QBO Partial Purchase Orders Revisited

Last March I wrote an article titled, "Where are the QBO Partial Purchase Orders," because

Intuit released notes published in February. Unfortunately, they (and the notes) were withdrawn. 

When I first noticed them missing, I thought it was because they were being rolled out to only new QBO accounts and that the rest of us would get them at a progressive pace over a month or six-week period.

Well, they didn't show up in QBO until July 14. Now, QuickBooks Online users can link a bill, check or expense to any portion of a Purchase Order. You no longer have to associate receiving or payment for Purchases Orders with the entire PO. 

In addition, Intuit has made it easy to keep track of the various transactions that you use to record inventory, costs and expenses against your purchase orders.

As you can see in the illustration below, multiple transaction including bills, checks or expenses can all be linked to a single purchase order. You might write a check to pay for one line item or record a credit-card expense to pay another one. You may even use a vendor bill to pay the remaining line items, or control the transactions used to fulfill the purchase order and line items associated with those transactions.

In the above illustration, the blue arrow points to a blow up the details of the transactions used to pay the purchase order.

If you look closely in the illustration below, you'll see that each of the transactions has a "link" to the actual transaction within the transaction type column. Simply click on the link and you'll be taken to the selected transaction.

One change associated with this enhancement is the ability to close purchase order lines. A new Close column allows users to close individual lines on a purchase order or select which line items remain open.

By default, QuickBooks automatically closes a Purchase Order when all quantities and/or all amounts on the purchase order are accounted for across all of the associated transactions. But this new feature permits you to manually close the purchase order on a line-by-line basis. You also have the ability to manually close purchase orders by changing the status of the purchase order.

If you're receiving a partial amount on a purchase order or making a partial payment, you can add part of a purchase order to a transaction, as well as link multiple transactions to a single purchase order.

Whether you're entering a vendor bill, a check or an expense, when you select a vendor or supplier with an open purchase order, the PO will appear in a section on the right-hand side of your transactions window. 

Simply click Add on the PO you want to associate with the transaction. The details of the Purchase Order will be added on the first available line in the Item Detail, Product/Service or Account Details section of the transaction. 

Just make certain to edit the quantity or amount for each line item you'd like to record as partially received or paid. Remove line items that are not associated with the transaction you are processing.

It works, it works. 

QBO also made it easy to know where you stand with your partially received or partially paid purchase orders. The new Open Purchase Orders Detail reports makes it easy to see how much of every PO has been received or paid for, and how much is still outstanding.

So the long wait, and anxiety associated with a publicized and then withdrawn feature is over. We can relax and partially pay our purchase orders all we want in QuickBooks Online.

By the way, this feature is still being rolled out in some markets and may not be available to all QBO users at the time of this publication.

Liz Scott is a Certified QuickBooks Advisor and Partner in the Oklahoma City based firm, Accounting Lifeline, which specializes in QuickBooks training, setup, support and advisory services for small businesses.  

She serves as the Contributing Author for Insightful Accountant’s recurring QBO Monday Minute feature and acts as co-host of Insightful Accountant’s QB Talks Quarterly QBO Fireside Chat webinars.

Liz’s passion is the utilization of cloud technology in provision of real time accounting solutions and automation so small business owners can be empowered to make time financial decisions.