Record a customer's purchase order

A customer purchase order is the order document your customer sends you — their authorisation to buy. Recording it in Sales Scribe lets you keep their PO number on file and, when you are ready to bill, copy its lines straight into an invoice. It is a reference document only: it does not post anything to your accounts.

Before you begin

• Sign in with the correct Organization selected.
• You need the customer on file — see Add a customer. Products are optional, but let you pull in descriptions and prices.

Record a customer PO

1. Go to Sales → Customer Purchase Orders.
2. Select New Customer PO.
3. Complete the header:
   • Customer * — who sent the order.
   • Customer PO Number * — the number on the customer's own order (for example PO-12345).
   • PO Date — the date on their order.
   • Currency * — defaults to the customer's currency.
   • Notes — anything worth recording.
4. Add Line Items. For each line, choose a Product (optional — this fills the description and price), then set Description, Quantity, Unit Price and an optional Tax Rate. Use Add Line for more lines.
5. Select Create Draft.

Tip: If the order follows an accepted quote or estimate, open that document and select Record Customer PO… instead — the customer, currency and lines are pre-filled from the quote, leaving only the customer's PO number to enter.

[Screenshot required: New Customer Purchase Order form with header fields and one line item]

The customer PO lifecycle

A recorded customer PO moves through these statuses:

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> Draft
    Draft --> Active: Activate
    Active --> Closed: Close
    Draft --> Cancelled: Cancel
    Active --> Cancelled: Cancel
    Closed --> [*]
    Cancelled --> [*]

• Draft — being prepared. You can edit it freely, Activate it (once it has at least one line), or Cancel it. A draft cannot be invoiced against yet — activating it confirms the order is fully entered.
• Active — an open order you are working to. You can still Edit it, Close it, or Cancel it.
• Closed — fulfilled or no longer open. A closed order can no longer be edited.
• Cancelled — abandoned. Cancelling asks for a Cancellation Reason (added to the order's notes) and cannot be undone.

Open a customer PO from the list to see its Details, where the Edit, Activate, Close and Cancel buttons appear according to its status. An Active order's details page also offers Create invoice, and shows an Invoices section once billing starts (see below).

Turn a customer PO into an invoice

When it is time to bill, you copy the PO's lines into a new invoice rather than retyping them. The quickest route starts from the order itself:

1. Open the Active customer PO and select Create invoice. (A draft order must be Activated first.)
2. The Create Invoice page opens with the customer and order pre-selected and the lines imported — review, adjust, and save.

You can also start from the invoice side: on the Create Invoice page, choose the customer, pick the order under Link to Customer PO, and select Import PO Lines.

Importing copies the lines only; it does not change the PO's status, and the currencies should match. See Copy lines from a customer purchase order.

See what has been invoiced

The details page of an order that has been (or can be) invoiced shows an Invoices section:

• Every invoice created from the order is listed, with its status (Draft or Issued) — select one to open it.
• A per-line table shows each line's Ordered, Invoiced, and On drafts quantities and what Remaining to bill, with a Fully invoiced badge when a line is completely covered and an Over by … badge if more than the ordered quantity has been invoiced.

This makes it safe to invoice an order in stages: Create invoice imports only the remaining quantities when part of the order is already billed, and a full re-import asks you to confirm first so the same quantities don't end up on two invoices by accident. Quantities on a draft free up automatically if the draft's lines are deleted or the invoice is voided. When an order is fully billed, Close it so it drops out of the import list.

What happens next

Recording, activating, closing or cancelling a customer PO has no effect on your accounts — no ledger entries, no VAT, nothing on your reports. The financial record is created only when you raise and issue the invoice itself.

Note: This is the customer's order to you. It is different from a Purchase Order under Purchases, which is an order you send to a supplier.

Troubleshooting

• I can't activate a draft. A customer PO needs at least one line item before it can be activated.
• I can't edit the order. Only Draft and Active orders can be edited. A Closed or Cancelled order is read-only.
• The Cancel button won't submit. A Cancellation Reason is required.
• The PO isn't offered when I create an invoice. Only the customer's Active orders can be imported — a Draft must be activated first — and you must select the same customer on the invoice.
• Create invoice added no lines. Every line of the order is already fully invoiced (check the Invoices section). To bill beyond the ordered quantities deliberately, use Import PO Lines on the invoice and confirm the warning.

Related guides

• Add a customer
• The customer account page
• Copy lines from a customer purchase order
• Glossary