Project purchase orders, or disbursements differ from stock purchases as they are allocated directly to a WorkGuru project or production job.  By allocating the order to the project or production job, it is assumed ALL line items on that order are being used on that ONE project or production job and because of this, WorkGuru treats the order as a disbursement, and is tracked as a project expense.


As a disbursement, FIFO stock controlled items on a project purchase order are NOT entered into stock on receipt and won't increase the SOH value in Xero.   This simplifies the purchasing workflow as it cuts out the steps of receipting the order INTO stock and then having to use the same materials OUT of stock on the project or production job.


You can raise a new purchase order in WorkGuru from either the purchase order dashboard's actions button or the shortcut from the WorkGuru menu.  Alternatively you can also raise a project purchase order directly from the project or production job.

Click New Purchase Order from the menu or Create New Purchase Order from the actions button and fill out the new purchase order details. WorkGuru will prompt if you missed any required fields.


The difference between a stock a project purchase order is ensuring the Project for PO field is allocated to a project or a production job. This list is populated by the current active projects and production jobs.

  • Number - Use your own PO reference or, if left blank, WorkGuru will assign its own.
  • Description - Purchase description.
  • Supplier - Select the supplier from the dropdown or if not in the current supplier list, click Add a New Supplier to add the new Supplier.  Once a supplier is selected, you can click the Build Order form to add all products assigned defaulting to that supplier to the order.
  • Supplier Contact - Once a supplier is selected, you can select from the dropdown or click Add Contact to add a new contact.
  • Issue Date - Date the purchase order is issued, defaults to the current day but you can forward or back date.
  • Expected Date - Date the stock is expected to be received
  • Currency - Select purchase currency.  List needs to be configured first here.
  • Exchange Rate - Defaults to the current exchange rate.  Can be updated.
  • Project for PO - Search or select the required project from the dropdown.  (Required for a project purchase order)
  • PO to Attribute Costs - Leave blank for a stock order.  NOTE: If a PO is selected, it will change this stock order into a landed cost purchase order and will not increase your available stock on hand.
  • Phase - If a project has been selected in the Project for PO field, select a phase if available on the project.  This tracks the order's cost against the phase on the project.
  • Delivery Address - Select an alternate delivery address, or click Add Delivery Address to add a new address.  Leave blank to default to the selected warehouse address.  This is useful for repeatable dropship locations.   Otherwise you would just manually edit the following delivery address fields for a one-off location.
  • Delivery Address 1 - Address the order is to be delivered to (This is defaults to the selected warehouse address).
  • Delivery Address 2 - Address the order is to be delivered to (This is defaults to the selected warehouse address).
  • Suburb - Suburb the address the order is to be delivered to (This is defaults to the selected warehouse address).
  • State - State of the address the order is to be delivered to (This is defaults to the selected warehouse address).
  • Postcode - Postcode of the address the stock is to be delivered to (This is defaults to the selected warehouse address).
  • Delivery Instructions - Any specific instructions for the supplier.  This prints on the purchase order template
  • Warehouse - Which warehouse is the stock going to be delivered to and add to the stock on hand.
  • Reporting Category - If you have enabled Xero reporting categories, you can select them here.  This field may be mandatory depending on your Xero settings.
  • Custom Fields (Optional) - Any custom fields that you have created and assigned to purchase orders will display below the default purchase order fields.
  • Advanced Purchase - Select to purchase items for multiple projects.
  • Add Template - Add a purchase order template.

Once a order is allocated to a project or production job, you have the option to mark this order as billable.   If the order is billable, it is available to invoice through the project with a markup. Select the Billable tick-box if the PO as a disbursement will be invoiced to the client as part of the project Quick Invoice Screen.

Next step is to add product lines that you are purchasing.  You can purchase both FIFO and NonStock products on a project purchase order, however, FIFO products will not increase your available stock on hand when received as the entire purchase order's value is applied to the selected project.  All line items on a project purchase order are treated as an expense.


Click the Add Product button to add a product line to the order. You can search for the products setup in the WorkGuru products database, using either the SKU or the product Name.  You also have the ability to add ad-hoc line items (not in the Product database), by not selecting a database item if all the basic fields are filled out when prompted.   You can add multiple products as required using the Add Product button repeatedly.

  • SKU - Stock Keeping Unit, or product code.
  • Name - Product name
  • Quantity - Number of products ordered
  • Buy Price - Forecast supplier purchase price.
  • Line Total - Displays the total line item cost (quantity x buy price)
  • Supplier Code - The suppliers product SKU.  Displays on the PO when printed.
  • Description - Product description/details. (Optional)
  • Tax Type - Tax status of line item (defaults to the product setting or default sales tax mapping).

Confirm the order by checking the product line item's SKU, quantity and buy price and then the totals.  If ok, click Save (to save the PO as a draft), or Save and Approve, to issue the PO.

The value of the draft or issued PO is no tracked as an actual on the project. NOTE this cost figure may update when the PO is costed against the suppliers invoice.

The stock purchase order is now sitting in the purchases dashboard under the relevant status tabs:  Draft if saved and Approved, if approved.  You can visually distinguish your project purchase orders in the dashboard as they have a reference displayed in the project number column.

The purchase order details page will have a link to the assigned project.  You can also toggle the order as billable on the project without having to edit the order by clicking Mark as Billable/Mark as Unbillable.

On the allocated project, the project purchase order will be listed in the project's Purchases tab.

It will also display which order lines have been purchases in the Materials tab.