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Docs Xero Purchase orders and bills

Purchase orders and bills

How purchase orders, back orders and supplier bills reach Xero, and what Smartworks tracks beside them.

Overview

Purchase orders live in Xero. Smartworks creates and updates them there, reads them back each time you open them, and keeps its own record of each line’s job and incoming stock. When you receive an order, Smartworks books the stock in, updates the order in Xero, and can create a back order and the supplier’s bill in Xero.

Purchase orderSave or Receive
Creates or updates
XeroPO, back order, bill
Read live
SmartworksJob lines, incoming, stock
Orders are saved to Xero. Receiving updates stock in Smartworks, then the order, back order and bill in Xero.

Saving a purchase order

When you click Save on a new order, Smartworks creates it in Xero with:

On the order Comes from
Supplier, dates, reference, delivery details, lines The form. Xero gives the order the next number.
Status Status on the form, which starts from the desktop or mobile default in Purchase order settings.
Account on each line Default Purchases Account, when set. See Chart of accounts.
Branding theme Xero Branding Theme. See Branding themes.

Saving an existing order updates it in Xero the same way, without changing the line accounts. The Status list offers only the moves Xero allows, such as draft to submitted or authorised.

After each save, Smartworks adds the job numbers on the order to its history in Xero. If Supplier Email (optional) is switched on, Smartworks gets the order’s PDF from Xero and emails it to the supplier itself.

Purchase Order Images are stored as attachments on the order in Xero. Smartworks shows only the image attachments.

What Smartworks keeps

Xero cannot record which job a purchase order line is for, or how much stock is on its way. So Smartworks keeps its own record of each order it saves:

Kept in Smartworks Why
Each line, with its job Puts the line’s cost on that job and shows the order on the job.
Incoming stock for tracked products Shows Incoming on Products and Services until the order is received.
Received quantities and costs Books the stock in and records what it cost. See Receiving stock.

This record is updated each time you save or receive the order in Smartworks. When an order is set to DELETED from Smartworks, its record and job lines are removed.

Reading purchase orders from Xero

The Purchase Orders list and each open order are read from Xero every time. Status, totals and lines show what Xero holds. Smartworks adds the received tick, the jobs and the credit note count from its own record.

Xero cannot search purchase orders by text. When you type in Search, Smartworks asks Xero for up to 1,000 orders with the chosen status and dates, highest number first, and searches those.

Receiving an order

When you click Receive, Smartworks does these in order:

  1. Books the received stock into Smartworks.
  2. Updates the order in Xero with the received quantities, the costs and Update PO Status.
  3. Creates the back order in Xero as a new purchase order, if Create Back Order is ticked, and notes its number in the original order’s history.
  4. Creates the bill in Xero, if Create Supplier Invoice is ticked.

The supplier bill

The bill Smartworks creates in Xero is set to awaiting approval. It has:

  • the number PO number - Supplier Invoice #;
  • today’s date, and Invoice Due Date as its due date, or 20 days from today if that is empty;
  • a line for each product received, at the received quantity and cost;
  • the tax rate with code INPUT2 on every line;
  • no account on the lines, so Xero uses each item’s purchases account;
  • a history note saying who created it and for which purchase order.

Smartworks keeps no record of the bill. If creating the bill fails, receiving still completes.

Limitations

  • An order edited in Xero before it is received keeps its old lines, jobs and incoming stock in Smartworks until it is next saved or received in Smartworks.
  • An order deleted in Xero shows as deleted, but its incoming stock and job costs stay in Smartworks.
  • If Xero cannot be updated while you receive an order, the stock is already received in Smartworks and the order cannot be received again. Finish the order, back order and bill in Xero.
  • Every bill line uses the tax rate with code INPUT2, whatever the item or order line says.
  • Default Purchases Account is not applied to bills, or to orders saved again.
  • Bills are dated with today’s date in UTC. In New Zealand, a bill created before midday, or before 1 pm in daylight saving time, is dated the day before.
  • Search looks through at most 1,000 orders that match the status and dates.
  • Saving an order in Smartworks sets its branding theme back to Xero Branding Theme.

See also