New feature: creating bills from purchase orders

It is now possible to save time when creating a new bill, by copying a purchase order. This feature is available for both Xero and QuickBooks Online.

How to use this feature

When you want to copy a purchase order to create a new bill, open a fully approved purchase order. Click on “Copy to” and select “Copy to bill” – you’ll get a bill ready for approval without having to enter the respective data manually. A note will say that this bill has been copied from a purchase order, and also specify the purchase order number.

What’s the purpose of copying bills to purchase orders?

This method saves a lot of time for users who don’t rely on a data entry tool for their bills and purchase orders because, instead of adding the information for a new bill manually, the data of an approved purchase order can now simply be copied with two clicks. 

However, there’s always a risk that the actual invoice sent by the supplier does not match the purchase order, which is why it should go through the approval process as well before it gets paid. You can attach a PDF or an image of the supplier’s invoice after you copied the respective purchase order. The approver then sees the supplier’s invoice as well as the bill copied from the purchase order and can compare them in side-by-side view.

There’s an additional feature for comparing Xero purchase order and bills, called matching. It enables linking bills to already approved purchase orders for enhanced spend control. More information on matching in ApprovalMax is in this article.

Currently, matching is not available for QuickBooks Online. However, it’s possible to upload an approved purchase order to a new bill, so that approvers have it as a reference and can compare both bill and purchase order side by side.

Start your own free trial to see how the new feature works for you!