Purchase Orders — User Guide

Who can use Purchase Orders

Your workspace must have Vendors installed first, then the Purchase Orders module (both free from Marketplace). Marketplace blocks installing Purchase Orders until Vendors is entitled. Your role must include the relevant permissions (view, create, update, delete, restore, force.delete, assign, send, receive, cancel as needed).

Without assign, you only see purchase orders assigned to you.

List & table

Open Purchase Orders from the sidebar, under the Purchasing group (next to Vendors). Search by title or number, filter by status or assignee, toggle My Purchase Orders, and switch KPI cards (Total, Mine, Draft, Sent, Partially received, Received) to quick-filter the table. The table shows the vendor and the latest note.

• Users with restore can filter Active / Include deleted / Deleted only, then Restore a soft-deleted purchase order from the row menu
• Delete permanently requires purchase-orders.force.delete — granted to the workspace owner by default

Create a purchase order

1. Click New purchase order
2. Enter a title and select a Vendor (required) — use New to create a vendor inline when you have vendors.create
3. Optionally set currency, order date, expected date, and notes
4. Add line items (description, quantity, unit price, tax rate, and optional Product) — subtotal, tax, and total are calculated automatically
5. Optionally set an assignee (requires assign)
6. Save

Edit from the row menu or the record page while the purchase order is still Draft. Editing replaces the full line-item list. After Send, content is locked; use status actions and assignment instead.

Status workflow

A purchase order starts in Draft. Move it forward with:

• Send (draft → sent) — marks the order as sent to the vendor and unlocks PDF / email
• Mark partially received / Mark received — with optional per-line quantities so you can receive part of a line; line quantity_received updates and header status follows remaining qty. Without line quantities, partially received is acknowledgement-only and received completes all remaining line quantities
• Cancel (draft → cancelled, sent → cancelled, or partially_received → cancelled)

Invalid transitions (e.g. receiving directly from Draft) are rejected with a validation error. Received and Cancelled are terminal — no further transitions.

If both Products and Inventory are installed, receiving posts stock-in for the quantity deltas on this receive for each line with a selected Product that has Track stock enabled. Serial-tracked products require one serial per unit on the receive dialog; lot-tracked products require a lot number (optional expiry). You may choose a warehouse when receiving; otherwise the default warehouse is used. Lines without a Product, and products that do not track stock, do not post stock.

Assignment

Users with assign can set or clear the assignee from the record page or the create/edit form. The assignee receives an in-app notification when someone else assigns them.

PDF & email vendor

After you Send a purchase order, use Download PDF on the record page for a branded PO PDF.

Users with send (purchase-orders.send) can Email vendor — same dialog pattern as other billing documents. The To field pre-fills from the vendor email when available. Delivery uses your workspace email configuration and appears in Settings → Email logs.

Notes & activity

• Notes — free-form notes on the purchase order
• Activity — timeline of create, update, assignment, status change, note, emailed, and delete/restore events

Convert to expense

If the Expenses module is installed on your workspace and you have the purchase-orders.convert permission, a Convert to expense button appears on Sent, Partially received, and Received purchase orders (not on Draft or Cancelled). Converting:

• Creates a draft Expense with title, amount, tax amount, currency, and vendor copied from the purchase order, using the seeded Other expense category
• Links the new expense back to the purchase order (visible in the expense's Related records)
• Is one-way and one-time — once converted, the button disappears and the purchase order shows a link to the created expense instead

If Expenses is not installed, the button does not appear; attempting the conversion via the API returns an error explaining that the Expenses module is required.

If Accounting already posted a receipt journal for this purchase order, conversion is blocked. Use Pay vendor (requires purchase-orders.pay and Accounting) to clear open accounts payable from a cash or bank account instead of creating an expense.

Vendor portal / scorecards remain deferred — see the Product Roadmap.