> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://spreecommerce.org/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Purchase Orders

> Order stock from a supplier, track what is on its way, and receive it into a warehouse.

A purchase order is how you buy stock from a supplier. It records what you asked for, what it costs, which warehouse it is coming to and when it was promised — then, as deliveries arrive, what actually turned up.

Buying from a supplier is different from moving stock you already own. If goods are travelling between your own warehouses, use a [Stock Transfer](/docs/user/inventory/stock-transfers) instead — it has no supplier, no cost per unit and no promised date.

To manage purchase orders, open **Purchase Orders** under Inventory.

## Creating one

Click **New Purchase Order** and fill in:

| Field              | What it means                                                                     |
| ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Supplier           | Who you are buying from — a [Supplier](/docs/user/inventory/suppliers) you have set up |
| Deliver to         | The warehouse the goods are coming to                                             |
| Currency           | What the line costs are priced in                                                 |
| Expected           | The day the supplier promised                                                     |
| Supplier reference | The supplier's own order number, so you can match paperwork later                 |
| Notes              | Anything your team needs to know                                                  |

Then add lines — a product variant, how many, and what each unit costs.

<Note>
  The currency is fixed once the order is opened, because every line cost is priced in it. Choose it before you mark the order as ordered.
</Note>

## The lifecycle

A purchase order moves through a few states, and each one means something specific for your stock figures.

| Status             | What it means                                                                   |
| ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Draft              | Being put together. Nothing has been ordered and stock is unaffected            |
| Ordered            | Sent to the supplier. The units now count as **incoming** on the Inventory page |
| Partially received | Some deliveries have arrived, more are expected                                 |
| Received           | Everything ordered has arrived                                                  |
| Over-received      | More arrived than was ordered — worth checking before you close it              |
| Cancelled          | Called off. Anything still outstanding stops counting as incoming               |

Use **Mark as ordered** once the order is placed with the supplier. That is the moment the goods start showing as on their way. **Back to draft** reverses it if you sent it too early.

## Receiving a delivery

When goods arrive, click **Receive**. Each delivery is recorded as its own stock receipt — numbered, dated, and carrying the packing-slip reference — so an order that arrives in three shipments has three receipts against it.

For each line, record what you accepted. If something was refused — damaged, wrong item, short — record that too, with a reason. Accepted units are added to the destination warehouse's on-hand count and stop being counted as incoming.

Because each receipt is kept separately, the order's history shows what arrived when, rather than one final number.

## Closing an order short

Sometimes a supplier simply will not send the rest. **Close short** finishes the order with less than you ordered and asks for a reason. The order is marked received and noted as closed short, and the outstanding units stop counting as incoming — so your inventory figures stop promising stock that is not coming.

## Importing and exporting

Purchase orders export to CSV, one row per line — the file you send a supplier.

They import from one too. Rows sharing a reference become a single draft order, naming the [supplier](/docs/user/inventory/suppliers), warehouse and SKU by name. A name that does not exist fails that row rather than quietly creating something, so a typo is visible instead of becoming a new supplier.

## What it costs you

Stock received through a purchase order carries what the units cost into the stock history. That is what makes "what did this inventory cost us" answerable later, without reconstructing it from supplier invoices.