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Purchases

Create a purchase order

A purchase order is the document you raise to order goods or services from a supplier. Creating and saving one has no effect on your accounts — it is an operational record of what…

Create a purchase order

A purchase order is the document you raise to order goods or services from a supplier. Creating and saving one has no effect on your accounts — it is an operational record of what you intend to buy. You send it to the supplier as a separate step, and later record the bill they send you as a purchase invoice.

Before you begin

  • You need at least one supplier. See Add a supplier.
  • The products you want to order should be assigned to that supplier. A product that has no supplier, or that belongs to a different supplier, cannot be added to the order. You can still type a free-text description line instead.

Steps

  1. Go to Purchases → Purchase Orders and select New Purchase Order.
  2. Choose the Supplier.
  3. Set the Document Date (it defaults to today) and, if you want, an Expected Delivery date.
  4. Choose the Currency. If it differs from your organisation's home currency, an Exchange Rate field appears so the value can be converted for your reports. See Working with foreign currency.
  5. Add any Notes for the supplier.
  6. Under Line Items, select Add Line for each item and enter:
    • the product (only products supplied by the chosen supplier are listed) or a description;
    • the quantity;
    • the unit price;
    • a tax rate if applicable.
  7. Check the Subtotal, Tax and Total in the summary.
  8. Select Save Draft.

[Screenshot required: Create Purchase Order page showing the supplier, currency and line-item fields]

What happens next

Your purchase order is saved as a Draft. A draft:

  • has no effect on your accounts;
  • can be freely edited or deleted;
  • does not yet have a document number — one is assigned when you send it.

When you are ready, the next step is to send the purchase order to your supplier.

Important notes

  • A purchase order never posts to your general ledger. It records an intention to buy; your books only move later, when you record the supplier's purchase invoice.
  • You can only edit a purchase order while it is a Draft. Once it has been sent it becomes read-only.
  • The Total must be greater than zero before you can send the order.

Troubleshooting

  • A product isn't in the list. Products only appear if they are active and assigned to the selected supplier. Check the product record, or add a description line by hand instead. (The messages you may see are "The selected product is not active", "…must be assigned to a supplier before it can be added to a purchase order", or "…is not supplied by the selected supplier".)
  • The exchange-rate box shows a warning. This appears when your currency differs from your home currency and the rate looks unusual. Confirm the rate before saving.
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