⏳ Purchase Orders

How to request and handle purchase orders on Spendesk

Updated over a week ago

What's a purchase order?

A Purchase Order request is used when an employee needs to make a purchase or an order request on behalf of their company. It is a request, often with a quote attached, that is used to inform the cost center owner so that the purchasing process can be started.

Once the purchase order request has been made and has passed the approval process, a purchase order is created. Then, the Requester sends the confirmation to the supplier, including the purchase order number. Once the order is shipped, the supplier sends an invoice for the goods or services to be paid.

The purchase order number will be used for the 3-way match by the finance team when receiving the invoice.


Submit a Purchase Order

Account Owners and any member with a Requester role can submit a Purchase Order on Spendesk.

  • Click on the New request button.

  • Select the Make a Purchase request and then Request a Purchase Order.

  • Upload your document: we support .JPG, .PNG, and .PDF files, you can upload several of them at the same time. Max size : 10 MB.

  • Once you've filled out the required information and are ready, click on the "Confirm my request" button.

  • Your Purchase Order request will be either validated automatically or by an approver (depending on your approval policy, which is explained in your Profile under your personal information).

Where to find Purchase order requests to approve

👉 As a requester, go to Requests to view your POs pending approval.

👉 Your approvers can find this request under Requests > To approve or in Requests > All.

Once approved, a Purchase Order is created, you'll find it:

  • in the Purchase Orders tab as a Requester.

  • in the Commitments > Purchase Orders tab as a Controller.

Purchase order status

What's the status of the Purchase order?

An open Purchase order can have the following status:

  • Waiting for delivery: if current date < end date

  • Late invoice: if current date > end date & no invoice is attached to the PO

  • Partially billed: at least 1 invoice attached & amount billed (sum of invoices attached to PO) is less than PO amount

  • Billed: at least 1 invoice attached & amount billed (sum of invoices attached to PO) is equal to PO amount

  • Overbilled: at least 1 invoice attached & amount billed (sum of invoices attached to PO) is higher than PO amount

Cancel a Purchase Order

You can cancel a PO as long as no invoice is attached.

Close a Purchase order

You can close a PO as long as all attached invoices are paid.

➡️ It's possible to assign several invoices to a PO but not several POs to an invoice.

To close a purchase order, go to the Commitments > "Purchase Orders" tab, select the purchase order you wish to close, scroll down the main page and click the button to close it. Sometimes, the "End this purchase order" button is hidden when you scroll down the purchase order details, so you need to scroll down the main page after clicking on a purchase order.

It is possible to close a partially invoiced purchase order only if the associated invoices have all been paid. This can be the case when the amount of the invoices is lower than the amount of the original purchase order.

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