Purchase Orders by Email
This screen lets you send (or resend) your already-authorized Purchase Orders to their vendors by email in bulk. Instead of opening each order and using its own "send by email" button one at a time, here you filter the group of orders you need to notify, select them, and send them all together in a single step.
What it is and what it's for
Once you finish putting together and authorizing a Purchase Order, the next step is usually getting it to the vendor. This screen centralizes that step so you don't have to open documents one by one. It's useful to:
- See at a glance which purchase orders exist within a date range and for which vendor.
- Select several purchase orders using checkboxes (including a "select all" option).
- Send them all to the corresponding vendor with a single click of the Send button.
- See in the same row whether each send succeeded or failed, without leaving the screen.
- Resend an order that was already sent before (for example, if the vendor says they never got it, or if you corrected something and want to notify them again).
The email is sent to the vendor's primary email address and, in addition, to any of the vendor's contacts who have the option to receive purchase order emails turned on. The message body includes the document number and date, the item detail, the amounts and your company's information; if your company configured a custom email template for purchase orders, that template is used instead of the default one.
How to use it
- Open Purchase Orders by Email from the Purchases menu.
- Optionally, filter by Date From / Date To and by Vendor, then click the refresh button to apply the filter.
- The table shows the number, date, vendor, currency and total of every purchase order matching the filter. The number is a direct link to the order's detail screen, and the vendor is a link to its card. The list is paged: use the search box, the rows-per-page selector and the paging controls to go through every order matching the filter.
- Check the box next to the orders you want to send, or use the header checkbox to check every order on the page you are looking at. If you need to send more orders than fit on one page, raise the rows-per-page count or send one page at a time.
- Click Send and confirm the confirmation prompt. The system sends each selected order by email, one at a time.
- As each send finishes, that row's Message column updates: green with "Sent" if it succeeded, or red with the error reason if it failed. Once all sends complete, a summary shows how many documents were sent and how many errors occurred.
Key fields
| Field | What it's used for |
|---|---|
| Date From / Date To | Narrows the list to purchase orders issued within that date range. |
| Vendor | Shows only the purchase orders addressed to that vendor. |
| Number | Document number; it's a link that takes you to the purchase order's detail screen. |
| Date | Date the purchase order was issued. |
| Vendor | Name of the vendor the order will be (or already was) sent to; it's a link to their card. |
| Currency | Currency the purchase order is expressed in. |
| Total | Total amount of the purchase order. |
| Message | Empty until you send the order; then shows "Sent" in green or the error reason in red. |
Validations when sending
- You must select at least one order before clicking Send; otherwise a notice asks you to check a row.
- The purchase order must be Authorized; if it's still in draft or pending authorization, the send for that row fails and the corresponding error is shown.
- The order can't be void.
- The order's vendor must exist in the system.
- There must be at least one email address to send to: the vendor's primary email, or one of its contacts marked to receive purchase order emails; if the vendor has no address configured, the send for that row fails.
- Each order is sent independently, so an error on one row doesn't affect the sending of the other selected rows.
Availability and permissions
- On the Enterprise edition, in addition to the plan, your company must have the Core module active.
- You need the Purchase Orders permission (the same permission used by the Purchase Orders screen).
Tips and common mistakes
That row's message turns red with an authorization error. That means the order hasn't been authorized yet (or was rejected). Go to the order, finish it and authorize it, then come back here and try sending it again.
The error says an email address is missing. Check the vendor's card and add a primary email, or turn on the "receive purchase order emails" option on at least one of its contacts.
The Send button resends the order even if it was already sent to the vendor before; there's no resend limit or an "already sent" flag that blocks repeating the send.
If you need to notify several vendors at once, leave the Vendor filter blank, use just the date range, raise the rows-per-page count, check "select all" and click Send; the system processes each order separately and shows you at the end how many were sent successfully and how many failed.