A purchase order (PO) is the document you send to a supplier to buy stock. Omono tracks every PO from draft to delivery and invoice, and updates your stock levels as goods arrive.
Where to find purchase orders
Click Purchasing in the navigation bar. Each card shows the PO number, supplier, your reference, the date and the value in the supplier's currency. The screen opens with Status set to Draft and Active, so complete, cancelled and on-hold purchase orders are hidden until you change the filter. If you have a default division, the screen opens on it too (Advanced → Division).
A faded card is a Draft. A coloured dot marks a Complete or Cancelled PO, and an icon marks one that is On Hold or On Order (Call Off).
Filtering the list
Filter | What it does |
Filter | Matches the PO number, supplier name or your reference. |
Status | Draft, Active, Complete, Cancelled or On Hold. Active includes On Order and On Order (Call Off). |
Date Range | POs raised between two dates. |
Advanced | Flag colour, Stock #, Tag #, Serial #, Invoice # (an exact supplier invoice number), Buyer, Division, Delivery Date, Call Off (call-off orders only) and Sort By. |
Before you start
The supplier must exist in Companies and be marked as a supplier. An archived company is not offered. See Companies: customers and suppliers.
Every item you buy must exist in Stock. You cannot add an assembly to a purchase order; buy its components instead. See Stock items and stock types.
Record each supplier's price and part number on the stock item, so the line item defaults are right. See Stock suppliers and supplier prices.
Creating a purchase order
Click + next to Purchasing in the navigation bar, or click Raise PO on a supplier's company page.
Fill in the Add Purchase Order form.
Field | Notes |
Supplier | Type the name or account number and pick from the list. Not shown when you start from Raise PO. |
Contact | Who receives the PO. Selected for you if the supplier has one contact. Click + to add one. |
Customer (Drop Ship) | Optional. Pick a customer if the supplier should deliver straight to them. See Linked purchase orders and drop shipping. |
Delivery Address | Where the goods go. Normally one of your organisation's addresses, selected for you if you have only one. Once you pick a Customer (Drop Ship), you pick one of the customer's addresses instead, and + adds a new customer address. |
Reference # | Your reference, for example a job number. It prints on the PO, and the Filter box searches it. It does not have to be unique. |
Our EORI # | Your EORI number for customs. Selected for you if you have only one. See International trade. |
Incoterm | Optional delivery terms. |
Division | Shown only if you have divisions. Defaults to the supplier's division, otherwise to your own. See Divisions. |
Buyer | Defaults to you. |
Exchange Rate | Defaults to the rate in Settings → App → Currencies. Greyed out for suppliers in your base currency. See Foreign currency suppliers below. |
Call Off | Tick for a blanket order the supplier delivers in several parts over time. See Call-off orders. |
Supplier, Contact, Delivery Address and Reference # are required. An empty one is outlined in red and the form does not save. Contact, Division and Exchange Rate are greyed out until you choose a supplier.
Click the tick to save. The new PO opens in Draft status.
The purchase order page
The heading shows the PO number and its flag, then Status, Supplier (click it to open the company), Contact, Ref #, Date, Buyer and Currency. Our EORI #, Incoterm, Division and Drop Ship Customer appear when set. Exchange Rate appears when the rate is not 1. Linked SO # appears on a PO raised from a sales order; click it to open the order. Below the heading are the line item cards, then the deliveries, each with a total.
Adding line items
Click Add Line Item in the action bar.
Find the item by Part #, Supplier Part # or Title. Picking one fills in the others.
Check the fields.
Field | Notes |
Description | Copied from the stock item, or its purchasing description if it has one. Edits apply to this PO only. |
Tag # | An optional label. It prints under the description, and the Tag # filter finds it later. |
Quantity | Omono suggests a quantity from the item's allocations, minimum stock level and minimum order quantity. |
Purchase Analysis | The analysis code for reporting. Required. Copied from the stock item; you can choose a different code for this line. Codes are set in Settings → App → Purchase Analysis Codes. |
Price | In the supplier's currency. Defaults to the supplier's price for this item, or the item's cost price converted at the PO exchange rate. It cannot be negative. |
VAT Rate | Defaults to the supplier's VAT Rate from the company form. Tax-exempt items always use the exempt rate and show VAT Exempt Item. Labels follow any tax wording set in Settings → App → Internationalisation. |
Click the tick to save.
Line item cards
Each line is a lettered card showing Price, Total, Quantity, Outstanding and Delivered. Hover over the i icon for the full Line Item Details. Delivered counts only goods on deliveries marked Received, so it stays at 0 until someone receives them. Outstanding is the rest.
You can drag cards to reorder them until the PO has a delivery. Click the edit icon on a card to edit the line. To delete a line, open it and click Delete Line Item. A line that is on a delivery cannot be deleted: the button is greyed out until you remove the item from every delivery.
Making the PO active
A draft PO commits you to nothing and does not affect stock. It becomes active when you send it to the supplier.
Add at least one line item.
Book every line's full quantity onto a delivery with Add Delivery. A delivery is a promised date for some or all of the quantity, not goods that have arrived; see Receiving deliveries. On a standard PO, Email, Download, Print and Preview do not appear until you have done this. A call-off PO skips this step; see Call-off orders.
Click Email to send the PO (see Sending documents by email), or Download or Print to produce the PDF.
Either action changes the status from Draft to On Order, or to On Order (Call Off) on a call-off PO, adds the line quantities to On Order on each stock item, and adds an Activity Feed entry. Purchase orders never change On Order for never-diminishing items. Preview does not make the PO active. While the PO is a draft, the Status line on the PO page has a tooltip reminding you to print it to make it active.
Keeping On Order in step
Once the PO is active, Omono keeps On Order in step with the lines:
Adding a line adds its quantity to On Order at once.
Changing a quantity adjusts On Order by the difference.
Deleting a line removes its quantity.
Receiving a delivery moves the received quantity from On Order to In Stock. See Receiving deliveries.
Cancelling the PO removes every line quantity.
What prints on the purchase order
The PDF is headed Purchase Order #: PO-1234 and saved as PO-1234.pdf. It shows the supplier's address, the date, the supplier's Account # from its company record, the buyer and the reference, plus EORI # and Incoterm when set. The supplier's address is the contact's own address if set, otherwise the accounts address. Each line shows the part number, title, description and Tag #, the Supplier # (the supplier's part number from the stock item), quantity, unit price and amount. Below the table are your Delivery Address and the totals you switch on in Settings → Templates → Purchase Order Paperwork.
A second page lists each delivery date with the lines and quantities expected. This is why every item must be on a delivery before you can send a standard PO.
The footer comes from Settings → Templates → Paperwork Footers. For the full layout, see What prints on your PDF documents.
Statuses
Status | Meaning |
Draft | Being prepared. Does not affect stock. Can be edited freely and deleted. |
On Order | Sent to the supplier. Goods are expected. |
On Order (Call Off) | An active call-off order. |
On Hold | At least one delivery is on hold. |
Complete | Every line is fully delivered and every delivery is received. |
Cancelled | Cancelled before any goods were received. |
Omono recalculates the status when you change a delivery's status, edit or delete a received delivery, change or delete a line on an active or complete PO, or add a line to a complete PO. Editing or deleting a delivery that is not received does not recalculate it. For example, if you delete the only On Hold delivery, the PO stays On Hold. Change that delivery's status first. Adding a line to a complete PO moves it back to On Order, or to On Order (Call Off) on a call-off PO.
The action bar
Button | What it does |
Add Line Item | Adds an item to the PO. Not on a cancelled PO. |
Add Delivery | Books goods onto a delivery. See Receiving deliveries. Hidden once every item is on a delivery, and on a cancelled PO. |
Edit | Changes the header details. Hidden on a cancelled PO. |
Sends the PO to the supplier and makes a draft active. See Sending documents by email. | |
Preview | Shows the PDF without making the PO active. Drafts only. It is watermarked as a draft (DRAFT-PO-1234.pdf); do not send it to the supplier. |
Download, Print | Produce the final PDF (PO-1234.pdf) and make a draft active. |
Documents, Notes, Links, Tasks | Attach files, notes, web links and tasks. See Notes, documents and links and Tasks. Documents also lists the documents held on the PO's stock items. |
Copy | Opens the Copy Purchase Order form. See Copying a purchase order below. |
Delete | Deletes a draft PO after you confirm, with its deliveries, notes, documents, tasks and Activity Feed entries. On a PO raised from a sales order, Omono removes the link from the order lines and writes a note on the order. |
Editing a purchase order
Click Edit in the action bar to change the header details. The Edit Purchase Order form has no Supplier field: the supplier cannot change once the PO exists. To order from another supplier, use Copy and pick the new supplier, or delete the draft and start again.
You can tick or untick Call Off with Edit. On an active PO the status switches between On Order and On Order (Call Off) at once, and Email, Download and Print appear or disappear to match.
Editing locks
A line's quantity cannot go below what is already booked onto deliveries.
Recording a supplier invoice locks the delivery and every field on its lines except Quantity. Once every delivery is invoiced and nothing is outstanding, the line edit icons disappear too; Edit and Add Line Item still work. See Supplier invoices.
A cancelled PO is fully locked. Edit, Add Line Item and Add Delivery disappear, and the delivery status list is hidden.
Foreign currency suppliers
If the supplier's currency differs from your base currency, the PO carries an Exchange Rate, labelled with the currency code, for example Exchange Rate - EUR. It defaults to the rate in Settings → App → Currencies. Line prices are in the supplier's currency; reports and the Purchase Orders screen total convert them at the rate on the PO. You can change the rate with Edit until any delivery is invoiced. Changing it re-values the PO and its deliveries in your base currency and writes a system note with the old and new rates. See International trade.
On some older foreign-currency POs, the stored rate was saved with less precision than Omono uses now, so saving Edit counts as a rate change even if you did not touch it: a system note is written and the PO is re-valued. Once a delivery is invoiced, that save is refused without a message.
Cancelling a purchase order
Open Edit and click Cancel Purchase Order, then answer Yes. The button is shown only while no delivery has been received. Cancelling removes the line quantities from On Order, writes a system note and adds an Activity Feed entry. A draft PO never added anything to On Order, so cancelling a draft removes nothing.
A cancelled PO cannot be reopened. Documents, Notes, Links and Tasks still open, and Copy raises the order again. Email, Download and Print stay only if every line was on a delivery when you cancelled, and the PDF does not show that the PO is cancelled.
Copying a purchase order
Click Copy in the action bar. The Copy Purchase Order form opens with the same header details. Keep the supplier or choose another, change anything else, then click the tick to save.
With the same supplier, every line is copied with its description, tag, quantity, analysis code, price and VAT rate.
With a different supplier, each Price is refreshed from the new supplier's entry on the stock item. If the new supplier is not listed there, the price is set to 0 and you must edit the line. The Exchange Rate switches to the new supplier's currency.
Deliveries, invoices, notes, documents and tasks are not copied. The new PO is a Draft with a fresh number, and a system note records which PO it was copied from.
Call-off orders and drop shipping
A call-off PO can be emailed and printed before its items are on a delivery; see Call-off orders. To have the supplier deliver straight to your customer, choose a Customer (Drop Ship), or raise a linked PO from the sales order; see Linked purchase orders and drop shipping.
Things to know
You can raise purchase orders in bulk from the Reorder Suggestions report. They arrive as drafts with the reference Stock Reorder. See Stock levels, stocktakes and reordering.
On the line item form, Supplier Part # finds only part numbers recorded against this PO's supplier. Archived stock items never appear in the search boxes.