Thanks for reaching out to the Community for help with your question. Purchase orders are a great feature in QuickBooks Online. I'd be happy to explain how they work and when to use them.
A purchase order (PO) is a document you send to your supplier to:
state your intent to buy products or services,
define the details of the purchase (such as quantities and prices), and,
(if they accept your PO) an agreement with them to receive products or services under the given terms
Since purchase orders are a supplier transaction, and a sales receipt is a customer transaction, these two transaction types cannot be linked together. You're able to add a purchase order to a supplier transaction, such as an expense, cheque or bill. Take a look at this article to see how to do that: Apply a purchase order to a supplier transaction.
Here's an article that may help you better understand all aspects of the purchase order transaction: How to use purchase order. This article goes over the following processes:
How to turn on a purchase order
How to enter a purchase order
How to apply a purchase order to a transaction
How to receive or pay part of a purchase order
How to run a purchase order report
I hope this helps to answer your question. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help.
Have a great day.
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