Purchase order statuses explained

Every purchase order moves through a series of statuses that tell you where it stands and how it is affecting your stock. Knowing each one helps you trust your incoming numbers.

The statuses

Status	Meaning	Stock impact
Draft	Being prepared; not yet sent	None
Issued	Sent to the supplier and awaiting goods	Quantities counted as incoming
Partially received	Some lines received into stock	Received qty is on hand; the rest stays incoming
Received	All lines fully received	Incoming cleared; PO complete
Closed	Manually finalized, even if short	Remaining incoming is removed
Cancelled	Voided before completion	No stock impact

How status drives stock

Only an issued PO contributes to incoming stock, which feeds availability and reorder suggestions. Drafts are invisible to those calculations, so a forgotten draft can make an item look short when stock is actually on the way.

Receiving against a PO is what moves quantities from incoming to on hand. See receive stock against a PO.

Closing vs. cancelling

Close a PO when the supplier will not ship the remaining lines but you want to keep the record and the partial receipt. Cancel a PO only when nothing was received and you want it out of your incoming totals entirely.

If incoming numbers look off, filter your PO list by Issued and Partially received to see exactly what is still expected.

Next steps

Learn how to create and send a purchase order.