The PR → PO → bill flow in Light

What is this page about: How Light commits spend before it happens. A purchase request captures the intent to buy and gets approved, a purchase order turns that approval into a commitment to the vendor, and matching the bill against the PO closes the loop, so nobody double-commits or double-pays.

# On this page

• The three stages
• Raise a purchase request
• Approve or reject the request
• How the purchase order is created
• Match a bill to the PO
• Close or archive the PO
• Best practices
• Related articles

# The three stages

Spend management > Purchase requests shows for roles with purchase request access. If you can't see it, ask your admin about your role.

# Raise a purchase request

1. Go to Spend management > Purchase requests.
2. Click Create purchase request.
3. Fill in the vendor, lines and amounts for what you want to buy.
4. Submit.

A "Purchase request created successfully" toast confirms it. The request opens on its own page with the status Pending and a PR number in the PR-00001 format.

You can also raise a request for a vendor card instead of a standard purchase. It follows the same approval path, and its Outcome section shows the Spend limit and authentication phone number instead of PO lines.

# Approve or reject the request

1. Go to Personal > Tasks and open the approval task for the purchase request.
2. Review it.
3. Click Approve or Reject.

Approving shows a "Task approved" toast and moves the request from Pending to Approved. Rejecting asks for a reason in the Add rejection reason dialog, shows a "Task rejected" toast, and moves the request to Rejected. A rejected request creates no purchase order.

The approver can also approve or reject from the request's own page. See Raising and approving a purchase request for the details.

# How the purchase order is created

When the request is approved, Light creates a purchase order with the same vendor, entity, currency and lines. It appears in Spend management > Purchase orders. Light then fills in the PO's coding and locks it automatically if it passes its checks. If the checks fail, the PO stays in Draft for you to complete and lock.

A locked PO becomes Open once it syncs to your ERP and picks up its PO number. Until then, the PO page shows the number as Auto generated and the request page shows PO number pending. Only Open POs can be matched to bills. See Purchase Orders for the full list of PO states.

To change a PO after it's locked, use Reset. It returns the PO to Draft so you can edit it, with a "Reset successful, PO is now editable." toast. Reset is available on locked and open POs, including ones already matched to a bill.

If something stops Light from creating the purchase order or card, the request shows a banner such as Purchase order creation failed or Card creation failed, with the reason. Archive the request and create it again once the issue is fixed.

# Match a bill to the PO

1. Open a draft bill for the same vendor as the purchase order.
2. In the bill's PO number picker, select the purchase order. The picker lists only Open purchase orders for that vendor.
3. Confirm.

A "Purchase order lines successfully added" toast confirms it, and the bill picks up the PO's coding. The bill's PO card shows a running Remaining and Total, so you can see how much of the commitment is still unbilled. Light can also match bills to POs automatically. See Purchase Orders for how matching works.

# Close or archive the PO

• Close. When you submit a matched bill for approval, choose Close PO and submit for approval from the submit button's dropdown instead of Submit for approval. The PO moves through Closing to Closed. Its Matched bills table lists each bill's Number, Matched on date, Status, Billed amount and Matched amount, with Total matched bills and Remaining amount underneath. Closing only happens when you choose it.
• Archive. Archive a purchase order you no longer need. Any bills matched to it must be archived first, otherwise Light shows an error. A "PO successfully archived" toast confirms it, the badge moves through Archiving to Archived, and the PO no longer appears in the bill's PO number picker.

# Best practices

• Treat a purchase request as intent, not a commitment. The commitment starts when the purchase order exists.
• Check the PO after approval. If it's still in Draft, complete the missing details and lock it.
• Match bills against their PO instead of re-keying the coding, so the PO's remaining amount stays accurate.
• Choose Close PO and submit for approval on the last bill you expect against a PO.
• Archive purchase orders that never turned into bills, so they stop cluttering the PO picker.

# Related articles

• Raising and approving a purchase request
• Purchase Orders
• Filing a Purchase Request
• Setting Up Approval Workflows
• Adding and Managing Vendors

Also searched as: purchase request approval, create a purchase order, lock a PO, match a bill to a purchase order, close a purchase order, PR to PO flow.