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Blue Domino
January 21, 2025
Question

Quickbooks Online and Purchase Orders from Customers

  • January 21, 2025
  • 1 reply
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I just upgraded to Quickbooks Plus from Simple Start in order to use Purchase Orders. The issue I find now is that Purchase Orders are used to track expenses from Vendors. That is not my use case. I am the vendor. I have customers issue PO's to me for products that I produce for them. I need a method to input these PO's from customers as I receive them. Sometimes the orders are large and I will send the customer partials, but not bill out the job until completion. I also need a method to track this so I can generate reports detailing all the open PO's I have and what has been sent already and what is still left to complete. Could someone offer any suggestions as to how to go about this as vendor? Do I even need to use QB Plus if I am not a vendor in order to do this? Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

Gus

1 reply

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JaneDave_I
January 22, 2025

Thank you for your continuous support in QuickBooks Online, Blue.

I'd like to provide a deeper understanding of how to handle your vendor transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

Within QBO, your customers use the Purchase Order feature to systematically track all orders they are placing with their vendors. These orders are recorded and managed on the platform to ensure clear visibility and accurate account handling.
 

On the other hand, vendors use a Sales Order feature to manage incoming orders from customers, it's important to note that this feature is not available in QBO. However, there's an effective workaround that you can utilize. You can use the Estimates feature as an alternative to Sales Orders. These are non-posting transactions in QBO that can be tracked and later converted into Invoices once the order is finalized and ready to be billed.
 

For instances where you need to handle partial payments from your customers, QBO offers the Progress Invoicing feature. This functionality allows you to enter and track partial payments against customer purchase orders. Once these entries are made, you can convert these recorded Invoices into Estimates for comprehensive record-keeping and easier accounting management. Additionally, regardless of the subscriptions that you have acquired, Purchase Order will only be use for customers when tracking their orders towards their vendor. 

Moreover, you can read this article to give you further information about the necessary steps on how to set up invoices and estimates in QBO: Set up and send progress invoices in QuickBooks Online

Furthermore, here's an article to guide you how to personalize your sales forms in QBO: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online

These tools and resources are designed to streamline your transaction management processes in QBO, making your accounting practices more efficient and reflective of your actual business operations If you have further questions or clarifications with regard to your transactions, you can always Reply to this thread. We're here to extend help. 

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Blue DominoAuthor
January 22, 2025

Thank you so much for the detailed response! In my case, there are times where I send partials to a customer as part of a larger order. These partials are not billed out at the time. The job is billed out when it is completed. How can I track these sent partials from an estimate versus what is still left to complete from the same estimate? I am hoping there is some tracking method where I can print out daily reports showing how many open estimates are in place with a breakdown of what has already been sent and what is still left to complete. Thank you again for your assistance!

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