CREATING PURCHASE ORDER IN QB ESSENTIALS VERSION

Good evening, @Pridepro1. 

Welcome to the Community! I'd be more than happy to help you create purchase orders in your QuickBooks Online Essentials account. 

Have you turned on the purchase order feature? This feature allows you to create PO's and more. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Gear (Settings) icon in the top right-hand corner. 
2. Choose the Account and Settings option under the "Your Company" column. 
3. Tap the Expenses tab. 
4. Press the Pencil (Edit) icon in the Purchase orders section. 
5. Turn on the User purchase orders option. 
6. If you want, enter up to three custom fields and a default message for vendors. These are optional. 
7. Click Save and then Done when ready. 

For more details about PO's, review this guide: Create and send purchase orders in QBO. 

This should do the trick. If you need any more assistance, don't hesitate to ask. Have a great day! 

have to upgrade account just to have a purchase order form - no way

There is no edit (pencil) in the Purchase Order section!  It is requiring an upgrade.  This is ridiculous!  Purchase orders are essential and should be included in Essentials version.  

Let me share details with you about creating Purchase Orders, WPLOGO.

For now, this feature is only available to QuickBooks Online (QBO) Plus and Advanced users. If you're using a lower subscription, you'll want to upgrade your account to either Plus or Advanced to be able to use the feature. Let me guide you on how:

1. Signed in to QBO as a primary or company admin.
2. Go to the Gear icon on the top menu and select Account and settings.
3. Proceed to the Billing & Subscription tab.
4. Make sure your payment info is up-to-date.
5. Tap Upgrade your plan in the QuickBooks Online section
6. Review the available plans and then select Choose plan.
7. Follow the on-screen steps to upgrade your plan.

Once done, follow the steps in this article on how to turn on the feature and create purchase orders: Create and send purchase orders. You can also refer to these articles with purchase orders in QBO:

• Copy an Estimate to a Purchase Order
• Bill Created from Purchase Order has Incorrect or Higher Amount

Don't hesitate to click the Reply button below if you have follow-up questions on this matter or referring to something else. Please know I'm always around to help with any QuickBooks issues you may be having. Take care always. 

As others have commented, purchase orders are an essential part of basic business.  Paying extra for them is not an option.  I will just have to use estimates for purchase orders.  Please tell your program developers to revise essentials to include a simple purchase order.  Thank you.

Thanks for getting back to this thread, @Pridepro1.

I can see the importance of having the option to create a purchase order on all versions of QuickBooks Online. 

In light of this, I recommend submitting a product suggestion directly to our software engineers. Your ideas and insights are valuable to us, and we are actively collecting feedback. For specific instructions, you can refer to the information provided by my colleagues earlier in this thread.

Here's how: 

1. Go to the Gear icon at the top. 
2. Click Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
4. Then choose Next to submit feedback.

For now, you set up estimates for purchase orders. For more information, you can check out this link: Create and send estimates in QuickBooks Online.

To help personalize sales forms in QBO, you can review this resource for your reference: Customize invoices, estimates, and sales receipts in QuickBooks Online.

Thank you for your patience while we work on this. Feel at ease to get back to this thread if you have other concerns with QuickBooks. I'll be more than happy to help. Please take care. 

Rubielyn,

Thanks for responding.

Replying to your comment: , I recommend submitting a product suggestion directly to our software engineers. Your ideas and insights are valuable to us, and we are actively collecting feedback.

It's not necessary to suggest a product - whatever purchase order form currently offered in QBO would be great in QBO essentials.  No need to 'reinvent the wheel'.  

It is an easy fix if software engineers would just add 'purchase order' option to QBO essentials.  

I'm sure you will agree and hopefully you will suggest it to your software engineers!

Thanks for your time.  Barb

Couldn't agree more with this, how PO's are not part of essentials is ludicrous.  Xero includes it with all software versions.