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Purchase Orders Technical Reference

The Purchase Order (PO) represents the formal commitment between the business and the client. It initializes the Order Registry (CDX) and serves as the system of record for all subsequent Invoices and Payments.

1. Identification & Relationship Fields

  • Order Ref (CDX) [System]: The order’s unique identifier. Assigned automatically upon creation of the PO.

  • Quote Number [Input/System]: Links the PO to its source proposal.

    • Handshake Logic: Linking a Quote automatically sets that Quote's status to Accepted. Unlinking or archiving the PO reverts the Quote to Sent status and clears its order_id.
  • Client [Input]: The primary account holder.
    • Integrity Lock: This field becomes read-only once the PO has active child Invoices or Payments, preventing data orphaning.
  • Bill To [Input]: The specific department or entity responsible for payment. Defaults to the Client but can be manually overridden.
  • PO Number [Input]: The client-provided document number or your internal reference number.
  • Customer PO # [Input]: An optional secondary reference used for external distributors or end-users.

2. Scheduling & Logic Defaults

  • PO Date [Input]: The legal date of the contract. Defaults to the current business day.
  • PO Type [Input]: A categorical lookup used to classify orders (e.g., Service, Product, Government).
  • Terms (Net Days) [Input]: Defaults to the global payment terms but can be overridden for this specific PO.
    • Ripple: This value is inherited by every Invoice created from the PO.
  • Status [System]: The three-stage lifecycle of the PO:
    • Open: Items remain to be fulfilled and invoiced.
    • Invoiced: All items have been moved to invoices, but invoice balances are not yet fully settled.
    • Completed: All items are billed and all invoices are fully paid.
  • Shipping Address [Input/System]: The Ship To address as it appears on the received PO documemt.
    • Logic: This field is inherited "As-is" from the Client's Shipping Address default upon client selection.
    • Flexibility: The text can be manually overridden for the specific PO without affecting the master Client record.
  • Billing Address [Input/System]: The Bill To address as it appears on the received PO documemt.
    • Logic: This field is inherited "As-is" from the Client's Billing Address default upon client selection or Bill To selection.
    • Flexibility: The text can be manually overridden for the specific PO without affecting the master Client record.

3. Financial Metrics

  • Total Amount [System]: The total sum of all PO line items (in cents).
  • Total Prepayment [Property]: The sum of all cash received for the deal that was not linked to a standard product invoice.
  • Remaining Credit [Property]: The current available credit balance for the deal.
    • Math: (Prepayments + Applied Deposits) - Negative Carryovers
  • Balance To Be Invoiced [Property]: The total value of goods and services not yet billed.
    • Logic: Represents the remaining financial backlog of the PO.

4. Line Item Integrity (Sub-form)

The line items within a PO are protected by strict Lifecycle Locks once billing begins:

  • Product & Unit Price:
    • Integrity Guard: These fields become permanently locked for a specific line once that line has been included in an active Invoice (including Drafts). This ensures the original contract pricing remains consistent with billed pricing.
  • Quantity:
    • Quantity Floor: A line item’s quantity cannot be reduced below its "Allocated Quantity" (the total units already assigned to active Invoices).
  • Remaining Items [Property]: A dynamic calculation of all remaining billable items.
    • Automation: If the PO contains a Remaining Credit balance, the system automatically adds an "Applied Deposit" line item to suggest credit consumption on the next Invoice.

5. Metadata & Auditing

  • Internal Note [Input]: Private comments for internal use.
  • Attachments [Input]: Standard file upload. Commonly used for storing scanned copies of PO documents.
  • Active Status (is_active) [System]: Boolean flag used for soft-deletion.
    • Ripple: Setting this value to False triggers a cascading deactivation of the Order Registry, including all linked Invoices and system-generated Write-offs.
    • Exception: Payments and Expenses associated with the deal are not automatically archived. Because these represent actual cash movements and vendor liabilities, they remain active to preserve the accuracy of the general ledger and cash-basis reports. If these financial records also need to be removed, they must be archived manually within their respective modules.
  • Activity Log [System]: Displays the chronological record of every change made to the PO, including user identity and the modified fields.