How to View All Purchase Orders in QuickBooks Desktop

Tracking what you’ve ordered is just as important as tracking what you’ve sold. Purchase Orders (POs) in QuickBooks Desktop are your system of record for commitments to vendors, but if they aren't properly monitored, they can lead to duplicate payments, inaccurate inventory counts, and misstated liabilities. This guide will show you several ways to view all your purchase orders, from quick overviews to powerfully detailed custom reports.

Why Is Tracking Purchase Orders So Important?

Before jumping into the "how," it's worth understanding the "why." Consistently reviewing your purchase orders is not just an administrative task; it's a critical financial control. When you manage POs effectively, you gain a clearer picture of your company's financial obligations and operational flow.

A well-maintained purchase order system helps you accomplish several key objectives:

• Improve Cash Flow Management: By viewing all open POs, you can see upcoming liabilities at a glance. This helps you forecast your cash needs and ensure you have funds available to pay suppliers on time.
• Prevent Duplicate Orders and Payments: When you have a clear view of what’s already on order, you prevent team members from accidentally ordering the same items twice. It also serves as a crucial check before paying a vendor bill, ensuring it matches an approved PO.
• Maintain Accurate Financials: At the end of an accounting period, open POs represent goods or services ordered but not yet received or billed. This information is vital for an accurate expense accrual process, ensuring your financial statements reflect all outstanding obligations.
• Enhance Vendor Relationships: A clear record of your orders helps resolve disputes with vendors quickly. It documents agreed-upon prices, quantities, and terms, creating transparency for both sides of the transaction.

Method 1: The Transaction Center for a Quick Overview

For a fast, interactive way to see your purchase orders, the Vendor Center is often the best place to start. It allows you to see all POs listed together and apply simple filters without the formal structure of a report. This is ideal for daily check-ins or quick lookups.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step:

1. Navigate to the Vendor Center. You can do this by clicking Vendors in the top menu and then selecting Vendor Center from the dropdown.
2. Once inside, click on the Transactions tab, which is located just above the list of vendors.
3. From the list of transaction types on the left, select Purchase Orders.
4. This will display a list of all purchase orders entered into your QuickBooks Desktop company file. By default, it often shows results from the current fiscal year.

Customizing the Transaction Center View

This initial view is useful, but its real power comes from filtering. You can easily adjust what you see:

• Filter by Open Status: In the top filter bar, located directly above the transaction list, there’s a dropdown menu likely set to "All Purchase Orders." You can change this to "Open Purchase Orders" to see only those that haven't been fully applied to a bill. This is the most common use case for monitoring outstanding commitments.
• Filter by Date: Use the "Date" dropdown to change the time frame. You can select "All" to truly see every purchase order ever created or specify a custom date range.
• Sort by Column: Click on any column header—like Vendor, Date, or Amount—to sort the entire list. For instance, clicking "Amount" can help you quickly spot the largest outstanding orders.
• Customize Columns: Right-click anywhere on the column headers (Number, Type, Date, etc.) and select "Customize Columns." A window will pop up where you can add or remove columns. For example, you might want to add "Open Balance" to easily see how much is still remaining on a partially filled PO.

Method 2: Using Standard QuickBooks Reports for Deeper Analysis

While the Transaction Center is great for quick views, QuickBooks' reporting engine offers more structure and customization. There are several pre-built reports you can use to analyze your purchasing activity.

The Open Purchase Orders Report

This is the go-to report for managing your immediate obligations. As its name suggests, it only shows POs that have an open balance—meaning you have not received all the items or services associated with that order.

1. Go to the Reports dropdown in the top menu.
2. Hover over Purchases.
3. Select Open Purchase Orders from the submenu.

The report instantly shows you a clean list of vendors with the total amount of their open POs. The "Open Balance" column tells you exactly what you still expect to be billed. This is incredibly useful for period-end accruals and cash flow planning. You’ll also see specific items ordered, giving you direct insight into future inventory or supply arrivals.

The Purchases by Vendor Detail Report

What if you want to see all purchase orders, including those that are already closed? You can’t do that with the "Open Purchase Orders" report, but you can with a bit of customization on another standard report.

This method allows you to generate a comprehensive list of every PO for a specific vendor or for all vendors over a period of time.

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Hover over Purchases and select Purchases by Vendor Detail.
3. The default report will show you all purchase transactions (Bills, Checks, etc.). We need to filter this down. Click the Customize Report button in the top left.
4. A modification window will appear. Click on the Filters tab.
5. In the "Filter" list on the left, scroll down and find Transaction Type.
6. In the "Transaction Type" dropdown menu over on the right, select Purchase Order.
7. Adjust the dates at the top of the report screen. Change the "Dates" dropdown to All to see every PO ever entered.
8. Click OK.

You now have a report that lists every single purchase order in your file, grouped by vendor. This is perfect for historical analysis, checking on past orders, or performing an audit of your purchasing process.

Method 3: The Ultimate Solution - Building a Custom Transaction Detail Report

For complete control and the most detailed view possible, nothing beats creating a custom report from scratch. This approach allows you to pull in nearly any data field associated with a purchase order and display it exactly how you want. This is the power-user method to build a report you can save and run again and again.

Follow these steps to create the ultimate PO tracking report:

1. Navigate to the Reports menu at the top.
2. Hover over Custom Reports and select Transaction Detail.
3. The "Modify Report" window opens. If it does not, click "Customize Report". Start with the Display tab. This is where you select the columns you want to see. Consider adding these columns for a comprehensive view:
   • Type: The transaction type (which we will filter to be only POs).
   • Date: The date of the PO.
   • Num: The PO number.
   • Name: The Vendor Name.
   • Item: The specific item or service ordered.
   • Quantity on PO: How many units were ordered.
   • Received Qty: How many units have been received against the PO. A blank here often means nothing has been received yet.
   • Open Quantity: The remaining quantity left to be received.
   • Open Balance: The remaining dollar amount on the PO.
   • Memo: Any notes you entered on the PO.
4. Now, click on the Filters tab. This is where we tell QuickBooks to only show us purchase orders.
5. In the list of filters, select Transaction Type, and from the dropdown, choose Purchase Order.
6. Next, find the Paid Status filter and set it to Either (if you don't intend to filter by open or closed status in particular).
7. Finally, find the Detail Level filter and select All except summary to ensure you see the full transaction details.
8. Go back to the top of the reporting window and set the Dates dropdown menu to All.
9. Click OK to run your new report. You will now have a detailed, item-level breakdown of every purchase order in the system.

The best part about this method is that you can save your hard work. Once the report is exactly how you want it, click the Memorize button at the top. Give it a descriptive name like "All Purchase Orders - Detailed" and save it. Now, it will appear in your Memorized Reports list, ready to be run with just one click in the future.

Final Thoughts

Whether you need a quick look at your current commitments using the Transaction Center or a full historical analysis with a custom report, QuickBooks Desktop provides the tools you need to manage your purchase orders effectively. Regularly reviewing this data is a key discipline that leads to better cash management, tighter operational control, and more accurate financial statements.

Reviewing POs often brings up financial questions about taxability—Is this purchase subject to sales tax? Do we owe use tax? As you analyze these transactions, you're not just reviewing operational data, you're confirming tax compliance. When you need clear answers to complex tax situations that transactions bring up, our built-in tax research tool helps you find them backed by authoritative sources. You can easily model scenarios and find definitive guidance with Feather AI to ensure every purchasing decision is a sound one.