into a purchase, so the cost lands in your books without retyping.

Adjusting what appears on the document

Open the ⋯ button at the top-right of the product table and choose Display Columns to show or hide individual fields on this document.

To change this for every purchase order rather than only this one, edit your document design.

Related

• Create an expense
• Add a new supplier
• Create an invoice
• Create a quotation
• Create a packing note
• Create an order confirmation
• Purchase order features
• Supplier management features