Release to PO (recording purchase orders)
Release to PO — Operator Guide
When a buy list is finished it turns into purchase orders — one PO per vendor. IM2 can write those POs into QuickBooks for you, or you can raise them by hand in QuickBooks and type the numbers back in. Either way Do that and three things happen: the buy list is marked Ordered, the purchase order shows against the Requirements Order lines it covers, and the workbench stops telling you to buy those items again.
Until you record the numbers, nothing knows the order was placed — so the same material turns up on tomorrow's buy list.
Which way you get
The Release to PO card at the bottom of the buy list decides that from one switch in Settings, Allow Auto-Create POs:
- On — you get a Create POs in QuickBooks button, and an Enter PO manually button next to it if you would rather do it yourself.
- Off — you only get the manual path.
Letting IM2 create them
- Open the buy list and check it over: quantities, costs, vendors, dates.
- Press Create POs in QuickBooks and confirm.
- Wait — it is deliberately not a background job. The card comes back either PO Created — 60001 (Elliott Electric Supply, 6 lines, $2,411.20) or a list of the exact reasons it did not, with nothing written.
What lands in QuickBooks looks exactly like a PO Ronnie keys by hand: your ship-to address, Accounts Payable, one line per buy line with the class and the job on it, and nothing marked billable. PO numbers IM2 creates start at 60001 so they can never be confused with the hand-keyed 2000-series numbers. They go into the normal approval queue like any other PO.
Delivery dates: QuickBooks only keeps one due date for the whole PO and in practice drops it, so the date you expect each line stays on the Requirements Order side, where the RO screen shows it.
Doing it by hand instead
- Open the buy list from Buy Lists and check it over.
- Raise the POs in QuickBooks as usual. One PO per vendor for this list.
- Come back to the buy list, open the Release to PO card and press Enter PO manually. It lists one row per vendor, with the number of lines and the total.
- Type each vendor's PO number in. Add the expected delivery date if the vendor gave you one — it is optional and you can leave it blank.
- Add a note if it helps anyone later, then press Record POs — mark Ordered.
The page reloads showing the PO numbers. The list is read-only from then on.
If it will not let you
The card tells you exactly what is wrong before it lets you record anything, and it tells you everything that is wrong at once rather than one thing at a time. The usual ones:
| What it says | What to do |
|---|---|
| Line 4 (SKU 50045): vendor 'Elliot Electric' is not a QuickBooks vendor | The name is spelt differently to QuickBooks. Fix the vendor on the line. |
| Line 7: no vendor | Set a vendor on that line, or untick it. |
| Line 2: quantity to order is 0 | Put a real quantity in, or untick the line. |
| Line 9: non-inventory line has no description for the vendor | The vendor needs to know what they are being asked for. Type it. |
| Line 3: RO 1042 has no class — a PO cannot be created without one | The Requirements Order behind that line is missing its class. Fix it on the RO. |
| Auto-Create POs is switched off in Settings | Use Enter PO manually, or ask an admin to turn the switch on. |
| QuickBooks is not reachable right now | Raise the POs by hand this once and record the numbers. Nothing was created. |
| SKU 50120 has never been created in QuickBooks | The item exists in IM2 only. Create it in QuickBooks first. |
| Line 3: job 'Franklin, Paul' is not linked to a QuickBooks customer | Link the job on the Requirements Order. Service orders with no job go to SA:Admin automatically. |
| No ship-to address in Settings | An admin needs to fill in Ship-to address for POs. |
| Line 5 is waiting on a count | Finish the count, or press CC Complete on this list. |
| This list was already released on 6 Sep by dcantin | Nothing to do — it is done. |
Nothing is saved when there is a problem. Fix and press the button again.
Who can do it
Admin and level 1 by default. It is on the permissions matrix as Release a buy list to PO, so that can be changed without any code.
What it does behind the scenes
The quantity on each line is matched back to the Requirements Order lines waiting for that item, oldest required date first. If you ordered more than the ROs need, the extra is treated as stock replenishment and is not tied to any RO.
The PO stays marked as "not yet matched to QuickBooks" until the overnight sync finds it by number, usually the next morning. You do not have to do anything for that, and the workbench counts it correctly in the meantime.
Where the PO number shows up
- Non-inventory (job) lines — on the Requirements Order line itself, with quantity and expected date, because that line is what the PO was raised for.
- Inventory lines — in a PO # column on the buy list, which appears once the list is released (one PO per vendor, so every line for that vendor carries its number). Stock isn't tied to one job, so there is no RO line to hang it on; the workbench counts it as on order by SKU. If the PO is later deleted in QuickBooks the column says so.
The alerts, in plain terms
The watch runs hourly and only ever reads QuickBooks — it never fixes anything itself. It raises five things, on the PO Alerts screen (newest unacknowledged first):
| Alert | What triggered it | What it does to the line |
|---|---|---|
| PO deleted | A PO we recorded is gone from QuickBooks | Line goes back on the workbench so it can be re-bought |
| PO closed | Someone closed the PO while an RO line was still waiting on it | Nothing — investigate |
| PO line removed | The PO still exists but our line was deleted off it | Nothing — investigate and reorder |
| RO line deleted | An RO line was deleted here while still on a live PO | Nothing — go cancel that PO line |
| PO not in QuickBooks | A hand-keyed PO number that QuickBooks has never heard of (typo) | Nothing — fix the number on the RO line |
Deletes are found through QuickBooks' change feed, which is the only thing that reports them — a normal query cannot see a record that no longer exists. That feed only reaches back 30 days, so if the watch is ever stopped for a month the log says plainly that deletes in the gap cannot be recovered rather than reporting a clean scan.
An alert stays until someone acknowledges it, and it will not re-raise while it is open.
If something goes wrong half way
Each vendor's PO is its own step. If QuickBooks accepts the first and refuses the second, the first one stays — it exists, it is real — and the card tells you which vendor failed and why. Press the button again after fixing it and only the vendor that failed is retried: you cannot end up with two POs for the same vendor on the same list.
What happens afterwards
- The list is Ordered and read-only. Changes from then on are made in QuickBooks.
- Non-inventory lines show their PO on the Requirements Order line, with quantity and expected date. Stock lines don't — a stock PO refills the warehouse rather than one job, and the workbench counts it as on-order by SKU.
- If anyone deletes or shortens one of these POs in QuickBooks, the hourly watch picks it up within the hour, puts the affected lines back on the workbench and raises it on PO Alerts. Nothing is silently fixed.