Tier 6 — Advanced Operations

Purchase Orders

A purchase order records what you have asked a supplier for, before their bill arrives. Raise it, have it approved, receive the goods, then match the supplier’s bill to it.

Applies to: the Professional plan and above. Purchase orders live on the Purchase Orders tab of Accounts Payable, which needs erp:finance:ap:view to open. Each step then needs its own permission from the Purchase Orders group:

  • erp:finance:po:view — see the list and open orders
  • erp:finance:po:create — raise an order, duplicate one, or record it as sent
  • erp:finance:po:edit — change a draft and submit it for approval
  • erp:finance:po:approve — approve an order, and be told when one is submitted
  • erp:finance:po:delete — delete a draft, or cancel a submitted or approved order

The Finance Manager role template includes all five.

Before you start: the supplier should already exist, and must bill in AUD. See Managing Suppliers. You can also add a supplier from the order itself.

Where to find them

Open Accounts Payable in the sidebar and select the Purchase Orders tab. The page opens on Bills, so switch tabs first.

The list shows each order’s number, supplier, reference, order date, expected delivery, status and total. Select a row to open the order.

Raise a purchase order

  1. Select Create New > Create P/O.
  2. Choose the Supplier.
  3. Check the Order Date, which defaults to today. Add an Expected Delivery date and a Reference if they help.
  4. Fill in the Delivery Destination if the goods go somewhere other than your usual address.
  5. Select Add Line for each item or service. Pick a catalogue item or describe the line yourself, then set the quantity, unit price excluding GST, tax treatment and account.
  6. Add Supplier Notes for the supplier, or Private Notes for your team, under Notes.
  7. Select Save Draft.

What you should see: the order opens with its purchase order number and a Draft badge. The Summary card shows the net amount, GST and total.

A draft saves each change as you make it, so there is no separate save button once it exists. To reuse an order, choose Duplicate from its Options menu.

The approval path

An order moves through these statuses:

  • Draft — still editable, and the only status you can delete from.
  • Submitted — waiting on approval. Select Submit for approval to get here.
  • Authorised — approved. Goods can now be received against it.
  • Billed — an older status some orders still carry. On its own it does not confirm a bill has been matched.
  • Deleted — cancelled.

Submitting needs at least one line with a description. From then on the order can no longer be edited.

Anyone holding erp:finance:po:approve sees Approve in the order’s Options menu. They can approve a submitted order, or approve a draft directly. Approving records who approved the order and when.

Who is told

  • Submitted: everyone who can approve purchase orders gets an in-app notification and a mobile push. The person who submitted it is left out. Each notification opens the order.
  • Approved: the person who submitted the order and the person who created it are told. The approver is not.
  • Cancelled: the same two people are told, unless they cancelled it themselves.

These arrive under Business Alerts in each person’s notification preferences. Anyone who has switched off its In-app toggle does not get them.

If you can approve, the Purchase Orders list shows an Awaiting approval button with the number of orders waiting. Select it to list only those orders, and select it again to clear the filter.

Automations can react to the same steps. Use Purchase Order Submitted for Approval, Purchase Order Approved or Purchase Order Cancelled as the event trigger. For example, email your accounts inbox about every order over a set amount.

Cancelling cannot be undone. Cancel in the Options menu is only offered on submitted or authorised orders with nothing received against them. To change an approved order, cancel it and raise a new one with Duplicate.

Send it to the supplier

AxiomBlue does not email purchase orders to suppliers. Send the order yourself, then open it and select Record sent externally in the Delivery and Receiving card. The card then shows when it was recorded as sent.

Receive goods or accept services

Once an order is Authorised, the Delivery and Receiving card lists each line with what was ordered, received, outstanding, billed and unbilled. Recording a receipt needs erp:inventory:items:edit.

  1. Under Receive or accept now, enter the quantity that arrived for each line. You cannot receive more than is outstanding.
  2. Set the Receipt or acceptance date. Add the Delivery note or acceptance reference if you have one.
  3. Select Record receipt or acceptance.

What you should see: the card reports the order as Partially received or Fully received, and lists the receipt underneath. A delivery can arrive in as many parts as you need.

Receiving a catalogue item whose stock is tracked adds the quantity to its stock on hand. It also moves the item’s cost to the weighted average of old and new stock.

Match the supplier’s bill

When the supplier’s bill arrives, match it to the order so you only pay for what you ordered. Creating the bill needs erp:finance:ap:create.

  1. Open the order and select Create Bill. The new bill starts with this order’s supplier.
  2. In the bill’s Purchase order matching card, pick a line under Open purchase order line and select Add selected PO line. Repeat for each line the bill covers.
  3. Check Price difference per unit for anything the supplier charged differently, then save the bill.

The order’s Matched Supplier Bills card then lists each matched bill and the net amount it covers. See Managing Bills for recording and paying the bill.

Find and export

Search the list by order number or supplier, using at least three characters. Filters narrows by status, supplier and order-date range.

To download every order that matches, open the Purchase Orders tab and choose Options > Export Purchase Orders. To download only some, tick them and choose Export Selected.

Each order’s history shows who changed what, and when.