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Create & Approve Purchase Orders

Draft purchase orders for a vendor, then approve them to lock the order and post its costs.

A purchase order (PO) records materials or services you buy from a vendor. You can keep a PO as a draft while the order is still taking shape, then approve it once the purchase is final — approval locks the order and posts its costs to inventory, job costing, and QuickBooks.

Create a purchase order

  1. In the left navigation, open Purchases and click Create Purchase Order (or click New Purchase Order on the Purchase Orders page).
  2. Under Purchase Order Details, pick a Vendor (required). If the supplier isn't listed yet, choose + New Vendor to create one without leaving the form.
  3. Optionally set an Operation, the Order date, an Expected date, a Bill Reference (for example, the vendor's invoice number), Terms, Tags, and Notes.
  4. Under Job / Visit Association, optionally link the PO to a job — and, best of all, to a specific visit. See Link purchases to jobs for why this matters.
  5. Under Line Items, use Add an item… to add lines from your Item catalog. For each line, set the Qty, Unit cost, an optional Memo, and an optional line Image (PNG or JPEG, up to 5 MB). The Billable toggle controls whether the line's cost is billed on to the client at no markup; items flagged Billable on Purchase Orders default it on.
  6. Click Create Purchase Order to save it as an open order, or Save as Draft if it isn't ready.

Purchase order statuses

  • Draft — still being worked on. Drafts can be edited or voided, but not approved; save a draft as open first.
  • Open — ready for approval. Open POs can still be edited or voided.
  • Approved — final. An approved PO can no longer be edited or voided.
  • Void — cancelled. The record stays for reference but the PO is out of play.

Approve a purchase order

Approval is the moment a PO becomes real. You can approve from two places:

  • Approve Purchase Orders (under Purchases) — an inbox of every open PO Awaiting approval, with a Drafts list below it. Click Approve on a row.
  • A PO's detail page — click Approve in the header.

Either way, a confirmation dialog opens. You can add an optional Approval comment for the audit trail. If the PO is associated with a job, the dialog warns you what approval will do: each line is written onto the job as an actual cost row, and billable lines transfer to the client's invoice at no markup.

Approving a PO:

  • Locks it — it can no longer be edited or voided.
  • Posts job costs — lines land in the job's Actuals & Expenses section when the PO is associated with a job or visit.
  • Credits inventory — lines for inventoried items add to on-hand stock in the PO's operation. See Inventory.
  • Routes QuickBooks accounts — if QuickBooks is connected, the dialog shows a QuickBooks expense accounts section where you can route each reimbursable line to an expense account for the Bill; lines left on the default use your account's default expense account. Synced POs show a Synced to QuickBooks badge.

Note: Approving requires the purchases-approve permission; creating and editing require purchases-write. Members without them won't see the buttons.

Receive item units

If an approved PO includes roll-managed lines (items tracked as individual rolls), a Receive Item Units button appears on the PO. It lets you receive those lines into physical rolls — assigning each a Label, Warehouse, optional Bin, and linear quantity. Lines that are not roll-managed credit inventory at approval automatically.

Void a purchase order

Open the PO and click Void. Only draft and open POs can be voided; the record is kept for reference. Approved POs cannot be voided.

Find and filter purchase orders

The Purchase Orders page lists every PO in every status, with columns for PO #, Status, Vendor, Order date, Job / Visit, Lines, Total, and Tags. Search by PO number, notes, or vendor; filter by Vendor, Operation, date range, and Tags; and sort by order date.