Purchase Orders

What is this page about: Purchase orders (POs) record a committed purchase with a vendor before you receive the bill for it. This page covers the PO lifecycle, how to create a PO and add line items in Light, and how Light matches a PO against the bills that come in against it.

# On this page

• Purchase order states
• Creating a purchase order
• Adding line items
• Matching a PO to a bill
• Related articles

Purchase orders record committed spend with a vendor ahead of the bill. In Light, POs live under Spend management → Purchase orders. Open Light and go straight to Spend management → Purchase orders.

# Purchase order states

Light displays the CANCELLED state as Archived, and the action you click is Archive. If you're looking for "cancel a PO" in the product, look for Archive instead. One thing worth knowing: the filter dropdown for this state currently reads "Discarded," while the badge and banner on the PO itself say "Archived." Same state, inconsistent label, expect either wording depending on where you're looking.

# Creating a purchase order

1. In Light, go to Spend management → Purchase orders.

2. Click Create purchase order. Light creates an empty draft right away, in the IN_DRAFT state.

3. On the draft's details page, fill in:

   • Vendor: who you're ordering from.

   • Date: when you created the PO.

   • Delivery date (optional): when you need the goods or services.

   • Delivery address (optional).

   • Entity: which company entity is making the purchase.

   • Currency: the PO's currency.

   • Request owner: who's requesting the purchase.

   • Description (optional) and Vendor notes (optional).

     Each field saves as you enter it, and line items live on this same page.

4. Add line items (below).

Once the PO is approved and syncs to your ERP, it moves into the OPEN state and picks up its PO number there, this is the ERP-assigned number, not something you enter yourself.

# Adding line items

1. On the PO's details page, click + Add line item. This appends a new row to the line items table, there's no separate form to fill in and submit.

2. Fill in the row's cells directly:

   • Description: what you're ordering.
   • Quantity and Unit price.
   • Account: the general ledger (GL) account the cost is charged to.
   • Cost center (optional): the department or project.
   • Tax code (optional).

3. Each cell saves as soon as you click away from it, no separate save or confirm action.

4. Light calculates the line total for you.

5. Click + Add line item again for each additional item.

# Matching a PO to a bill

When you enter a bill, you can link it to an open PO. Light compares the bill's line items against what's still unmatched on the PO (remaining quantities and amounts) and flags any mismatch for review. One PO can be matched across several bills, until it's fully received.

# Related articles

• Entering bills
• Bill approval
• Managing vendors

Also searched as: PO, PO number, PO status, archive a purchase order, cancel a purchase order, GL account on a PO, PO matching, match PO to bill, spend management, procurement.