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Purchase Order Status

xAssets Procurement Guide
Purchase Order Status

Purchase Order Status

This page describes the status values that a Purchase Order moves through during its lifecycle, what happens at each stage, and which users can progress the PO.

Status Lifecycle Summary

Status Next Possible Status Who Can Progress
New Awaiting Approval, Order Placed Any user with PO edit permissions
Awaiting Approval Order Placed (approved), New (rejected) Authorized approvers only
Order Placed Partially Received, Received Any user with a Custodian record
Partially Received Received Any user with a Custodian record
Received Complete Automatic or manual

New

All purchase orders start with a status of New. During this stage, you configure the PO with order lines (assets or purchase requests), each specifying make, model, quantity, and amount.

Important: The amount field is the total cost for the full quantity on that line, not the per-unit price. For example, 5 laptops at $1,000 each should have an amount of $5,000.

The Purchase Order dialog displays a notification indicating whether the PO requires approval, based on your configured approval rules. If no approval is required, the PO can be moved directly to Order Placed.

Awaiting Approval

When a PO that requires approval is submitted, its status changes to Awaiting Approval. At this point, the PO is locked — no changes can be made to any fields or order lines. Only an authorized approver can progress it.

The approver can either Approve or Reject the PO:

  • Approve — the PO moves toward Order Placed. If multiple approval levels are configured, each level must be satisfied before the PO can be placed.
  • Reject — the PO returns to New status. The requester can then revise and resubmit it.

Tip: To withdraw a PO from the approval process (for example, to make corrections), set its status back to New. This removes it from all approval queues. You will need to resubmit it for approval after making changes.

See Standard Purchase Approval for the basic approval setup, and Purchase Order Approval Levels for how multiple levels interact.

Order Placed

Only approved POs (or those that do not require approval) can be moved to Order Placed. This status indicates the order has been sent to the supplier. Only a user associated with a Custodian record can set a PO to this status.

At this point, you can record the supplier's PO reference number on the purchase order for cross-referencing.

Partially Received / Received

When assets arrive, mark individual lines as received on the Purchase Order:

  • If all lines are received, the PO status automatically changes to Received.
  • If some but not all lines are received, the status changes to Partially Received.
  • Each asset marked as received has its own asset status updated to Received.

Splitting lines: If a line has a quantity greater than 1 and only some units have arrived, you must split the line first so that the received portion can be marked separately. For example, if you ordered 5 laptops and 3 arrived, split the line into a quantity-3 line (mark as received) and a quantity-2 line (still outstanding).

Returns

If an asset needs to be returned to the supplier after receipt, you can record a return against the PO line. An optional RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) number can be stored for tracking purposes with the supplier.

Warning: Processing transformations can be configured to validate PO data at each status change. If a transformation returns an error when you try to change the status, the status change will be blocked. See Purchase Order Processing Transformations for details.