Purchase order fields reference
This page defines every field on a purchase order (PO): the header (order-level) details, the line-item fields, the calculated cost totals, the summary bar at the bottom of the order, and the short-close record. It uses the demo order PO-DOCS-0001 — supplier Acme Supplies, destination Main Warehouse, three lines — in examples.
The five status fields (order, submission, receipt, shipment, and invoice status) are calculated, not entered, so they have their own page: see the Purchase order status reference. For where these fields appear as sortable columns on the list, see List columns and filters.
Header fields
These fields live in the Order Details and Logistics cards on the order page. You set them when you create a PO and change them when you edit one. Fields marked required must have a value before you can save.
| Field | Required | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier | Yes | The vendor you are ordering from, for example Acme Supplies. Drives default currency, pricing tiers, and the supplier warehouse. |
| PO Number | — | The order's reference number. Leave it blank and SKU.io generates the next number in sequence for you. Must be unique. |
| Order Date | Yes | The date of the order. Also the default accounting-period date for the PO's transactions. |
| Store | — | The sales channel or store this stock is being bought for. Optional. |
| Currency | Yes | The currency the supplier bills in. Defaults from the supplier's pricing tier, then the site default. |
| Currency Rate | — | The exchange rate from the PO currency to your base (home) currency. Locked in when the PO is approved, so a later change in the exchange rate doesn't move the cost of an already-approved order. |
| Destination Warehouse | — | Where received stock lands, for example Main Warehouse. A supplier warehouse can't be a destination. Changing it copies that warehouse's ship-to address onto the PO. |
| Supplier Warehouse | — | The origin location goods ship from. Re-derived from the supplier's default whenever you change the Supplier. |
| Payment Term | — | The agreed payment terms (for example, Net 30 — payment due 30 days after invoice). Feeds vendor-deposit and cash-flow scheduling. |
| Incoterm | — | The incoterm (International Commercial Term) — the standard code that says who pays for shipping and insurance and where responsibility passes from supplier to you, for example FOB (Free On Board) or DDP (Delivered Duty Paid). |
| Expected delivery date (ETA) | — | The estimated arrival date (ETA, estimated time of arrival). The label is configurable per account, so you may see a custom name for this field. Drives ETA overdue highlighting on the list. |
| ETD | — | Estimated time of departure — when goods are expected to leave the supplier. |
| Tax Included | — | When on, line unit costs are treated as already including tax. When off, tax is added on top. |
| Tax Rate | — | The default tax rate applied to new lines. It doesn't retag existing lines unless you use Apply to all lines. |
| Submission Format | — | The document format sent to the supplier when you submit (see Submission format options). Defaults from your purchase-order settings. |
| Requested Shipping Method | — | The carrier or service you are asking the supplier to use. |
| Tracking Number | — | A tracking reference for the inbound shipment, when you have one. |
| Supplier Notes | — | Notes that print on the supplier-facing PO document. Distinct from internal notes. |
| Other Date | — | A second, free-purpose date field for whatever your workflow needs. |
| Tags | — | Labels for grouping and filtering. See Notes, tags, and custom fields. |
| Custom fields | — | Any account-defined fields configured for purchase orders. |
The Currency Rate is captured at the moment you approve the PO. If the market exchange rate moves afterward, the approved order's cost stays put — so your recorded costs match what you committed to, not today's rate.
Some header fields appear only in specific contexts:
- Sales Order — shown on dropship POs (where the supplier ships directly to your customer). Links the PO to the customer sales order it fulfills. See Amazon and dropship POs.
- Inbound Status and Pending Inbound — shown on Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) and AWD (Amazon Warehousing and Distribution) POs, tracking the Amazon-side inbound record.
- Replaces purchase order — set automatically when a PO is created to re-order quantity that was short-closed (cancelled off an earlier order because the supplier won't ship the rest) on a previous PO. It links the replacement back to the original.
You can create a Supplier, Payment Term, Warehouse, or Currency inline from these fields without leaving the order.
Submission format options
The Submission Format controls which files attach to the email sent to the supplier when you submit the PO.
| Format | What the supplier receives |
|---|---|
| Email PDF Attachment | A PDF purchase-order document. |
| Email XLSX Attachment | A spreadsheet attachment. Preferred over CSV because it keeps long barcodes and SKUs from being reformatted into scientific notation. |
| Email CSV Attachment | A comma-separated file (CSV). |
| Email PDF & CSV Attachments | Both a PDF and a CSV attachment. |
| Email PDF & XLSX Attachments | Both a PDF and a spreadsheet attachment. |
| Manual | No email is sent. Submitting a manual-format PO marks it finalized on the assumption you contacted the supplier outside SKU.io. |
Line-item fields
Each product or charge on the order is a line. Product lines carry a product; custom and charge lines carry only a description. Only standard and kit products can be added to a product line. Edit these on the order's Lines tab — see Edit a PO and its line items.
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Product / SKU | The product being ordered. Empty on custom and charge lines. |
| Description | The line description. On a product line it defaults from the product; on a custom or charge line it's the only identifier. |
| Quantity | The ordered quantity — up to 10,000,000 per line. It can't be reduced below the quantity already received or invoiced. |
| Unit Cost | The per-unit price you pay the supplier — up to 10,000,000. |
| Discount % | A per-line discount, from 0 to 100%. |
| Tax Rate | The tax rate applied to the line. |
| Nominal Code | The nominal code (also called the general-ledger or GL code) — the accounting bucket this line posts to in your books. |
| Free of Charge | Marks a no-cost line (samples, warranty stock). A free-of-charge line must have a $0 unit cost. |
| Free of Charge reason | Required when a line is free of charge: Sample, Warranty Replacement, Promotional, Vendor Concession, or Other. |
| Received quantity | How much of this line has been received. Calculated from receipts, not entered. |
| Line reference | A unique reference for the line. |
| Linked backorders | Sales-order backorders — customer orders you couldn't fill from stock — that this line is earmarked to cover once it arrives. The linked quantity can't exceed the line quantity. |
| Line type | Present on outsourced-manufacturing POs — orders where a contract manufacturer assembles finished goods from components you supply — to mark a line as product receipt, service fee, manufactured output, or landed cost. |
| Billing settled | Set when the line is marked as final invoice, so a short-billed line still counts as fully invoiced. |
You can raise a line's Quantity at any time, but you can't lower it below the amount already received into stock or already billed on a supplier invoice. To remove quantity you truly won't receive, short-close the line instead.
Cost totals and per-line COGS
The order-level totals summarize the lines, and each product line carries its own landed COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) — the fully loaded cost of buying that item, including its share of freight and duty. These values are all calculated for you.
Order-level totals:
| Total | How it's calculated |
|---|---|
| Product subtotal | Sum of the product lines' subtotals. |
| Additional cost | Sum of the non-product (charge and cost) lines, such as freight and duty. |
| Discount | Total line discounts across the order. |
| Tax total | Total tax across the order. |
| PO total | The full cost of the order. |
Per line:
- Line subtotal = quantity × unit cost − line discount.
- Prorated cost = the line's share of the order's additional cost. Proration means splitting a shared charge (like freight) across lines in proportion to their value, using
line subtotal ÷ product subtotal. Larger-value lines absorb a larger share of freight, duty, and other charges. - Total cost (COGS) = line subtotal + prorated cost, plus any allocations from linked bills and landed-cost invoices.
A worked example
Suppose PO-DOCS-0001 has three product lines and $100 of freight entered as a charge line:
| Line | Line subtotal | Share of product subtotal | Prorated freight | Total cost (COGS) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | $600 | 600 ÷ 1,000 = 60% | $60.00 | $660.00 |
| B | $300 | 300 ÷ 1,000 = 30% | $30.00 | $330.00 |
| C | $100 | 100 ÷ 1,000 = 10% | $10.00 | $110.00 |
| Product subtotal | $1,000 | 100% | $100.00 | $1,100.00 |
Line A is the most valuable, so it absorbs $60 of the $100 freight; the smallest line, C, absorbs only $10. The three prorated amounts always add back up to the full $100 charge.
Per-line COGS updates automatically whenever the PO changes, so editing a line or adding a landed cost refreshes the breakdown. For how received cost flows into inventory valuation, see How a PO becomes inventory.
Summary bar
The sticky bar at the bottom of the order page rolls up the current totals. It shows amounts in the PO's own currency.
Logistics:
| Item | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Items | Number of lines on the order. |
| Units | Total quantity across all lines. |
| Pending Receipt | Units still to be received. |
| Weight | Combined weight of the order (lb or kg). |
| Volume | Combined volume, shown in CBF (ft³) or CBM (m³). |
Financial:
| Item | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Products (or Subtotal) | The product subtotal. Labeled Subtotal when there are no discounts or costs. |
| − Discount | Total discount subtracted. |
| + Costs | Additional (charge) costs added. |
| Tax | Total tax. Hover to open a breakdown of tax per rate and the split between product-line and cost-line tax. |
| PO Total | The order total. |
| − Vendor Credits | Total vendor credits applied, shown only when credits exist. |
| Net Cost After Credits | PO total minus vendor credits. |
| Landed Invoices / Total Landed | A landed-cost group that appears when landed-cost bills exist, showing the extra invoice cost and the fully landed total. |
While you are creating an order, the bar shows a simple Subtotal, and totals display a spinner while they update.
Short-close record
When you short-close a line — telling SKU.io the supplier won't ship the rest of an ordered quantity — it keeps a record of what happened. Undoing the short-close restores the line to its original quantity.
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Original quantity | The line's ordered quantity before the short-close. |
| Closed quantity | The new effective ordered quantity after the short-close. |
| Released quantity | The amount no longer expected from the supplier (original minus closed). |
| Closed by / Closed at | Who short-closed the line and when. |
| Reason | An optional note explaining the short-close. |
| Follow-up purchase order | The replacement PO created to re-order the released quantity, if any. |
| Undone at / Undone by | Set when the short-close is reversed; a record with no undo is still active. |
Short-closing 100 down to 80 releases 20 units. Those 20 aren't gone — you can re-order them on a Follow-up purchase order, which links back to this one via the Replaces purchase order header field.
Next steps
- Edit a PO and its line items
- Purchase order status reference
- List columns and filters
- Importable purchase order columns reference — set these fields in bulk from a spreadsheet.
- Exportable purchase order columns reference — pull these fields out to a file.
- How a PO becomes inventory