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Purchase Order Entry Field

  • Michelle Darrington shared this idea 8 years ago
  • Payments/Billing
  • 9 Comments


32 Votes
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Feature request to add a field for purchase order numbers so that you can search by PO Number.

This will allow to search by PO number as this feature is not available - will help with duplicate numbers being entered on different invoices, etc.

13 Comments

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Stephanie Hope commented 20th March 20
We also have clients who expect to see their purchase order number on their invoices. It would be great if these could be added by both clients and admins when creating an order, and to be able to be added or edited on invoices as well.

At the moment we're looking at some kind of workaround with entering them in the order notes field and editing the invoice templates to pull out the right part of the notes, which is obviously an error-prone approach. Also, identifying the original order to go back to to edit the PO number is not quick or easy from the invoice.

It would be great if this field was available natively.
Stephanie Hope commented 16th March 20
Yes, we're currently working on migrating to WHMCS and our accounts team have asked that we be able to include a client's purchase order number on invoices. This is a big requirement which surely shouldn't be a difficult change.
Official Response
WHMCS commented 21st March 20
Hi Stephanie,
This can certainly be achieved via the Setup > Custom Client Fields feature.

1. Create a custom client field, and tick the "Show On Invoice" option
2. Staff or clients can then enter it via the Profile tab
3. It will then be displayed on invoices

Here's the documentation: https://docs.whmcs.com/Custom_Fields#Client_Custom_Fields
seanie248 commented 21st March 20
HI John

That solution will not work as it is a field on the client, so if the customer has 2 invoices outstanding, how can you have 1 field reference 2 orders? Also, if you change it then every previous invoice has the same PO number.

Either add it as a dedicated field on each invoice, or add the functionality to add custom fields to invoices, not just clients and products.

PO Numbers are becoming increasingly important when dealing with bigger companies, you can't get paid without one being referenced on an invoice.

Thanks

Seanie
Stephanie Hope commented 22nd March 20
Hi John,

Exactly what @seanie248 said. A client may have multiple purchase order numbers relating to different orders. Before it's suggested, a purchase order often covers more than one product/service so adding a custom field to the product doesn't work either.
Official Response
WHMCS commented 23rd March 20
Hi there,
To add a unique per-invoice PO reference today, the Invoice Notes tab could be used. Although this would need to be entered by a member of staff.
seanie248 commented 23rd April 19
We are facing the same issue more and more now. Clients give us a purchase order number and want it referenced on the invoice. Currently we have to manually add it as a line item to the invoice and re-send.

WHMCS doesnt need to worry about PDF etc, just have a field on the order generation that allows us to input the number (text field, 32 chars should suffice) and then display that number on the invoice.

Also allow that field to be edited directly on the invoice itself, so it can be added after the invoice is generated.
Walter Ellem commented 17th May 18
Purchase orders are used and placed by our team.

Typically we need to place them when we are ordering licenses of software to be issued.

Likewise when a client places a large order, or when a local council, government or larger company places an order with us they do this flow path;
1) Quote or tender request
2) Award project with the issue of a purchase order for the goods
3) The Invoice has to list/reference the PO to that the correct internal budget for them is applied
Michelle Darrington commented 25th August 17
Generally, the PO's come from our clients and need to be added to the invoice when raising an invoice to be paid.

Sometimes these are received as a PDF other time just a number in an email.
It wouldnt need to be a required field to check out not all out customers are private company's they are individuals as well.
As for the admin area : maybe if it was like the quotes but instead where all the PO's are added or raised could be converted into invoices. Also if it was just possible to have it as an additional field on the invoice.
Many thanks
Official Response
WHMCS commented 25th August 17
Hi,

Thanks for your suggestion, votes and comments.

I'd be interested to learn a little more about Purchase Orders in your work flows.

  • Are purchase orders generated externally from WHMCS prior to the client placing their order?
  • What format do Purchase Orders take? For example might they be PDF files customers would be attaching to their orders?
  • Would it need to be a required field in order to checkout?
  • How to prevent irrelevant, malicious or spammy files being attached on the order form?
  • How should they be presented in the admin area?


Thanks for your continued input!
Nick Walsh commented 16th December 16
This would be great if we could optionally add this on ordersadd.php and choose to show it on the invoice.
Nick Walsh commented 15th December 16
Would be helpful to have this field on the Add Order screen, and allow us to optionally include it on invoices.
Alex Gogan commented 15th August 16
We have a number of clients who also are looking to attach PO's to their orders to allow for speed of payments within their system and having something like this would be wonderful if it was baked into the system on time of order of product.

It would be a simple reference entered that gets displayed by the product in the details AND on the relevant invoice.