Purchase Orders

A Purchase Order (PO) is your formal commitment to a vendor — it defines exactly what you're buying, at what price, and when you expect delivery. In CifraHQ, the PO is the anchor of your entire purchasing workflow: receiving goods, generating the vendor bill, and recording payment all flow directly from it. Working from POs gives you full traceability, prevents price disputes, and keeps your accounts payable accurate from day one.

How to create a Purchase Order

Go to Purchasing > Purchase Orders.
Click + New.
Select the Vendor — this locks the default currency, Payment Terms, and Freight Terms from the vendor's record.
Set the Document Date (defaults to today) and the Expected Delivery Date.
Add your order lines (see below).
Save — CifraHQ assigns a PO number automatically based on your Document Numbering sequence.
When ready to send to the vendor, click Send to advance the PO to Sent status.

Adding order lines

Each line represents one product you are ordering:

Click Add Line (or Add Bundle to add a pre-defined product bundle).
Select the Product. The unit price, tax code, and pack size default from the product's settings.
Enter the Quantity — if the product is pack-size controlled, enter the number of packs and CifraHQ calculates the unit equivalent automatically.
Adjust the Unit Price or Discount % if this order differs from the product default.
Confirm the Tax Code — it defaults from the product but can be overridden per line.

Repeat for each product. You can also import lines from a prior PO or copy from a template.

Field reference

Field	What it means
Vendor	The supplier you're ordering from. Locked after the first save — start a new PO if you selected the wrong vendor.
Document Date	The date the PO is created. Used for period tracking and aging Reports.
Expected Delivery Date	When you expect goods to arrive. Visible on the receiving screen so your warehouse knows what to expect.
Reference Number	Your internal reference or the vendor's quote number — useful for matching email threads and Invoices.
Payment Terms	Defaults from the vendor; drives the due date on the vendor bill that gets created from this PO.
Freight Terms	Who pays shipping and under what conditions (e.g., FOB Destination). Defaults from the vendor.
Currency	Defaults from the vendor's currency. Multi-currency POs are converted at posting using the rate set in Currencies.
Notes	Internal notes visible to your team. Not sent to the vendor unless you include them in a printed PO.

Line fields

Field	What it means
Product	The item being ordered. Drives default price, tax code, and Inventory account.
Description	Editable product description for this line — useful if the vendor uses different product names.
Quantity	Units ordered. For pack-size Products, enter the number of packs — CifraHQ tracks both packs and individual units.
Unit Price	Price per unit (or per pack, for pack-size Products). Can differ from the product's standard price.
Discount %	Line-level discount applied before tax.
Tax Code	Determines what tax rate applies to this line.
Subtotal	Quantity × Unit Price minus any discount, before tax. Calculated automatically.

Document lifecycle

Status	What it means
Draft	In preparation — fully editable, no impact on Inventory or Accounting yet.
Sent	Submitted to the vendor. Lines are locked. CifraHQ tracks this PO as an open commitment.
Partially Received	Some lines have been received via an Inventory Receipt; remaining quantities are still open.
Received	All ordered quantities have been received. The PO is closed for further receipts.
Cancelled	Voided before any goods were received. No Inventory or Accounting impact.
Archived	Fully processed and closed. Read-only reference only.

Reopening a closed PO

If a PO is closed, use Actions > Reopen on the purchase order page, or the Reopen row action on the Purchase Orders list. Reopening clears the close, unarchives the PO if closing had archived it, recalculates its status from the lines, and sends it back to the warehouse if closing had removed it, so receiving can continue. Reopen is refused, with a message, if every line is already received: the PO would just close itself again.

What happens after you send a PO

Once the vendor ships the goods, go to Purchasing > Inventory Receipts and click + From PO — select this PO and CifraHQ pre-fills the receipt with all open lines, quantities, and costs. You can receive all lines at once or do partial receipts if the vendor ships in batches.

After posting the receipt, click Generate Bill on the receipt to create the vendor bill. The bill inherits the PO's vendor, currency, and Payment Terms, and the receipt's landed costs.

Receiving Fixed Assets

A fixed asset (a product marked as a fixed asset) is not stock, so it has no Inventory receipt. When the asset arrives, open the released purchase order and click Receive Fixed Assets:

Choose the date received.
For each fixed asset line, enter how many units arrived. You can receive part of a line now and the rest later.
Optionally type a serial number for each unit.
Click Receive.

CifraHQ creates one fixed asset per unit, with its depreciation schedule, and the order shows Partially Received or Received. You can open each asset from the line's details. Receiving does not post anything to the ledger.

When you later post the vendor bill for the same order, it uses the assets you already received (and updates their cost to the invoiced amount if nothing has been depreciated yet) instead of creating new ones. An order with both Products and Fixed Assets stays open until the Products are received with an Inventory receipt and the assets are received here. Orders that contain only normal Products work exactly as before.

You can only return the order to draft while nothing on it has been received.

Tips

Partial receipts: If a vendor ships in two deliveries, create two separate Inventory Receipts from the same PO — CifraHQ tracks received vs. outstanding quantities on the PO automatically. The PO stays open until all quantities are received.
Price lock: The price on a PO line is what gets carried into the Inventory Receipt and the vendor bill. If a vendor changes their price mid-order, update the PO line before receiving.
Pack sizes: If you order 10 cases of 12 units each, enter Quantity = 10, Pack Size = 12. CifraHQ posts 120 units to Inventory. The vendor bill will show 10 cases at the case price.
Copy POs: For recurring orders from the same vendor, open an existing PO and use Copy to create a new draft with the same vendor, terms, and lines — then adjust quantities and date.
Landed costs: After receiving goods, CifraHQ can spread freight and insurance costs proportionally across product lines to give you an accurate per-unit Inventory cost. Set these up on the Inventory Receipt.

Related: Inventory Receipts · Vendor Bills · Vendors · Products

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