Working with Purchase Orders

Purchase orders represent a collection of products to be ordered from a vendor, generated from a bill of materials.

Creating a PO from a BOM

One or more purchase orders can be generated from each approved BOM.

1. Create the vendor to which the PO will be submitted, if not already created. You may also want to create a specific vendor account with which the PO will be associated, but this is not required to create a PO.
2. Ensure the BOM's status is "Approved." This ensures that no further changes can be made to the BOM, which might invalidate any POs associated with it.
3. On the Bill of Materials tab, click the Create PO button.
4. Select the vendor and, if applicable, the vendor account.
5. Enter the order ID, if known; otherwise, leave this blank.
6. Click Create.
7. Open the BOM associated with the PO and navigate to its Line Items tab.
8. Select the desired line items to add to the PO and click the Add to PO button.
9. Select the desired PO (created in step 6) and adjust any quantities and/or fill in pricing details as desired, then click Add to PO.
10. Under the PO's Line Items tab, verify the addition of the selected line items.
11. Once the line items and their quantities are correct, set the PO's status to "Approved" to prevent additional changes.

Exporting a PO

Purchase orders can be exported from NetBox for submission to a vendor in three formats: CSV, YAML, and JSON.

1. Verify that all line items have been correctly populated for the purchase order.
2. Change the PO's status to "Approved."
3. Navigate to the PO's Line Items tab and select an export format from the Export dropdown at top right. Save the file when prompted.

Marking a PO as Ordered

Once a purchase order has been submitted to a vendor for fulfillment, update its status in NetBox accordingly.

1. Confirm that the PO has an order ID assigned. If not, add the order ID provided by the vendor.
2. Change the PO's status to "Ordered."

Archiving a PO

Once a purchase order is no longer needed for production use, it can be archived. Archiving a PO, rather than deleting it, preserves its details for potential future reference.

1. Navigate to the desired PO.
2. Click the Archive button at top right.

Once a PO has been archived, it will no longer appear in the POs list, and changes cannot be made to it.

Restoring an Archived PO

1. Navigate to the desired PO.
2. Click the Unarchive button at top right.

The PO will be restored with its status and other attributes set at the time of archival.