Purchase order management is usually described as raising orders, which is the easy five per cent of it. The work is the middle: an order that is live, partly delivered, partly invoiced and possibly revised, and the question of what is still outstanding on it. Teams that track only the raising and the paying rebuild the middle by hand every month end, and that reconstruction is the cost of not managing the order.
Raised, approved and sent
The order records what you are committing to buy, at what price, on what terms and by when. Approval before it is sent is the control, because once a supplier holds an order the commitment exists whether or not anybody internal has agreed to it. This stage is where policy lives, and it is worth keeping simple enough that people follow it rather than route around it.
Received, in parts, over time
Deliveries rarely match orders exactly. Part shipments, substitutions and over-deliveries are normal, and an order line therefore carries an ordered quantity and a received quantity that diverge for weeks at a time. Recording receipts at line level as they happen is the single highest-value habit in the whole cycle, because both the match and the month-end accrual depend on it.
Invoiced, revised and closed
Invoices arrive against the order, sometimes several against one line. Prices get renegotiated and quantities revised, and each change should be kept as a revision rather than an overwrite. An order is closed when what was received and what was invoiced agree with what was ordered, or when somebody decides the remainder will never arrive, and that decision should be recorded too.
Questions people ask about purchase order management
When should an order be closed?
When received and invoiced quantities reconcile with the order, or when you decide the balance will not be delivered. Leaving orders open indefinitely inflates commitments and makes the open-order report useless, which is how teams stop trusting it.
Who should own purchase order management?
Purchasing owns raising and chasing; payables owns the matching. The goods receipt sits between them and needs an explicit owner, because it is the step most often nobody's job.
What reports matter most?
Open orders by age, and orders received but not invoiced. The first is a chase list, the second is your accrual, and both come free once receipts are recorded at line level.