do you need to keep track of the orders that you sent out to vendors
well in that case you need to use the purchase order feature in quickbooks online
if you have any questions about this topic you can leave them in the comments section below and i'll
do my best to help you and of course if you feel the video helped you i hope you will click like
and don't forget to subscribe to get updates on new videos that come out all the time
purchase orders are not transactions they will not affect the chart of accounts
nor the customer or vendor's balances nor the inventory quantity on hand they are documents
we make to record the request of inventory that we need to purchase from the vendors the purchase
order reports help us track what was requested and help us compare that to what we already received
you must first activate the purchase order feature in the account settings window so
let's do that now now before we go to do that let's prove to you that right now there are no
purchase orders available and no purchase order reports available before we change the settings
if you go to the top left and you click new you will see that you are not able to create
a purchase order because it is not available you will also notice if you click reports
and go to the standard section of reports you will not see purchase order reports anywhere
in the list of reports because purchase orders have not yet been activated
now we will activate the purchase order feature go to the top right and click the cog wheel
and then go over to the left and click account settings if you remember the earlier videos you
remember that you click a category on the left to be able to activate a feature within that category
and then of course you can change categories by clicking a different category
in this case click expenses and where it says use purchase orders it says off click on the word off
and it gives you the ability to click the check mark here so that you will use and activate the
features of purchase orders then click save and now your account has the purchase order features
if we close the account settings window we can go back to reports standard and scroll up very slowly
and you will see you now have open purchase order report open purchase order list
and open purchase order detail and these two reports will help you manage your purchase
orders so let's go ahead and pin them to the uh custom reports area click open purchase order
and then change the pull down to all dates then click run report and now that the open purchase
order detail looks the way we need it to look we will click save customization and then click save
and then you will see if you click reports custom reports we now have
open purchase order detail on our list of custom reports that we can get to right away
now how do you manage the purchase orders well the open purchase order report will show the remaining
items waiting to be received the transaction list by vendor that we already put up in the custom
area in a previous video that will show us the full amount of all purchase orders regardless and
you'll see that after we enter our first purchase orders for example let's imagine on january 13th
we ordered a hundred bananas from sam's farm january 13th we ordered a hundred bananas from
sam's farm now when we go to the top left and click new we now have purchase order available
in the middle of the vendor column so click purchase order and we'll just
read off the information and it's just like any other document that we made in quickbooks online
the date is january 13th of 2020. the vendor is sam's farm now we don't want categories for
expenses so you can click this to collapse it we want item details click the triangle for the items
click under the words products and services bananas a hundred so we choose bananas one hundred
no excuse me not a thousand a hundred notice quickbooks knows and remembers that we pay twenty
dollars each crate of banana and we're buying a hundred bananas when we click save and close we
can now check our open purchase order report and you can see that we have one purchase order opened
on january 13th purchase order number one for sam's farm scroll to the right and you can see
the total is two thousand and the quantity that we ordered is a hundred let's do the
next one january 14th 100 apples from addie's orchard same thing click new purchase order
january 14th addy's orchard
apples 100
quickbooks remembers the purchase cost click save and close and now we have two open purchase orders
for two different items waiting to be received from vendors and these two purchase orders
have not yet affected our chart of accounts our vendors balances or the inventory quantity the
quantity has not changed because we have not yet received the orders now we will receive the order
and when we receive the order it's very simple as soon as we put the vendor name in the check
bill or expense that we record when we receive the order the open purchase order will appear
in the right panel as we make the transaction if that check bill or expense is for that order
you can save time by just clicking on the order and it will transfer the data to the transaction
as soon as you save the transaction the purchase order will disappear
from the open purchase order report because it will no longer be open so for example let's
imagine on january fifteenth we received order number one from sam and we received it with a
bill which means we're going to pay for it later so if we receive the order with a bill what we do
is we go to the top left and click new and we go down and we click bill
now this is wait wait we received it first of all on the 15th but watch this
as soon as we choose sam's farm
sam's farm notice the purchase order appeared in the right panel as soon as we chose the vendor
that we had an open purchase order with if you want to view it you can click open but let's not
do that let's just click add and no matter what was on the purchase order it automatically here
let's close the category no matter what was on the purchase order it will automatically record it
and copy it over so if you add 10 items on a purchase order with a lot of details
just click add and it all gets transferred over to the bill now the only other thing you have to do
is put the bill number and then when you click save and close you can go back to the
open purchase order report and you can see the purchase order for sam has disappeared
from the open purchase order report because it is no longer open we received it with a bill however
if you still need to see that purchase order and it's not on the open purchase order detail
then it is in the transaction list by vendor click reports go down to transaction list by
vendor and click on it and when you go to sam's farm you can see the bill and you can see the
purchase order itself the purchase order will still be in the list of transactions
on this report transaction list by vendor but look what happens when i double click and open it up
when i double click and open it up uh it it doesn't really uh it says one linked transaction
and closed and if it says closed that indicates that you've already received
this order you should also check reports inventory valuation detail so that you can see for this bill
on the 14th the bill we got for bananas from sam's farm you can see that the quantity of inventory
did increase and rest assured all the accounts that come with it or that follow along with a bill
will change as well as the vendor's balance just like we learned in a previous video
now this is interesting on january 16th we received only 50 of the hundred apples
from order number two from january 14th to addie the order that we sent to addie so we're going to
do this again except this time um we're going to pay her immediately with check number 61
and at the moment we go to record the check when we choose addie the purchase order will show up
in the right panel and we will have to adjust the quantity ourselves watch this we click new
go to vendors and click check now the date of the check is january 15th but look what
happens when we choose addie's orchard quickbooks remembers that we have an unpaid bill with her
as well as an open purchase order with this vendor and because we are receiving this purchase order
we click open excuse me click no not open not open because then we'll leave this sorry
sorry click add so we added the purchase order let's close the categories and keep the items
we added the purchase order and if there were many items it would all transfer over and save us time
let's click quantity and change it to the amount that we actually physically received
push the tab key after typing in the field and now the check is the correct amount five
hundred dollars now when we click save and close we can see that the apple quantity did increase
by 50 for the check which means the accounts in the chart of accounts changed the way they did in
previous videos but the most important thing to look at is to click reports open purchase
order detail and you can see that addie's purchase order is still open and it is still on this report
but it says quantity received 50 scroll over a little back ordered 50 and here's the total
amount and of course you can double click and you can open it up and see it's still open and when
you come down you can see the original amount of a hundred and the amount you received so far so
that's how you will use purchase orders to track your orders from vendors for your merchandise
inventory
you