After you create draft purchase orders from your product board, you can adjust each one to match what your supplier is actually charging, export it, and mark it as sent. Gather also tracks any changes you make after an order has been sent.

Watch the video: How to Edit and Send a Purchase Order in Gather

Click Orders in the left navigation. The Orders tab shows the purchase orders from every project in one place, so you can see where everything stands. The page also has Overview and Shipments tabs.

Use the filters along the top of the Orders table to narrow the list. The table shows each order's status, supplier, order total, and what has been paid and what is still due.

Click an order to open it. The Purchase Order tab shows the line items and totals. The sidebar lists the Supplier, the Ship to address, and who the order was Issued by.

A purchase order is separate from the product board. If your vendor gives you a better price than you quoted, or you need to change a quantity, make that change on the purchase order.

Changes you make on a purchase order do not change the product board, so what you quoted your client stays as it was. To bring revised specifications into an existing order, see Update Item Specifications on an Existing Purchase Order.

While an item is on an open purchase order, it shows a red lock on the product board. This stops anyone from accidentally changing its specifications or pricing in the middle of a purchase. Everything except the item's specifications and pricing can still be updated.

The purchase order is the source of truth for your actual costs. Those costs flow into your budget's actuals. See Understand and Track Actuals.

You don't have to send a purchase order, but if you do, you can export it as a PDF and email it to your supplier.

Gather keeps a copy of the PDF in the order's Files tab, so you always have a record of what was sent.

Once you've placed the order with your supplier, click the Draft status pill at the top of the order and choose Sent. It's a good idea to keep the purchase order updated with the actual prices your supplier gives you, so you can see anything that has changed since you first quoted your client.

Any change you make to a purchase order after it has been marked Sent is tracked as a revision. Open the Revisions dropdown on the order to look back at what changed and when. Edits you make while the order is still a draft are not tracked.