How to write a purchase order

Purchase orders live in the order book at Buying › Purchase orders. Press New PO at the top of the page, from the List or the Board, fill in the supplier, PO number, stage and dates, then open the order to add products. What purchase orders are for is in What are suppliers and purchase orders?.

Putting products on the order is How to add products and choose your columns.

Before you start

• The Store and Purchase orders modules must be on.
• To create orders you need two rows in Settings › Permissions: Change stock, receiving and store settings, which shows the New PO button, and Edit purchase orders and the buying calendar, which saves the order. Both start at lead.
• It helps to have the supplier set up first, with its lead time. See How to add and set up a supplier.

What is the quickest way to start an order?

Usually the stock screen, because it works out the quantities for you.

• Draft N purchase orders on Selling › Inventory makes one draft per supplier from everything running low. See How to find out what you need to reorder.
• Buying › Replenishment fills one supplier's order up to the stock limits you set. See How to set stock limits and reorder up to them.
• Import CSV and Import confirmation, under the ⋯ button beside New PO, load orders you already have. See How to import purchase orders and supplier confirmations.
• The Agent can draft one when you ask it to, and the draft waits for you to approve it. See How to approve, refuse or undo a suggested change.

Write one by hand, as below, when you are recording an order agreed on the phone or one the stock screen would not suggest.

How do you create one by hand?

1. Go to Buying › Purchase orders and press New PO. On the Revisions calendar the same button reads Add PO.
2. In Vendor, type to search your suppliers. Arrow keys and Enter pick one, and a name it does not recognise offers Create with that name, which adds the supplier without leaving the form.
3. Type a PO number. It is your own reference and how you will find the order later.
4. Under the PO number, choose the stage the order is at. The picker starts on your first stage, Draft by default.
5. Fill in the dates: Revise by, Ship date and Arrival.
6. Fill in Days out, Original amount and Revised amount if you have them.
7. Press Add PO.

The order appears in the list. Click its row to open the order page and add products.

Which stage should a new order start in?

The stage it is really at. Leave Draft for an order you are still building.

Pick a later stage, such as Order placed, to record an order that already went to the supplier by email or phone. The order's history notes that the stage was set when the order was created, so nobody mistakes it for a move made later.

The default stages are Draft, Awaiting approval, Approved, Order placed, Acknowledged, Closed and Cancelled. Your workspace may have renamed them in Settings › Stages. Moving an order on from here is How to move a purchase order through its stages, and sign-off is How to route a purchase order for approval.

Why does a line have the quantity it has?

A line drafted for you keeps the reason for its quantity. This covers lines from Draft N purchase orders and Review order, and lines you add from the suggestions on the purchase order page. The reason stays with the line in every stage, from Draft to received.

The reason shows under the Ordered quantity as a small dotted caption:

• Why N means the line still has the quantity it was drafted with.
• Suggested N, now M means someone changed the quantity after it was drafted.

Hover over the caption, or tab to it, to see the numbers.

The card is headed Why this quantity and says the day the quantity was worked out and where from: the reorder plan, the min-max page, or a suggestion on this order. Below that it lists the sums, such as sales expected, stock on hand and stock already on order. When the quantity changed, the card ends with a line such as "Changed from 24 to 30 by Priya Raman on Nov 7, 2026", or "Set to 30 when it was drafted".

A line you typed in by hand shows no caption. An order drafted before 6 Nov 2026 shows Reason not recorded with its date, because those lines did not keep one.

You can also ask the Agent, for example "why did we order 30 of the merino quarter-zip?". It reads the same saved reason. See How to ask the Agent a question.

What are the dates for?

Ship date is when the order leaves the supplier. Arrival is when you expect it, and it is what lateness is judged against. With no arrival date, the ship date is used instead.

Revise by is the last day to confirm or change the order with the supplier. Days out is how many days before shipping that falls.

Fill in at least a ship date, so the order can show as late when it is and counts towards the supplier's delivery record.

How does the revise-by date fill itself in?

From the vendor's revision window. Once the vendor has one, set a Ship date and Revise by fills itself in as the ship date minus that many days, with a line under the dates saying so. Days out shows the window too.

To give a vendor a window, press Add vendor profile under the Vendor box (it reads Edit vendor profile once one exists). Fill in Revision window (days), and while you are there the Lead time (days), rep or contact name, Primary email and Payment terms.

Beside it, a link such as View Kaimen Knitwear's products opens that vendor's stock on Selling › Inventory, which is worth a look before you settle quantities.

Why does the revise-by date matter so much?

Because it is the last day you can change your mind at no cost.

Miss it and you take the order as written, whatever the stock screen has learned since. The revisions calendar lays those dates out month by month. See How to find late orders and plan revisions.

How do you mark an order ASAP or deliver early?

Edit the order.

In the order list, press the pencil at the end of its row to open Edit purchase order. Under the PO number, the picker that reads No change offers Revised, No change, Deliver early and ASAP. Press Save changes.

An ASAP order skips the revision window. Pick any Revise by date in the month you want it to sit under on the revisions calendar.

What amount does the order book show?

The total of the order's products once any line has a unit cost. That figure counts the order's discount, fees and tax, and any freight the supplier bills, so it matches the order page.

Until then it shows the Revised amount you typed, or the Original amount when there is no revised one. Keeping both typed amounts lets you see how far an order moved between placing and confirming.

What currency is the order in?

The supplier's currency, copied onto the order when it is created. When the vendor is not a supplier yet, the order takes your workspace's home currency.

The order keeps that currency from then on, so changing a supplier's currency today leaves older orders as they were. That is why the order book totals each currency separately.

What else can you set on the order page?

Open the order from its row in the list or its card on the Board.

• Rename it by clicking the order's name at the top. The hover text reads Rename this purchase order.
• Add fees, freight or tax under the totals adds a discount, fees, tax, freight and duty. See How to add products and choose your columns.
• Properties on the right holds the Stage, Owner, Receive to location, Ship date, Revise by, Supplier said, the vendor's Window and Lead time, and Following.

How do you give an order an owner, or follow it?

In Properties. Owner takes a person, a Team, or both. It records who is accountable for the order.

An order past its first stage with no owner shows a No owner warning on its Board card and at the top of its page.

Following is your own setting. Press Not following to switch it to Following comments, and you hear when somebody comments on the order.

How do you delete an order?

Press the pencil on its row, then Delete in the edit form, and confirm.

Make sure before you confirm: a deleted order cannot be brought back.

An order with a delivery recorded against it cannot be deleted, even after the delivery is voided. Its deliveries changed your stock, so the order stays on record.

Close it short if some goods arrived, or cancel it if none did. Both are in How to send a revision and export an order.

Why did changing the vendor name re-link the order?

Because the vendor name is how an order finds its supplier. Change it in the edit form and the order links to the supplier with the new name.

Leaving the name alone keeps the link it has, so renaming or archiving a supplier elsewhere never breaks an existing order.

Your workspace may use its own words for purchase orders and suppliers; Settings › Terminology shows both.