Purchase order number , sales Rep to invoice , receiving goods against PO and more

Hi there,

I'm glad to hear you're using Quickbooks Online and helping your client navigate the program. Quickbooks is all about organizing and simplifying your books. I'll be happy to guide you through every single point included in your QBO research project.   

It sounds like you've both already been looking at the Create purchase orders in QuickBooks Online article as I don't see any particular inquiry on how to create one. If you haven't seen it, I recommend taking a look at the article to learn more. 

Starting with your first point, here's how to turn on and view the purchase order (PO) number in QBO.

1. Select + New.
2. Select Purchase Order.
3. Click on the gear icon at the upper right and select the Custom transaction numbers feature

This will display the number field on the form.
 

To then receive goods against the Purchase Order, follow the steps outlined in this article: Apply a purchase order to a supplier transaction

Your second research point is very interesting as I can see how valuable it will be to have the possibility to specify and keep track of each rep's sale. The invoice template in QBO doesn't come with a default sales rep field. However, with Quickbooks Online Essentials and Plus, you can customize your invoice template in the settings to add a field dedicated for sales reps. Here's how to do that

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and then select Custom Form Styles.
2. Identify your invoice template and Click on Edit 
3. Select the Content tab
4. Scroll down to the Display section and select + Custom field.
5. Include your custom name (in this case sales rep) and click on done

When creating an invoice with that template, you'll now be able to fill in the required sales rep name in your sales rep created field. To learn more about customizing sales forms check out this article: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online

Since sales rep is a custom field, it won't automatically show on reports, but you can customize your sales report to see the information you'd like. It's pretty simple and I'll show you how.

1. On the left panel, click the Reports menu.
2. Search Sales by Customer Summary (or any other sales report of your choice), and click Customize.
3. Under the General section, change the report period to This month
4. Go to the Filter section, and select your custom name (in this case showing as sales rep)
5. Include the name of one of the sales rep (as appeared on each invoice)
6. Click Run report.
7. If necessary you can click the Export icon, and select Export to Excel.

It's important to note that the report will not include the sales rep name as it's a specific custom field. However, every sale on that report for that month will only be linked to that particular sales rep name you included in your filter.

To view your total sales for the month, you can just follow the same steps above and skip the customization step which included a specific sales rep. To view your inventory report, you can search for the Inventory Valuation Detail Report in your reports menu and choose your desired period to run and analyze.

I hope this all makes sense so far. :) We are now left with the two last points.

It's important to record invoice payments in QuickBooks to make sure your reports are accurate. To record an invoice payment follow the steps below

1. Select + New.
2. Select Receive Payment.
3. Select the name of the customer from the drop-down menu.
4. From the Outstanding Transactions section, select the transactions that you’d like for QuickBooks Online to calculate. As you select these items, the payment total will change.
5. Select the payment method.
6. Enter the Reference no. and Memo if applicable.
7. You can either deposit the money to your chequing account or to the Undeposited funds account.
8. Select Save and close.

To learn more on how to receive and categorize payments, check out this article: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online

And as for the dashboard, it's already integrated with multiple shortcuts and there's no feature to add additional shortcuts at the moment. I invite you to read the An introduction to the home dashboard article to learn more about the QuickBooks Online home dashboard.

I hope this clarifies everything for you and your client. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need more assistance. :)