QuickBooks purchase order software and PO system with real approvals
Procurer is QuickBooks purchase order software that works in front of QuickBooks Online: employees request, managers approve by rule, the PO goes to the supplier, deliveries are received and invoices matched, and the approved POs import into QBO as bills. Plans start at 149 USD a month per company, or 74 billed yearly, with up to 25 users and no QuickBooks license needed for requesters. If your main gap is QuickBooks purchase order approval with more than one approver, see QuickBooks Online purchase order approval.
QuickBooks Online is a strong accounting system, and in its higher editions it lets you create purchase orders and turn them into bills. What it is not built to be is a purchasing process for a company with dozens of people asking to buy things. Procurer adds the part before the bill: purchase requests from anyone, approval rules, budgets checked before the order, receiving and invoice matching. Then it gives you the approved purchase orders as a bills file in the QuickBooks Online import format, so your books stay where they are. The QuickBooks Online bills export is included on every plan.
What QuickBooks Online does with purchase orders
In general terms, QuickBooks Online treats a purchase order as an accounting document: you create it for a vendor, send it, and later copy it into a bill when the invoice arrives, with open POs listed for reference. Purchase order features depend on the QuickBooks edition, so check Intuit's current plans for what your subscription includes. What companies usually find missing as they grow:
- A place for employees who are not accountants to request purchases without access to the books.
- Approval chains by amount, department or category, recorded with who approved and when.
- A budget check before the order is placed, including money already committed on open POs.
- Receiving by the person who took delivery, including partial deliveries.
- Automatic comparison of the invoice against the PO and the receipt before the bill is paid.
A QuickBooks purchase order workflow with control before spend
With Procurer in front of QuickBooks Online, each purchase follows one path:
- Request: any employee with an account fills a one minute form. They do not need a QuickBooks login.
- Approve: rules route the request by amount and department (up to 2 steps on Team, unlimited and conditional from Business), with the remaining budget on screen. This works on any QBO edition, so you get QuickBooks Online purchase order approval without moving to Advanced. See purchase order approval software.
- Order: the approved request becomes a numbered purchase order, emailed to the vendor as PDF.
- Receive: the receiver records full or partial deliveries against the PO lines.
- Match: from Business, invoices sent to your invoice inbox are read and matched to the PO and the receipt with tolerance rules. See three way match software.
- Export: in Settings > Accounting, an admin downloads the approved purchase orders for a date range as a bills file (Bill No, Supplier, Bill Date, Due Date, Account, Line Description, Line Amount) and imports it in QuickBooks Online under Settings > Import data > Bills. Each PO becomes one bill, ready for payment.
Your accountant keeps working in QuickBooks. What arrives there is already approved, received and matched.
What goes from Procurer to QuickBooks Online
- What the file holds: one row per purchase order line, with the PO number as the bill number, the supplier name, bill date, due date from your payment terms, the account you pick, the line description and amount. Filter by dates and by department.
- How it gets in: you import the file in QuickBooks Online (Settings > Import data > Bills). QuickBooks can add suppliers it does not know yet during the import.
- What does not happen: Procurer never logs in to QuickBooks and never reads data from it. Suppliers and departments are set up in Procurer, so keep supplier names the same as in QuickBooks. Payments are made and tracked in QuickBooks.
Xero gets the same export in its own bills import format on every plan, and NetSuite and Sage Intacct import files are on Scale. See all procurement software integrations.
A QuickBooks purchase order, start to finish
A 90 person company on the Business plan runs QuickBooks Online with classes for each department.
The office manager requests a coffee machine and kitchen supplies for 2 450 USD from a preferred supplier, class Operations.
The Operations manager approves; the request is under the 5 000 USD finance threshold, so no second step is needed.
The PO goes to the supplier by email. The Operations budget now shows 2 450 USD committed.
Delivery arrives complete and the office manager records the receipt.
The supplier's invoice for 2 470 USD arrives in the invoice inbox. The 20 USD difference is freight, within the 50 USD tolerance, so the match clears.
At the end of the week the controller downloads the bills file from Procurer and imports it in QuickBooks Online, where the bill appears under the supplier.
The controller pays it in QuickBooks, as before.
Which plan to choose with QuickBooks Online
Team, at 149 USD per month (74 USD billed yearly), fits a company starting a formal purchase process: up to 25 user accounts, 2 approval steps, 250 POs a month, department budgets, receiving and QuickBooks Online bills export. Business, at 299 USD per month (149 USD billed yearly), adds three-way matching, invoice capture by email, unlimited approval steps, project and GL budgets, spend analytics, Slack and Microsoft Teams approvals and up to 100 user accounts. Companies that outgrow QuickBooks and move to NetSuite or Sage Intacct keep Procurer and switch to the NetSuite or Sage Intacct export on Scale. See pricing.
Does QuickBooks have a purchase order system?
Partly. QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced let you create purchase orders and copy them into bills, but QuickBooks is not a full purchase order system. Requests from employees, budget checks and receiving by the person who took delivery are missing, and a PO approval workflow exists only in Advanced, with one approver per condition.
What is the best purchase order software for QuickBooks?
The best purchase order software for QuickBooks is the one that adds what QuickBooks lacks, employee requests, multi-step approvals, receiving and invoice matching, without making everyone a QuickBooks user. Procurer does that from 149 USD a month per company and hands approved POs to QuickBooks Online as a bills import file. QuickBooks Desktop is not supported.
Do requesters need a QuickBooks login?
No. Requesters, approvers and receivers work in Procurer. Only the person who imports the bills file needs QuickBooks access.
What exactly goes to QuickBooks Online?
A bills file: one bill per approved purchase order, with supplier, bill date, due date, account and lines, in the QuickBooks Online import format. You import it under Settings > Import data > Bills. There is no live connection, Procurer never logs in to QuickBooks and nothing comes back from it.
Which Procurer plan includes the QuickBooks integration?
QuickBooks Online bills export is included on every plan, starting with Team at 149 USD per month. Three-way matching before the bill is exported is included from Business.
Does it work with QuickBooks Desktop?
The bills file is built for QuickBooks Online and Xero. For other accounting systems, CSV export is available on every plan.
Keep QuickBooks, add a purchasing process
Try the demo to route a request through approvals and matching, then create your account and export your first bills to QuickBooks Online.