# What purchase orders are

What you send a supplier for the parts a repair is waiting on, and how to see where the order has got to.

A purchase order is your written request to a supplier: these parts, this price, delivered here by then. In Repairs it exists for one reason, which is that a repair on your bench cannot be finished without something you do not have. The order is the thing standing between a ticket at **Waiting for Parts** and a technician getting back to work.

**Video coming soon:** Purchase orders in Repairs, from raising one to receiving the parts

## Highlights

- **This list holds repair orders only.** Buying done elsewhere in the business is not here.
- **Every order names the ticket** it was raised for, in its own column.
- **Two things are tracked separately**: whether the parts arrived, and whether you have been billed.
- **Draft means unsent.** A supplier cannot act on an order still sitting with you.
- **The order says where to deliver**, which need not be your own workshop.

## The list

![The Purchase Orders list under a tab reading Purchase Orders, headed Purchase Orders with the subtitle Manage vendor orders, track receiving and billing status. Columns read Purchase Order Date, Purchase Order Number, Reference Number, Vendor, Status, Total Amount, Billed and Expected Delivery. Every Reference Number cell holds a repair ticket number such as RPT-00013 with an IRONVALE tag. Status badges read Issued in blue and Draft in grey, against suppliers including Luton Site Safety Supplies Ltd, Stanwick Alloys and Metals, Gateshead Abrasives Ltd and Wearmouth Castings Ltd. Every row in the Billed column reads Not Billed. The foot reads showing 1 to 16 of 16 results.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/repairs/purchases/purchase-orders-list.png)

*Sixteen orders, each naming the repair it was raised for. Status and Billed are two different questions.*

> **Note:**
>
> **A narrowed view of the company's buying**
>
> Purchase orders belong to the whole business. This screen shows the ones raised against a repair ticket, so an order your buying team placed to restock the shelves will not appear, however certain you are that it exists.

## What an order holds

![Purchase order PO-00036 open and badged Issued, with a Create button in the header. A Quick Actions banner offers Create Receive and Convert to Bill. An Associated Documents panel is on a tab reading Associated Repair Tickets with a count of one, listing ticket RPT-00001 dated 04/09/2026 for Northgate Water Utilities at 4,129.20 pounds. Two tiles below read RECEIVING, Yet To Be Received and BILLING, Yet To Be Billed, both in red. Vendor Details name Gateshead Abrasives Ltd with a vendor address in Gateshead and a separate delivery address at a Bristol Distribution Centre.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/repairs/purchases/purchase-order-detail.png)

*The repair this order serves is a panel of its own, and the two red tiles say what is still outstanding.*

- **Associated Repair Tickets**: The job this order was raised for. It is the thread from a late delivery back to the customer waiting on it.
- **Receiving**: Whether the parts have physically arrived. Yet to be received means the shelf is still empty.
- **Billing**: Whether the supplier has invoiced you. Independent of receiving: parts often arrive before the bill does.
- **Vendor address and delivery address**: Who you are buying from, and where the goods are going. They are not always your own site.
- **Quick Actions**: The step that usually comes next, offered as a button rather than hidden in a menu.

## Two states, not one

The most useful thing on this screen is that receiving and billing are tracked apart. An order is rarely finished in one move, and collapsing the two into a single status would hide the half that is still outstanding.

*What the two tiles mean together*

| Receiving | Billing | What it means |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Yet to be received | Yet to be billed | Nothing has happened yet. The supplier has the order and you are waiting |
| Received | Yet to be billed | The parts are on the shelf and the invoice has not arrived. The repair can carry on |
| Yet to be received | Billed | You have been invoiced for goods you do not have. Worth querying |
| Received | Billed | The order is done |

> **Tip:**
>
> **Sort by expected delivery to find what is holding up the workshop**
>
> Every ticket sitting at **Waiting for Parts** has an order behind it. Sorting this list by expected delivery date puts the overdue ones at the top, and each names the ticket and the customer waiting on it.