Share This
How to Create a Purchase Order in QuickBooks 2010
You can use QuickBooks to create a purchase order for your business. A purchase order tells a vendor that you want to purchase some item. In fact, a purchase order is a contract to purchase.
Choose Vendors→Create Purchase Orders.
QuickBooks displays the Create Purchase Orders window.
From the Vendor drop-down list, select the vendor from whom you want to purchase the item.
The Vendor drop-down list includes each of the vendors in your Vendor List.
(Optional) Classify the purchase by using the Class drop-down list.
You can use classes to specify what portion of your business the purchase applies to.
(Optional) Change the address by selecting a name from the Ship To drop-down list.
The Ship To drop-down list displays a list of all your customers, vendors, and employees. After you select an entry from the Ship To list, QuickBooks fills in the Ship To address box with the appropriate information.
Confirm the purchase order date.
Initially, QuickBooks puts the current system date into the Date box. You should, however, confirm that the date QuickBooks enters as the purchase order date is correct.
Confirm the purchase order number.
The purchase order, or P.O., number uniquely identifies the purchase order document. QuickBooks sequentially numbers purchase orders for you and places the appropriate number into the P.O. No. box. The guess that QuickBooks makes about the right purchase order number is usually correct. If it isn’t correct, you can enter a replacement number.
Confirm the vendor and ship to information.
The Vendor block and the Ship To block identify the vendor from whom you’re purchasing the item and the address to which you want the vendor to send the shipment. If the information isn’t correct, of course, fix it. You can edit address block information by selecting the incorrect information and then retyping whatever should be shown.
In the Item column, record the unique item number for the item that you want to buy.
Remember that items need to be entered, or described, in the Item List. The main thing to know about the Item List is that anything that you want to show on the invoice — or, for that matter, on a purchase order — must be described in the item file.
In the Description column, enter some specifics about the item that you select.
You can also edit the Description field so that it makes sense to customers or vendors.
Specify the quantity of the item that you want in the Qty column.
Obviously, you enter the number of that particular item that you want.
In the Rate column, enter the price per unit or rate per unit for the item.
QuickBooks uses different labels for this column depending on the type of business that you’ve set up.
Enter the customer's name in the Customer column.
In this form, the customer is the person for whom the item is being purchased.
(Optional) In the Amount column, adjust the total expended for the item.
QuickBooks calculates the Amount value for you by multiplying the quantity by the rate (or price). If you adjust this total, QuickBooks adjusts the rate (or price) so that quantity times rate always equals the amount.
In the Class column, classify purchase order items at the item level, rather than at the purchase order level.
You enter a description of each item that should be included on the purchase order. For example, if you want to order six items from a vendor, your purchase order should include six lines of information.
Click the Print button to print the purchase order.
You can also print purchase orders later in a batch; to do so, save all the purchase orders that you want to create, and then choose File→Print Forms→Purchase Orders.
Click either the Save & Close button or the Save & New button.
If you click the Save & New button, QuickBooks saves that purchase order and redisplays an empty version of the Create Purchase Orders window so that you can record another purchase order.
Accounting Glossary
