Purchase Order

A purchase order (PO) allows commercial customers to pay for purchases with prior authorization by referencing the PO number. During checkout, the customer is prompted to enter the purchase order number as the method of payment.

Always establish the credit worthiness of a customer before accepting payment by purchase order.

For example, your customer represents the company that sells computers and needs to buy some monitors from your store. In their accounting system, the customer creates a purchase order that is assigned a unique PO number. The customer places an order in your store using the Purchase Order payment method and references the PO number from their accounting system. All order-related documents, including the order confirmation email, invoice, shipment, and credit memo, will have the PO number on them. The company’s accounting department can reference the PO number on the Magento sales order to track the order. When the customer receives your invoice, the payment is processed in their accounts payable system.

To set up payment by purchase order:

1.

On the Admin menu, select System > Configuration. Then in the panel on the left under Sales, select Payment Methods.

2.

Click to expand the Purchase Order section. Then, do the following:

a.

To activate the Purchase Order payment method, set Enabled to “Yes.”

b.

Enter a Title to identify Purchase Order during checkout.

c.

Set New Order Status to “Pending” until payment is authorized.

d.

Set Payment from Applicable Countries to one of the following:

• All Allowed Countries	Customers from all countries specified in your store configuration can use this payment method.
  Specific Countries	After choosing this option, the Payment from Specific Countries list appears. Select each country in the list where customers can make purchases from your store.

e.

Set Minimum Order Total and Maximum Order Total to the amounts required to qualify for this payment method.

An order qualifies if the total falls between, or exactly matches, the minimum or maximum total values.

f.

Enter a Sort Order number to determine the position of Purchase Order in the list of payment methods during checkout. (0 = first, 1 = second, 2 = third, and so on.)

3.

When complete, click the Save Config button.