How to Create a Purchase Order

Creating a Purchase Order in DPO is straightforward once your DPO Book has been configured with the required settings. Before creating your first Purchase Order, make sure all necessary settings are available in your DPO Book. Missing settings may prevent Purchase Orders from being submitted or approved. If you do not have administrator access, contact your DPO Book Administrator.

Start a new Purchase Order

After logging in, select your DPO Book and click Add P.O. in the left-hand navigation.

Start by selecting the appropriate Department from the dropdown menu. Next, select an existing supplier or create a new supplier if your administrator has enabled this option. Click Next to continue.

Complete your custom Purchase Order fields

Depending on your company’s DPO configuration, your Purchase Order may include additional custom fields.

These can include fields such as:

• Components

• Delivery Addresses

• Other company-specific information

  
  

The fields shown in your DPO Book may therefore differ depending on your organization’s setup.

Add Purchase Order items

The next step is to add the items for your Purchase Order.

DPO gives you two options:

• Create items manually

• Generate items using Generate Items with AI

When using AI, simply enter a prompt describing the items you need.

For example:

“3 rental items at USD 10 each for January through March plus 20% sales tax.”

DPO will then generate the corresponding line items automatically.

Add items manually or use the Catalogue

If you prefer to add items manually, click Add Item. If your administrator has configured a Catalogue, start typing the item name. DPO will suggest matching catalogue items. After selecting an item, DPO can populate predefined information such as the item name and description.

You can then complete any remaining fields, including:

• Expenditure Type

• Quantity

• Unit price

• Currency

• Account Code, if required

• Budget, if required

Use Apply to All

If several Purchase Order items use the same information, you do not need to enter it repeatedly. Complete the required information for the first item and use Apply to All to copy fields such as:

• Account Code

• Expenditure Type

• Currency

to the remaining items.

Add notes, delivery information and attachments

Once the Purchase Order items have been added, you can include additional information.

Depending on your configuration, this can include:

• General notes

• A delivery address

• Supporting attachments such as quotations or contracts

You can also save the Purchase Order as a Draft if you want to continue working on it later. If you expect to reuse a similar Purchase Order regularly, you can save it as a Template.

Create the Purchase Order

Once all required information has been entered, click Create PO. DPO automatically assigns a unique Purchase Order ID to the newly created Purchase Order. This ID can then be used for tracking and reference.

Copy an existing Purchase Order

If you need to create a similar Purchase Order in the future, you can copy an existing one. Open the Purchase Order in the PO Overview and click the Copy icon. Review the copied information, make any required adjustments, such as adding or removing items, and click Create PO. DPO will create a new Purchase Order with its own unique Purchase Order ID.

Create Purchase Orders efficiently in DPO

DPO allows you to create Purchase Orders using manually entered items, predefined Catalogue entries or AI-generated line items. With options such as Apply to All, Drafts, Templates and copying existing Purchase Orders, you can choose the workflow that best fits the Purchase Order you need to create.

Want to see DPO in action?

Book a personal demo with our team and discover how DPO can simplify your Purchase Order and spend management processes.

Book your demo here

Questions?

support@digitalpurchaseorder.com