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Purchase Order

xAssets Procurement Guide
Concepts

Purchase Order

This page explains what a Purchase Order is, how it is structured in xAssets, and how it relates to purchase requests and assets.

What is a Purchase Order?

A Purchase Order (PO) is a formal offer to a supplier specifying the types, quantities, and values of assets to procure. Each purchase order is issued to a single supplier and can contain one or more order lines, where each line is either a Purchase Request or an existing Asset record.

xAssets tracks each PO as a dedicated record with its own status, approval history, and line items. You can also record an external purchase order number against an asset for cross-referencing with your supplier's systems.

Purchase Order Structure

A purchase order consists of:

Component Description
Header Supplier, PO reference, requested-by custodian, for-custodian, dates, and status
Order Lines One or more lines, each referencing an asset record with category, make, model, quantity, and amount
Approval History A record of which approvers approved or rejected the PO at each level
Tasks (optional) Labour items, if the INCLUDELABOURONPO setting is enabled

Key Rules

  • One supplier per PO — if you need to order from multiple suppliers, create a separate PO for each one.
  • Amount is total, not per-unit — the amount on each order line is the total cost for the full quantity on that line.
  • Locked during approval — once a PO is submitted for approval, no changes can be made to it until it is either approved, rejected, or withdrawn back to New status.
  • Custodian required — only a user associated with a Custodian record can progress a PO to Order Placed status.

Creating a Purchase Order

  1. Navigate to the purchase order creation menu.
  2. Select the Supplier for this order.
  3. Add one or more order lines — each line references a Purchase Request or existing asset.
  4. For each line, verify the category, make, model, quantity, and amount.
  5. Save the PO. Its initial status is New.

Tip: Use Purchase Requests to group related requirements before creating POs. This makes it easy to split requests across supplier-specific POs and keeps the audit trail clear.

Practical Example

A department manager needs 5 laptops and 2 monitors. They create 2 purchase requests: one for 5 laptops (estimated total $5,000) and one for 2 monitors (estimated total $800). If both items come from the same supplier, a single PO is created with 2 lines. If the laptops come from Supplier A and the monitors from Supplier B, two separate POs are created.

For the status lifecycle of a PO, see Purchase Order Status. For approval workflows, see Purchase Order Approval Levels.