Raise and Send a Purchase Order

Updated 30 Sep 2026

A purchase order records what you've asked a supplier for, and follows it from draft to sent, received and matched to the supplier's invoice. Each order takes the next PO number when it's created.

Raise the Order

Go to Sales & Money → Purchase Orders and choose New PO. You can also start one from a job's Purchasing tab with Raise PO, which fills in the job and its site, or with New PO on a supplier's page, which fills in the supplier.
Choose what the order is for: Job Purchase, Stock Purchase, Project Purchase or Subcontractor Order, then the job, project or subcontractor it belongs to. A Subcontractor Order takes the Subcontractor and the Job, and raising it puts the subcontractor on that job, so they can log hours against the order in their portal.
Choose the Supplier. Only active suppliers are listed.
Set Deliver To (the warehouse, a site, a technician, the customer, or pick up from the supplier), the Expected Delivery date, and any delivery address, contact and instructions.
Choose Create Draft PO. The order opens as a draft.

Add What You're Ordering

In the Items panel, start typing the part's name or the supplier's part number. The field searches that supplier's own price list from your price books, so an order to one supplier never offers another's parts. A part number typed in full comes first.

Choose a match, by clicking it or with the arrow keys and Enter. It fills in the description, the supplier's SKU and their cost ex GST.
Set the quantity and check the cost against what the supplier quoted, then choose Add Line, or press Enter in the quantity or cost to add it and start the next line.
For anything that isn't on their price list, type the description, the SKU and the cost yourself, and choose GST or GST Free.

The total and GST work themselves out. A supplier with no items in your price books has nothing to search, and the panel says so; see Import a Supplier's Price List to bring their list in.

Lines can be added or removed only while the order is a draft. Once it has gone to the supplier, its lines are fixed.

When an Order Needs Approval

Your business can set a raise limit for each staff role: the most someone in that role can order without approval. An order whose total, including GST, is over your raise limit has to be approved before it goes to the supplier. If your business hasn't set any limits, orders don't need approval.

Choose Send for Approval, which takes the place of Send Order on an order over your limit. Like Send Order, it needs at least one line.
The order moves to Awaiting Approval, with the reason: its total and the raise limit it's over.
Once it's approved, it moves to To Send. Open it and send it to the supplier as below.

An admin can approve any order, and a staff member whose approve limit covers the total can approve an order they can open. The approver chooses Approve or Reject on the order, or on its card at the top of Purchase Orders, and can leave a note that's kept with the decision.

A rejected order goes back to draft, marked rejected, with the approver's note. Change what's needed, then choose Send for Approval again.

Set the Approval Limits

An admin sets the limits with Approval Limits on Purchase Orders. Each role has a raise limit, where 0 means no limit, and an approve limit, the most it can approve, where 0 means it can't approve at all. Admins can always approve.

Send It to the Supplier

Choose Send Order. It stays greyed out until the order has at least one line.
Check the recipients, subject and message. Leave the PDF option ticked to include a link to the purchase order PDF.
Send it. The order's status becomes Submitted, and if it's a Job Purchase, its job moves to Awaiting Parts. A Subcontractor Order leaves its job where it is.

If the supplier takes orders through their own portal and it's set up on their page, Submit to Portal appears in the same window.

When the supplier confirms the order, choose Mark Confirmed. If the goods turn up first, Receive Goods is there beside it; see Receive Goods and Match the Supplier's Invoice.

Find an Order

The tabs sort orders by where they stand: Awaiting Approval, To Send, Draft, Ordered, Receiving, Received, To Match and Closed, with All for every order.
The counts under the title pick out orders awaiting approval, orders that are late (the expected delivery date has passed and goods are still to come) and orders with lines on backorder.
Search looks at the PO number, supplier, job, customer, project, subcontractor and supplier invoice number.

Cancel an Order

Choose More, then Cancel Order. An order can be cancelled only while nothing on it has been received. If it has already gone to the supplier, Deployr doesn't tell them, so let them know yourself. Only an admin can reopen a cancelled order.

Office and dispatch staff see and work on every purchase order; a technician sees only the ones they raised. Purchase orders need the Commercial plan; see When a Save Says It Isn't on Your Plan.