Why does QBO 'close' a purchase order that still has an open balance?!

I appreciate you dropping by the Community, @MLH114. 

I'd be happy to help you with your concern. Let me provide you with some insights about the purchase order status.

QuickBooks will automatically close the purchase order, regardless of the remaining balance, when you add a purchase order to an expense or a bill. However, by following the steps below, you may open its status again.

Here's how:

1. Go to Bookkeeping, then Transactions.
2. Select Expenses and choose the purchase order you want to edit.
3. Under the Vendor ▼ dropdown, select the dropdown that says Closed.
4. Change the status to Open.
5. Click Save.

This would do the trick. You can now see the status of your purchase order as Open.

Furthermore, I'm adding this article for your guidance in sending a purchase order: Create and send purchase orders in QuickBooks Online.

Let me know how it goes by dropping a reply below. Have a good one!

This is yet another feature of QBO that makes no sense.  If a PO is not closed it should not be marked as closed. Going back to find it to change it back to open is another work-around that should not be necessary.  Very disappointed that this simple action cannot be achieved by QBO, and it had been working until recently!  Another "update"?

Yet another feature of QBO that does not make sense.  If a PO has not been received in full it should not be marked as closed.  Going back to find closed POs that are not really closed and change the status manually is just a work-around.  This feature had been working in the past.  This seems to be another QBO "update"? 

I have done this and it reverts right back to "Closed" after I save.  It doesn't have the offsetting Bill but is matched to a Vendor Credit.  I need to open it back up to apply the Vendor Credit correctly and create a Bill to close it out correctly.