How to Create Purchase Orders
Purchase Orders allow you to easily communicate with vendors about ordering the products, materials, and services you need to source, all while staying organized about each item’s progress and billing status.
Convert Estimates and Proposals into Purchase Orders
Easily convert Estimate and Proposal line items into Purchase Orders — all the relevant product information is carried over seamlessly. Here's how:
1. Select the line items you want to include by checking them off and selecting More Actions > Create Purchase Order(s).
2. In the pop-up, select the correct vendor for any unassigned items and confirm the vendor for those items already grouped under a vendor.
3. Click Create Purchase Order
Note: All the selected items will be marked as "approved" on the original estimate/proposal if they weren't already.
If you created purchase orders for multiple vendors, you will then be taken to the Purchase Order section of your project to view all of them.
If you only created a single purchase order for one vendor, you will be sent directly to it.
Create a Purchase Order From Scratch
To create a purchase order from scratch, either click the Create Purchase Order from the Purchase Order section of any project, or from the All Purchase Orders page under your Finance section.
Select a Vendor
Next, you will be prompted to select a vendor for the new purchase order. Search vendors by name or select from your list of vendors. This will auto-populate their shipping and billing information, but you can also add a custom shipping address or edit any existing billing and shipping information directly on the new purchase order.
Click Create to start adding items and editing the purchase order.
Fully Customize Your Purchase Orders
Purchase Orders are fully customizable, so you can edit any piece of information, whether that’s adding custom columns, editing the shipping information, setting up scheduled payments, or more.
Edit General Details
To edit the general details of the document, including Document Info, Company Info, Vendor Info and Shipping Info, you can click directly into any section to make changes, or you can click the pencil icon in the top right to open all details in one window.
Set Payment Terms and Billing Dates
You have full control over payment terms, billed date, due date and date created. Click into each one at the top of the document to set the terms or date.
Add Items
To add items to your purchase order, click the From Library Button on the right to access Project Items (chair icon) and your Product Library (light icon). Click on any item to add it direct to the purchase order. From there you can click into any column and adjust the information, such as quantity or cost.
Track Line Item Order Status
You can track both the status of individual line items and of the Purchase Order as a whole. In the Order Status column, simply select the relevant status for each item from the drop-down. If there are multiple items with different statuses, the overall PO status at the top of the document will change to 'In Progress' to reflect the mixed statuses.
If there is just one item in the PO, the overall PO status will always reflect the status of that item.
If there are multiple items in the PO and they all have the same status, the overall PO status will reflect that shared status.
You can also select the overall order status for the entire Purchase Order from the drop-down at the top, and this will change all line items to the selected order status — you can still update individual items’ statuses after, but the overall status of the purchase order will change back to 'In Progress' if they are mixed.
These order statuses per line item will be reflected in the project's Selections Tracker. If you make changes to the order status from the Selections Tracker, it will also update on the Purchase Order, and vice versa.
Preview Files with a Click
Just click on any attached file to preview it instantly. In a click, easily rename, download, or remove a file.
Preview and Share Purchase Order
Before sending your PO, you can preview it and choose exactly how it will look to your vendor. Select the Preview button in the top right of your screen. From there, review the Settings dropdown to turn on and off columns and customize what your vendor sees.
When your PO is ready to go, click Send. You can either write a personalized email message or use your saved message templates. Once your vendor receives the email, they can view the purchase order directly from their computer, phone, or tablet device.
Print and Download
Alternatively, you can opt to print your purchase order to share a physical copy, or download and attach it to an email. To do so, open the Actions menu at the top of the page and select Download as PDF or Print, depending on your desired action. You can also download a PDF using the download icon at the top of the page.
Approve, Mark as Billed and More Actions
In addition to previewing and sending your Purchase Order from the top toolbar, you can also use the Actions menu to Approve it, Mark as Billed, Duplicate & Edit, Download Tear Sheets and more.
Stay on Track with Your Finances
Your Purchase Orders will be factored into your Outgoing Transactions Report so you can stay on top of all your money coming in and going out.
Designers: If you are synced with QuickBooks Online, your billed Purchase Orders will automatically sync over once they are sent to a vendor or when you manually sync them.