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 Actions > Create Purchase Order(s).

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 New 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. To learn more, read How to Edit Your Document Settings.

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 the order status of both individual line items and the Purchase Order as a whole. In the Order Status column, simply select the relevant status for each item from the dropdown — you can even create custom order statuses by clicking + Add New Status. 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.

Attach Files

The Files section of your purchase orders is a great place to add any product photos or specs you want to share with your vendor, or a spot to internally keep track of receipts/invoices/order confirmations from vendors. Click on Attach Files to attach existing project files and photos or upload new ones from your computer. Click on any attached file to preview it instantly, or click the three dots on a file to rename, download, or remove it.

Your Files section can be either visible to or hidden from your vendor by clicking the eye icon in the top right corner. Make sure you preview the PO to see the vendor view before sending.

Preview and Share Purchase Order

Before sending your PO, you can preview it and choose exactly how it will look to your vendor.

First, select the Preview button in the top right of your screen.

Next, review the Settings dropdown next to "Customize what your vendor can see" to check off the relevant boxes next to the information you want to show to the vendor.

You can also show or hide your Files, T&C or Memo sections of your purchase by clicking the eye icon in the top right of each section when you're in edit mode.

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.

Log Payments on Purchase Orders

Once you receive an invoice from the vendor for your item(s), you can log the payments you make towards the order on your purchase order. This will only be for your own financial records — your vendor will not see these logged payments.

To log a payment, scroll to the Payments section and click Schedule a Payment.

By default, the first payment will be set for the full amount of the purchase order. You can add multiple payments to the schedule by clicking Schedule a Payment. Click into any field on each payment to edit the name, amount, terms and due date.

To log a payment, click Log Payment to the right of the payment. In the modal that appears, choose the Payment Method, Date and Reference Number (this is a good place to record a check number or confirmation number). Click Done to record the payment details.

You will now see Paid in the Status column next to the logged payment. You can click on the payment name to view the details, including method and reference number. To delete a payment, click the three dots to the right and select Delete Payment.

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 PDF, Print, Archive and Download Tear Sheets.