Purchase Order Pricing and Suppliers

Updated 20 Sept 2026

A purchase order is not an invoice with the direction reversed. It prices from the purchase side of your catalogue and goes to a supplier rather than a customer.

Where the price comes from

The purchase order mapping set's rows for Purchase Price, Purchase Account and Purchase Tax Rate ship blank on purpose. Blank means use the product's purchase details: the Purchase Unit Price, Purchase Account and Purchase Tax Type on the Product record. Map a field explicitly and your mapping wins; leave it blank and each product brings its own purchase pricing, which is usually what you want. Quantity falls back to the line quantity.

A purchase order never falls back to the sales account

Set Default Xero Purchase Account for purchase orders on Sync Settings. It appears once Sync Purchase Orders is on. Without it, a product with no purchase account leaves the line's account empty for the user to choose.

Suppliers

A product's supplier is the Supplier lookup on the Product record, pointing at a Salesforce Account. The wizard uses it to work out who each purchase order goes to. When every product on the record has the same supplier, or the record has a single product, the wizard opens straight on the contact step for that supplier.

One record, several suppliers

When the products come from more than one supplier, the wizard opens on Suppliers on this record instead. Each supplier is a card listing its products, ticked by default. Untick a card to leave that supplier out of this run.

The Suppliers on this record step: four supplier cards each listing their products, Select all and Select none, and three buttons — One order for everything, Create 4 purchase orders one at a time, Create all now — One Opportunity, four suppliers, nine products. Each card becomes its own purchase order.

Three ways forward:

Button	What happens
Create all now	One set of order details for every supplier, then every purchase order is created in one pass. The fastest route
Create N purchase orders one at a time	The ordinary wizard, once per supplier, so each order can have its own dates, reference and delivery details
One order for everything	Ignores the grouping and puts every product on a single purchase order to one contact

Create all now

Choosing Create all now opens Order details for every purchase order. Each card now shows the Xero contact it will go to, and gains an Adjust for this supplier link for exceptions.

Order details for every purchase order: supplier cards with their Xero contact and Adjust for this supplier links, then shared Order date, Delivery date, Reference, Create as (Draft, Submitted for approval, Approved), Delivery address, Delivery instructions, Attention to, Telephone, a Send each purchase order to Xero checkbox, and a Create 4 purchase orders now button — Shared order details. Basket Case has no Xero contact yet, so the wizard flags it before anything is created.

Order date, Delivery date, Delivery address, Delivery instructions, Attention to and Telephone apply to every order. Use Adjust for this supplier on a card to override any of them for that supplier only; blank fields on the card keep the shared value.
Reference can include {supplier} and {record}, which are filled in per order: Fit-out - becomes Fit-out Vellum Office Supplies - Clubhouse Refit.
Create as sets the Xero status for all of them: Draft, Submitted for approval or Approved.
Send each purchase order to Xero as soon as it is created pushes them one at a time after creation, so each result lands on its own row. Leave it unticked and the orders wait for the next sync cycle.

A supplier with no Xero contact is flagged on its card with Set up the Xero contact. You can fix it there, or create that order afterwards with Create the rest one at a time, which walks only the suppliers the bulk pass couldn't serve.

Click Create N purchase orders now. A progress list shows each order being created and, if you ticked the box, sent. You can leave the page: every order is already saved, and anything not yet sent goes to Xero with the next sync cycle. Retry failed re-runs any row that errored.

One at a time

Create N purchase orders one at a time works through the suppliers in turn. Each pass is the normal wizard, headed Purchase order 1 of 4 — Kingsford Sports Wholesale, with that supplier's Xero contact chosen and only that supplier's products on the line items.

The purchase order wizard headed Purchase order 1 of 4 — Kingsford Sports Wholesale, with delivery fields and three line items priced from the purchase side — One at a time. Lines are priced at the product's purchase price and posted to its purchase account.

Products with no supplier

Products with no Supplier on the Product record are listed separately and left out unless you assign them: to one of the suppliers found, to a supplier you search for, or together on their own order. The assignment step can write the chosen supplier back to the product, and a hand-typed purchase price with it, so the next purchase order already knows both. Only blank fields are written; an existing supplier or price is never overwritten.

Suppliers, not customers

The contact step looks for a Xero contact flagged as a supplier. On a customer-only contact it reports 0 found and offers to create one. Set Customer Types to Sync to Both or Suppliers Only under Sync Settings so your supplier contacts are in Salesforce to begin with.

Send To Xero

Purchase orders have a Send To Xero action on the record, matching the one on quotes and invoices. It pushes an unsynced supplier contact first, and needs the Purchase Order feature on your plan with no sync currently running.

Totals

The Total on a purchase order or quote, and Total Amount on a quote line item, allow for tax-inclusive amounts rather than double-counting tax, and the purchase order line subtotal is computed at save. Header totals are right immediately rather than after the next sync.

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