Understand purchase order records in Sanka, including suppliers, line items, tax, receiving, bills, disbursements, and AI checkpoints.
Last updated: May 29, 2026
The Purchase Order object stores requests to buy products or services from suppliers. Use purchase order records when your team needs to track what was ordered, who supplied it, what quantity and price were agreed, and what should happen next in receiving, billing, and payment.This reference explains what a purchase order represents, how it connects to other records, and what to check before creating, importing, receiving, billing, or updating purchase orders with AI, CSV, actions, workflows, integrations, or manual entry.
What a purchase order record represents
A purchase order record represents purchase intent. It is the record your team uses to request goods or services from a supplier.It is different from:
Inventory transaction: the stock-in or stock-out record that changes inventory quantity
Bill: the supplier invoice or payment request received after ordering or delivery
Disbursement: the outgoing payment made to the supplier
Journal entry: the accounting record created from or associated with purchasing and payment activity
Common fields include:
Purchase order ID or record ID
Supplier company or contact
Record owner
Purchase order status
Order date, expected receiving date, and related due dates
Currency
Line items, quantities, purchase prices, tax, discounts, fees, and total amount
Sender, remarks, attachments, and PDF output
Related inventory transactions, bills, disbursements, items, expenses, and journal entries
Source details from CSV imports, integrations, actions, workflows, or AI-assisted creation
Purchase order fields and statuses can be customized by workspace admins. If a status, required field, or option is not available in your workspace, check object and property settings before treating it as a bug.
How purchase orders connect to other records
Purchase orders sit at the start of the procure-to-pay flow.
Companies and contacts: the supplier, business partner, or supplier contact
Items: products or services in the purchase order line items
Inventory transactions: receiving, stock-in, or adjustment records created from or associated with the purchase order
Bills: supplier invoices or payment requests received for the order
Disbursements: outgoing payments made after approval
Expenses: spend or reimbursement records that may be reviewed separately
Journal entries and accounting exports: finance records created from or associated with purchasing and payment
Files and PDFs: purchase order PDFs, supplier documents, delivery notes, or internal attachments
If a related record is missing from the purchase order view, first check whether the association exists and whether the current view includes that related record section.
Review a purchase order with AI
Ask AI to review the purchase order before creating, sending, receiving, converting, or changing status.
Sample prompt
/sanka Review this Sanka purchase order before making changes. Show the supplier, line items, quantities, unit prices, tax, currency, expected receiving date, status, related receiving records, related bills, related disbursements, duplicate purchase order candidates, and permissions to consider. Do not create, update, send, receive, bill, or mark anything complete yet.
After the review, confirm which next step is intended: create the purchase order, send it, receive goods, register a bill, record a disbursement, or leave the record unchanged.
Create a purchase order
Open Purchase Order and click New.
Enter the purchase order details.
Select the supplier from registered companies or contacts.
Set the order date and currency.
Choose the tax mode for the purchase order.
You can usually choose one tax rate for the whole record, item-level tax rates, or tax exempt handling depending on your workspace configuration.
Add line items. Select registered items when possible, or use manual entry when the item is not in the item master yet.
Add more rows when ordering multiple items.
Set the status, sender, and remarks.
Click Create Order Record.
The purchase order appears in the purchase order list.
Expected behavior
When a purchase order is created successfully:
It appears in the Purchase Order object list unless it is archived or filtered out by the current view.
The supplier, owner, status, order date, currency, line items, tax, total, sender, and remarks are saved.
Item prices may be copied from item records when a registered item is selected.
It can be associated with inventory transactions, bills, disbursements, expenses, files, journal entries, and accounting exports when your workspace uses those records.
It may be created manually, imported from CSV, synced from an integration, generated by an action or workflow, or drafted with AI review.
It does not always create receiving, inventory, bills, disbursements, PDFs, or accounting entries automatically.
Downstream records are created only when your team runs the relevant action, workflow, integration sync, or manual step. For the full flow, see Procure-to-Pay.
Receiving and partial delivery
When goods arrive, create or review receiving records from the purchase order.Check:
Ordered quantity versus received quantity
Receiving location and inventory record
Receiving date or expected receiving date
Item condition, rejected quantity, or variance notes
Whether the inventory transaction status counts toward stock
Whether the purchase order status should remain partial or move to received
For partial deliveries, receive only the quantity that arrived and keep the remaining quantity visible in your operation. Do not mark the purchase order as fully received until the remaining quantity is resolved.For the receiving workflow, see Purchase Order -> Receiving.
Bills, disbursements, and accounting
After the supplier sends an invoice, register or associate a bill with the purchase order. A bill means the supplier has requested payment. It does not mean payment has happened.Create or associate a disbursement only when payment has happened or when your finance process intentionally records scheduled outgoing payments as disbursement records.Before approving a bill or recording a disbursement, compare:
To update a purchase order, open the record from the list.Edit the record details or status, then click Update.To hide a purchase order from active views, select it and choose Archive.Archived records no longer appear in active lists.Use the archive view to activate archived purchase orders again.Archiving a purchase order does not automatically archive related inventory transactions, bills, disbursements, files, journal entries, or history.
Troubleshooting
A purchase order is missing from the list
Check whether the record is archived, filtered out by the current view, assigned to another owner, or hidden by permissions.
A duplicate purchase order was created
Compare supplier, order date, line items, quantities, amount, currency, source details, and related order or procurement request before archiving or merging records.
Item price, tax, or total is wrong
Check the selected item record, purchase price, manual line entry, tax mode, item-level tax, discounts, fees, currency, and rounding. If your workspace changed item prices after the purchase order was created, confirm whether the old or current price should apply.
Receiving did not update inventory
Check whether a stock-in inventory transaction was created, whether the transaction status counts toward stock, and whether the receiving location and inventory record are correct. Associations alone do not change inventory quantity.
A bill or disbursement was not created automatically
Check whether your workspace has an action, workflow, or integration configured for that step. Purchase orders do not always create supplier bills or outgoing payments by themselves.
A user cannot create, send, receive, or approve a purchase order
Check module access, object permissions, owner assignment, approval workflow requirements, action permissions, and access to related supplier, item, inventory, bill, and disbursement records.
Checkpoints
Before sending supplier-facing or finance-facing updates, confirm the purchase order, receiving, bill, and disbursement state together.
Search Sanka...
Review purchase order changes
Logs
Search logsAll actionsAll dates
ID / ActionDateTarget / ItemChangeActor
3Reviewed purchase order2026/05/10 14:00Supplier PO 0001Checked supplier, items, tax, quantity, receiving, and bill statusClaude / Codex
2Created receiving record2026/05/10 14:25Supplier PO 0001Received 30 of 50 ordered units into warehouse inventorySanka user
1Registered supplier bill2026/05/10 15:05Supplier PO 0001Linked supplier bill after invoice reviewSanka user
Purchase orders should be checked with supplier, item, receiving, bill, disbursement, and accounting records before changing status or explaining a support issue.
You can usually choose one tax rate for the whole record, item-level tax rates, or tax exempt handling depending on your workspace configuration.
The purchase order appears in the purchase order list.
Edit the record details or status, then click Update.
To hide a purchase order from active views, select it and choose Archive.
Archived records no longer appear in active lists.
Use the archive view to activate archived purchase orders again.
Archiving a purchase order does not automatically archive related inventory transactions, bills, disbursements, files, journal entries, or history.
