A purchase order’s status answers one question: how much of it has been billed. Goods arriving is a different question, recorded on the goods receipt — an order marked “received” tells you nothing about whether it has been paid for, and leaves no word at all for the half of it that has been.
The six statuses
- Draft — written, not yet placed. Edit it freely.
- Open — with the vendor. Everything below follows from here.
- Partially billed — some of it has been converted to a bill.
- Billed — all of it has.
- Closed — nothing is left to do with it.
- Cancelled — the vendor turned it down.
Partially billed and Billed are never chosen. They are what becomes true when a bill is raised, so they are not in the status menu. A button that writes a fact which has not happened is worse than no button.
Converting it to a bill
The vendor accepts the order, sends the goods and sends a bill. Rather than typing that bill out again, convert the order.
- Open the purchase order.
- Choose Convert to bill in the top right.
- The bill arrives as a draft carrying the order’s lines, tax context, terms and vendor.
- Enter the vendor’s own invoice number and date — this is their document, not yours — and save.
The conversion is quantity-aware. Half an order can be billed today and the rest next month; each conversion takes only what is still unbilled, and the order moves to Partially billed and then Billed on its own. Delete a bill and the quantities go back to the order, which moves back with them.
Cancelling items the vendor cannot supply
- Open the purchase order and choose ⋯ → Cancel items.
- Tick the items, and set a quantity where only part of a line is dropped.
- Give a reason if it is worth recording.
- Save.
The quantity ordered still says what was agreed; what was called off is recorded beside it. When nothing on the order is left either billed or open, the order becomes Closed. Anything already billed cannot be cancelled here — that money is on a bill, and unbilling it is a debit note.
Putting cancelled items back
- Open the purchase order and choose ⋯ → Reopen cancelled items.
- An order closed only because everything on it had been called off is open again.
Cancelling the whole order
- Open the purchase order and choose ⋯ → Cancel this purchase order.
- Confirm.
A cancelled order cannot be reopened. It keeps its number and stays on record — cancelling is not deleting — but nothing further can be raised against it. Raise a new order instead. An order with part of it already billed cannot be cancelled at all: withdrawing it would leave that bill pointing at something that never happened. Cancel the items still unbilled, which closes it.
Comments and history
Every purchase order carries a Comments feed and a History feed. Comments are internal — the portal shows a vendor the document, never the note somebody left on it, which is what makes them worth writing. History records every change with the value before and the value after, which is the question asked when a rate is wrong and nobody will say who changed it.
The same two feeds sit on every quotation, sales order, invoice, proforma, credit note, bill of supply, purchase bill and debit note, on the vendor record, and on leads, customers, deals and tasks. On a CRM record the comments and the Activity feed are the same notes read two ways, so nothing written in one is hidden from the other.
Files
Attach anything to the order the way you would to a quotation: the vendor’s own quote, a signed copy that came back, a specification. Files sit on the document where it is read, not only where it is edited.
Next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.