Manage purchase orders

Purchasing is where a formal order to a vendor gets created, tracked, and received. It's the counterpart to a field purchase — this is the office issuing a planned order, not a technician expensing a same-day store run.

Create a purchase order

Choose New purchase order and fill in the vendor, and — if this order is for a specific job or project. Add line items: each one can carry its own job link too, so a single PO can supply several jobs at once, with each line's cost still attributing to the right job for costing.

Status

A PO moves through Draft → Ordered → (Partial) → Received, or Canceled at any point before it's received. If your company has a purchase approval threshold set, an order over that dollar amount routes to Pending Approval instead of going straight to Ordered, and needs an approval before it can proceed. A draft at or over that limit cannot be received until it is sent for approval. Receiving it is refused: This draft purchase order is over the approval limit. Send it for approval before receiving it. A draft under the limit can still be received.

Receive an order

Receiving records what actually arrived against each line item — Thermal tracks received quantity separately from ordered quantity, so a partial delivery is reflected correctly (Partial status) rather than forcing you to wait for the whole order. Receiving is also what updates inventory quantity and cost — see Manage inventory and parts.

To correct a mistake on an issued PO, void it and issue a new one — line items on a PO aren't deleted individually once the order exists.

Field purchases, reconciliation, and sync status

Three related screens live under Purchasing but cover different jobs, each with its own guide:

Field purchases — receipts a technician submitted from the field, waiting for office allocation and approval. See Review and allocate field purchases. Note: a field purchase's cost allocates to a job for costing, but doesn't update on-hand inventory the way receiving a PO does.
Reconciliation — a company-wide check that ordered, received, and billed amounts line up, plus truck-stock drift and unmatched vendor bills. See Review materials reconciliation.
Sync status — whether purchasing and vendor-bill records are syncing to your accounting system. See Review accounting sync status.

Reference

Who can manage purchasing — Owners and Office users only. Dispatchers and Technicians don't have access to this screen (a technician submits a field purchase from the field app instead). See Roles & permissions.
Purchase order statuses — the exact status enum is in Status & domain values.