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Never thought I would say this, but Quickbooks has far better functionality in Projects. I am really disappointed that Xero cant seem to get this sorted

The functionality to be able to raise and approve a Purchase Order which, at the point of approval, would create a double entry in the general ledger. Specifically:

• Debit a Work in Progress (WIP) expenses account (to reflect anticipated expenditure),

• Credit a creditors account (to reflect the anticipated liability).


This would allow the PO to reflect a commitment in the accounts, enabling better management of Work In Progress and projected costs before the supplier invoice arrives.

In an ideal world, to be able to allocate the PO to a Xero Project, so that WIP and anticipated costs appear within the project reporting as well. This would give far more accurate forecasting and project-level financial visibility.


As it stands, it is understood that Xero POs are non-posting documents and only affect the ledger once a bill is created and approved. That leaves a visibility and accounting gap for committed costs — especially problematic for longer-term projects or cashflow planning.

I'm struggling to understand why this is such a huge task to roll out. I would have thought it would be a basic requirement to be able to assign a purchase order when creating, to a project. I'm baffled! I think this basic requirement needs to be a priority for Xero before you begin to lose custom to other more functional platforms

I agree with previous comments, if you can assign an invoice/bill to a project it should not be an impossible technical challenge to add the functionality to purchase orders. This is a critical requirement for effective financial control within project management. Come on Xero you have been sat on this for far too long and it is providing your competition with a competitive edge for those of us who are project driven.

Thats a lame answer admin. The POs and Invoices and Quotes are all the same so if we can assign quotes and invoices why not POs? Its getting a bit old with the same answer about underlying work being done. All we want is to be able to see Quotes, invoices and POs all in the same spot for each project. I am not an expert by any means but it cant be that hard. Just get it done or seriously we are going to look at other options. Our subscription has doubled yet only difference we have seen is the Invoices interface. Although I dont mind it it wasnt anything we couldnt do without. Concentrate on what people actually want rather than what you think people might want.

The basic requirement is to be able to add a Customer Purchase Order number to a project that will then populate the purchase order field on the Xero invoice.
This does not require any work on the Xero Purchase Order module as doesn’t involve it.
Xero have not engaged with the people on this thread and therefore don’t understand the mixed requirements, and have focused on one larger element.
The fact this is the response after so many years, shows contempt for your user base.

That's an absolute B.S answer @Hannag G/Xero Admin. As a result I'm cancelling my subscription as you are ripping your customers off by simply not providing basic Project Administration functionality.

Xero - take a look at the feedback in this thread, and the updates Xero have responded with. Embarrassing would be an understatement.

If I were a betting man I'd say you could get a man on mars before XERO will bring in any new functionality ....
this request has been knocking around for over TEN YEARS ...

TEN YEARS ....

cant they hand their product development over to AI - Im sure ChatGPT could redesin this in a jiffy!

Can someone at Xero respond to this thread? As has been stated many times, being able to assign a purchase order to a particular project is a pretty basic requirement.

Who offers this feature already?
QB? Who else?
If Xero wants to lose the race, so be it.

Xero is pointless without that feature.

I think its a little bit ignorant to not have this feature already. Its getting seriously annoying to have to always search through POs for a PO designated to a particular project. Just like invoices and quotes are assigned to a project why cant the POs have the same feature then everything is visible in one place. Price keeps going up and all that changes is the interface.

Hello community and Xero Software developers. There is a moral obligation for Xero to have this functionally available with urgency. After all, charging for a module that is missing one of the most basic functions of project cost management is wrong.

The Xero Software team are far more clever than I, and I am sure they could provide this functionality with ease. Why cant the developers add a simple column to the Purchase Order that can map the costs to the GL cost centre or Project number when the purchase Order is receipted. Seems bloody logical to me.

But no, we get this long winded update by Xero Admin saying upgrade works need to be done before we look at it and by the way.....we don't have a timeline.

Xero, start listening to the customers who take the time to post these little ideas. over 400+ say that this is a critical function. Time for less talk and more action or reduce your charges on a project module that only provides half the story.

Even better, escalate this to the top as a growth strategy and watch your sales grow once implemented.

This is such an essential function that I assumed it would be included when I signed up. It feels like a bit of false advertising, as a project module without PO tracking is not a project module. Given that:

a - this has been kicking around since 2017,
b - it's been over a year since the last update and,
c - there has been no indication of when this might be sorted out,

I'm considering changing to another system as most of your competitors offer this function.

If Xero doesn't consider this a priority, as they aren't targeting customers who run projects, please just say so rather than keep people hanging on.

This is just bonkers. Xero is a massive database, projects is simply a field, why not give users the option to select which columns appear on the purchase order or indeed invoices. As a construction business we need to know which project a purchase order relates to.

How is this a hard update to make? It's critical that PO's can be linked to open projects prior to invoicing

It really is about time this issue was escalated so that Projects is made more useful

When is this change going to be made?? we are really struggling with tracking the purchase orders with our projects

As far as I know, Projects have NEVER had and updates.

I've also been referred to this discussion chain when asking Xero about linking POs to projects. However as nothing has happened since 2017, as evidenced on this chain, it seems Xero are just putting us in a holding pattern.