Purchase orders let you order stock from your suppliers, send them a branded PO, and receive the goods back into your catalog (and Shopify) as they arrive. This guide walks through the full lifecycle: create, send, track, receive, and close.
Creating and managing purchase orders is a Manager and Admin capability.
Where to find purchase orders
Go to Purchasing → Purchase Orders to see the full list. From there you can search, filter, open any PO's detail page, or start a new one. Each PO in the list carries a colored status pill so you can scan its stage at a glance.
Create a purchase order
Start at Purchasing → Purchase Orders and click New Purchase Order. You can start a PO three ways:
From scratch: open a blank PO and fill in the details yourself. The steps below cover this path.
From suggestion: open your reorder suggestions and turn recommended quantities straight into a PO. See the Reorder guide.
From file: upload a supplier quote, invoice, or order confirmation and let Oppy, our AI assistant, draft the PO for you (covered at the end of this section).
The New Purchase Order menu (with From suggestion and From file) is available on plans that include the AI assistant (Pro and Scale). On other plans, New Purchase Order opens a blank PO directly.
Set the header
Pick the supplier . If the supplier does not exist yet, you can create one inline without leaving the page.
Pick the receiving location (multi-location organizations). This is where the stock is expected to land, and it becomes the default target when you receive.
Set the expected delivery date so you know when to expect the goods.
Optionally choose a custom shipping address on the top row (next to Status and Location) when goods should ship somewhere other than the receiving location. Leave it on "Use location address" to default to the location. You can create a new address inline. The PO snapshots the address you pick, so later edits to a saved address never change a PO that already used it.
Add line items
You can add two kinds of lines:
Catalog variants : search for a product variant and add it. Its cost and the supplier's SKU can auto-fill from the variant's sourcing record for the selected supplier.
Custom (non-catalog) items : add a line with just a description when you are buying something that is not in your catalog. Custom lines are recorded on the PO but do not affect inventory when received, because they are not linked to a variant.
Set a quantity and unit cost per line. A live totals box shows the running PO total as you go.
Per-line supplier SKU
Each line has an optional Supplier SKU field: the supplier's own part number for that item. It prints on the PO and round-trips on import. If the line's SKU differs from the SKU saved for that supplier, a small amber hint offers to use the saved one or to save yours as their SKU.
Order by pack or case
For items you buy in packs or cases, click Order by pack/case on the line. Two fields appear: Units per pack (how many units are in one pack) and Number of packs (how many packs you are ordering). The line quantity is computed automatically (units per pack times number of packs) and kept in sync. Click Remove pack/case to go back to a plain quantity.
Fees and landed cost
Add any number of fee lines: shipping (multiple legs supported), tax, duty, discount, handling, or a one-off charge. Each fee is allocated across the line items by its own method (by value, by quantity, by weight, even, or not allocated). Fees marked as affecting landed cost roll into each unit's landed cost and feed the weighted-average cost engine when you receive; others are payment-only. See the Fees and landed cost guide for the full detail.
Payment and invoice details
A PO can also record the commercial details of the order: payment terms and payment due date; invoice number, invoice date, and the supplier's order number; and a signed invoice adjustment to reconcile the computed total to the supplier's invoice exactly.
Create a PO from a file (AI)
If you already have a supplier quote, invoice, or order confirmation, Oppy can build the PO for you instead of entering it by hand.
On the Purchase Orders page, click New Purchase Order , then From file .
Upload the document. You can drag and drop it or browse for it, and it can be a PDF, image (PNG or JPG), CSV, Excel, Word, or text file.
Click Create with AI . Oppy reads the file and drafts the PO: it matches the supplier and line items to your existing catalog where it can, adds anything it cannot match as custom lines, and puts shipping charges in the fees section rather than as line items.
Review the draft, correct anything that did not match, and save.
The PO is created as a Draft, so nothing is committed until you review it. The original file is kept on the PO's Files tab. This option is included on the Pro and Scale plans.
Purchase order statuses
A PO moves through a lifecycle, and its status pill is color-coded in the list and on the detail page:
Draft (amber): freshly created and fully editable.
Sent (purple): sent to the supplier, awaiting goods.
Partially Received (teal): some, but not all, ordered units have arrived.
Received (green): everything ordered has arrived.
Cancelled (red): terminal and locked (see below).
Closed (gray): terminal and locked.
You set the status from the Status dropdown on the PO's top row. The dropdown also carries additional payment and shipping stages (such as Approved, Paid, and Shipped) if you want to track those.
Tip: Cancelling asks you to confirm first, whether you choose Cancelled from the Status dropdown or the dedicated Cancel action, so you cannot lock a PO by accident.
Send the PO to your supplier
When the PO is ready:
Set the status to Sent so it is out of Draft and everyone knows it has gone out.
Use Print to generate the branded, supplier-facing PDF (logo, company name, billing address, ship-to block, the supplier's address and contact, per-line thumbnails, SKUs, and itemized totals). You can also export the PO as CSV or plain text.
Optionally use the Email to supplier action to send the PO straight to the supplier's contact email, with your chosen format attached.
You can customize the PDF (brand accent color, billing address, footer note, and which blocks to show) in Purchasing → Settings.
Track the shipment
Open the PO's Tracking tab to record shipments:
Click Add Delivery and enter a tracking number (carrier, shipped date, and estimated delivery are optional). Or click From file to upload a shipping confirmation or tracking email and let Oppy pull out the tracking number, carrier, and dates for you; it can add several shipments from one file. This AI option is included on the Pro and Scale plans.
Once tracking is added, the shipment's delivery status (Pending, In Transit, Out for Delivery, Delivered, Failed, Returned) updates automatically as the carrier reports progress.
Delivery-notification emails fire on those events (shipped, out for delivery, delivered, exceptions, and when an estimated delivery date is set), based on your notification preferences.
You can add or remove recipients, or mute notifications, for a single PO from its Tracking tab. Organization-wide and personal defaults live in Settings → Notifications.
Receive goods
Receiving in Organizely is a deliberate two-step model, so what physically arrived is always recorded separately from what you commit to stock:
Receive logs what arrived. It does not change live inventory on its own.
Sync commits received-but-unsynced units to inventory. This is where cost (weighted average) and the Shopify update happen.
On the PO detail page, use the Receive goods action on a line (partial receipts are fully supported). Enter the accepted (good) quantity, any damaged quantity (routed to a non-sellable damaged pool on multi-location organizations), and any rejected quantity with a reason (damaged, defective, wrong item, overstock, expired, recall, quality issue, or other). Optionally tick Sync to inventory now to commit accepted units in the same step, or sync later with the Sync to inventory action. See the Receiving and goods inspection guide for the full walkthrough.
Each line shows a Received bar (amber while partial, green when complete) and a Synced bar (blue while partial, green when complete), plus a Receiving history panel listing each receipt event.
Close, cancel, or reopen
Close a PO when it is finished. Cancel a PO you are not proceeding with (the cancellation date is recorded and shown while it is cancelled).
Closed and cancelled POs are terminal and locked : their items and details cannot be edited, and no further stock can be received against them.
Reopen a closed or cancelled PO to return it to an editable Draft state (the cancellation date is cleared).
Need help?
If you get stuck or something does not look right, reach out to our support team.