Purchase order statuses and editing

Every purchase order has one of four statuses: Draft, Pending, Approved or Not Approved. The status determines whether you can change the order, receive goods against it, and record invoices and payments on it.

Find an order's status

1. In the top menu, select Purchase Orders, then View Purchase Orders.
2. Select the order you want.
3. Check the coloured badge under PO status in the card at the top of the sidebar, or the status in the banner across the top of the order. On a phone, the status is in the summary strip under the order number.

To narrow the list to one status, use the PO Status filter. It is in the filters sidebar on a computer and in the filter panel on a phone.

Who can see purchase orders?

The Purchase Orders menu appears for accounts that can read purchase orders: those with the View Purchase Order permission, any permission to create, approve or pay purchase orders, or permission to manage supplier claims.

Seeing an order is not the same as seeing its prices. An account without View Inventory Value or a purchase order permission that includes prices sees the amounts as a dash. If your account is limited to certain departments, you only see orders within them.

Submit a Draft order

Every order starts as Draft, including a copy made with Duplicate PO. You can change a draft using Edit, and nothing has been committed to the supplier as far as the app is concerned.

1. Open the draft order.
2. Select Request Approval in the blue banner at the top. If your account is allowed to approve the order, the button reads Go to Approval instead and does the same thing.
3. Confirm in the dialog. The order moves to Pending.

The button appears only for accounts with the Create / Edit / Delete Purchase Orders permission. While you are editing, it is greyed out and the banner tells you to save your changes first.

Approve a Pending order

Pending means the order has been submitted and is waiting for someone with approval rights. Approve appears in the amber banner only for accounts with Approve Purchase Orders, or with Approve Own Purchase Orders when they created the order. Everyone else sees the banner without the button. The button is also hidden while you are editing the order.

1. Open the pending order.
2. Check the products, quantities, prices, dates and shipping cost.
3. Select Approve in the amber banner.
4. Confirm in the dialog.

Approving stamps the order with your name and the date, which the green banner shows afterwards. Invoices and payments can only be recorded on an approved order, and Shipments lists only approved orders, so receiving goods follows approval.

An order whose supplier has been deleted cannot be approved. It has no status banner, so Approve, Reopen and Request Approval all disappear.

If someone else changed the order while you had the page open, approval is refused and the order reloads with the latest figures. Read them again before approving.

Edit or reopen an order

Editing is offered only while an order is Draft or Pending, and only to accounts with Create / Edit / Delete Purchase Orders. Edit does not appear on an Approved or Not Approved order, and it is hidden while the order's year is locked or its supplier has been deleted.

If you save a change to a Pending order, it returns to Draft and must be submitted for approval again. The banner warns you before you save. Approval is given against a specific set of products and totals, so once those figures change, the earlier request no longer describes what is being bought.

You cannot edit an Approved order in place. To change it, select Reopen in the green banner. This returns it to Draft. Reopen requires Create / Edit / Delete Purchase Orders, and the dialog reminds you who approved the order and when. After reopening, the order must go through Request Approval and Approve again.

When an order returns to Draft because it was reopened or because someone saved a change while it was Pending, the person who requested approval is notified, or the person who created the order if nobody requested it, unless they did it themselves.

On a reopened order, a line that has already received goods keeps its product. Its quantity cannot be lowered below what has arrived, and the line cannot be removed. Its price can still be changed.

Not Approved orders

Not Approved is the rejected state, shown in a red banner. Its only action is Reopen, which returns the order to Draft so it can be corrected and resubmitted. The order screen has no reject button, so you are most likely to see Not Approved on older orders.

Confirm order prices

Price Confirmed is not a status and has nothing to do with approval. It is a switch on the order labelled PO prices are confirmed. Turn it on once the invoice or goods have arrived and you have checked that the order prices match what the supplier actually charged.

Approving an order does not turn the switch on, and turning it on does not approve anything. Only accounts with Manage PO Financials can move the switch. It is disabled when the order's year is locked or the supplier has been deleted.

The purchase orders list has a Price Confirmed column and a Price Confirmed filter. Use the filter to find approved orders whose costs nobody has checked against the supplier's invoice yet. Approved means the order was authorised; price confirmed means its costs are the real ones.

Copy, delete or review an order

To copy or delete an order, use the three-dot menu at the top right of the order. See Duplicating and deleting a purchase order.

If the order's date falls in a locked year, approving, reopening, editing, deleting and the prices-confirmed switch are blocked until that year is unlocked.

The History section records each of these events with the person and time, including the request for approval, the approval and any reset to Draft after an edit. Select View all to see the whole list. Use it to understand why an order is no longer approved.