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Raise a purchase order

What you have ordered, and how much of it has arrived.

A purchase order is you committing to buy. It is the first document in the vendor chain and the one everything else hangs off.

The Purchase orders list, subtitled "What you have ordered, and how much has arrived". Four view tabs read List, Kanban, Pivot and By vendor. One order, PO/2026-27/0001 dated 27 August 2026, status Sent, total 2,09,320.00, with a summary line reading "Purchase orders: 1 Value: 2.09L".
Four ways to read the same orders. By vendor is the one the purchase desk lives in — the same orders grouped by who you placed them with.

Raising one

  1. From the vendor record, press Purchase order under “Raise something”. The vendor is already filled in.
  2. Add the lines — what you are buying, how many, at what rate.
  3. Check the rate. If the vendor has a price list attached, it is already there.
  4. Add the delivery date you actually need.
  5. Save, then send it.

Raising it from the vendor record rather than from the orders list is worth the habit. A vendor picked from a dropdown is a vendor somebody can pick wrongly, and a purchase order against the wrong supplier is found out at the bill stage, which is weeks later.

The six statuses

StatusMeans
DraftBeing written. Not committed to anything.
OpenIt has gone out. This is a live commitment.
Partially billedSome of it has been billed.
BilledAll of it has.
ClosedNothing left to do.
CancelledThe vendor turned it down, or you withdrew it.

Read that list again and notice what it is measured by. A purchase order’s life is told by what has been billed against it, not by what has arrived.

Why billed and not delivered

Goods turning up is recorded on the lines and on the goods receipt — that is a stock question. Whether you owe money is a different question with a different answer, and the order tracks that one.

It matters because the two genuinely diverge. A part-delivered order that has been fully invoiced is a dispute. An order fully delivered and never invoiced is a liability nobody has recorded. If the status tracked delivery you would see neither.

The vendor is checked first

Before an order is created, the vendor is checked. Blocked, and you are refused with the reason. Not yet approved, and you are told which stage they are actually in. Neither check can be skipped by raising the order from somewhere else.

Four ways to look at them

ViewAnswers
ListEverything, sortable and filterable.
KanbanWhat is stuck at which stage.
PivotTotals cut by whatever you choose.
By vendorWhat each supplier is sitting on.

A worked order

You need 5,000 brochures from Sunrise Offset Printers for a client launch on 12 October.

  1. Open the vendor record and press Purchase order. Sunrise is already on it.
  2. Add the line: Printed brochure — A4 8pp, 5,000 Nos. The rate comes from their price list at ₹48.
  3. Set the delivery date to 5 October, not the 12th — leave yourself a week.
  4. Save. The order is a draft, committing to nothing.
  5. Send it. It moves to open, and Sunrise moves to active on its own.

Total ₹2,40,000 plus GST. The order now sits as an open commitment against them, visible on their record and on the dashboard, until a bill is raised against it.

Step three is the habit worth forming. Purchase orders are raised against the date you need the goods, and the date you need them is never the date the client needs them.

Where to go next

Next in vendors Vendor settings → What they supply, and what it costs →

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