Purchase Order Import
NetSuite Purchase Order transactions authorize vendors to provide goods or services to your company, and express a commitment to receive and pay for them. These transactions have no accounting impact until orders are received.
For more details about Purchase Orders in NetSuite, see Purchase Order Management.
Purchase Order imports are not available unless the Purchase Orders feature is enabled in your account. To enable this feature, go to Setup > Company > Enable Features and on the Transactions tab, check the Purchase Orders box.
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Purchase order imports can include line-level items and expenses data. For imports with items data, but no expenses data, you can choose either the one file to upload or the multiple files to upload option. For imports with expenses data, you must choose the multiple files to upload option. For more information, see Using Multiple Files for Purchase Order Sublist Data.
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By default, the NetSuite fields available for purchase order import mapping are those available on your preferred purchase order form. Fields can be mapped for the import job if they are displayed (not hidden) and not disabled on your preferred form. To make different fields available, you can specify the standard drop ship or another purchase order form on the Import Options page. For information, see Custom Form Specification for Purchase Order Imports.
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You cannot import drop ship purchase orders and other purchase orders at the same time; you must use separate import jobs. To import drop ship purchase orders, you must specify the standard drop ship purchase order form, or a custom drop ship form, as the Custom Form advanced option on the Import Options page, so that the Ship To field is available for mapping.
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You must map either external ID or internal ID to serve as a unique ID per record. The unique ID should be included in every line of the CSV files. For imports of new data, use external ID.
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On the Import Assistant's Field Mapping page, you should map the external ID field from your CSV files to the NetSuite Order # field, which serves as a transaction ID for Purchase Order records. This mapping allows external IDs to be displayed on Purchase Order forms in the NetSuite user interface.
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Each imported Purchase Order record should include a reference to a NetSuite Vendor record, mapped to the Purchase Order's Vendor field. This reference must be a unique identifier; you should use the vendor record's internal ID or external ID, rather than a name reference.
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By default, Billing Address and Shipping Address fields for Purchase Order records are copied from linked Vendor records, but these fields are available for mapping in the Import Assistant so their values can be set by CSV files' field values instead.
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If the Multiple Currencies feature is enabled, you must map the Exchange Rate field. If your CSV file does not include values for this field, you can set it to a default value. Currency values are taken from referenced vendors. See Currency Management.
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The creation of multiple Purchase Orders, required by a Sales Order containing drop ship or special order items, will fail, if the Sales Order is set to Closed prior to their creation.
For details about fields that can be mapped in the purchase order record, see the SOAP Schema Browser’s purchase order reference page. You can use the field definitions here as a basis for creating your own CSV import template file. For information about working with the SOAP Schema Browser, see SOAP Schema Browser.
Review the following guidelines for Purchase Orders imports:
Custom Form Specification for Purchase Order Imports
By default the Field Mapping page for a purchase order import displays the NetSuite fields from your preferred purchase order form as available for mapping. The default form for your role may not include all the fields you need to import. To ensure that the appropriate fields are available for mapping, you can select any purchase order form that is available to your role, in the Advanced Options area of the Import Assistant's Import Options page. For more information, see Set Advanced CSV Import Options.
If you specify a drop ship purchase order form, all records in the imported file should be drop ship purchase orders. You cannot import both drop ship purchase orders and other purchase orders at the same time.
Supported Purchase Order Sublist Data Imports
The Purchase Order import supports the import of the following sublist data:
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Sublist |
Notes |
|---|---|
|
Items |
You must import at least one line item for all new records, and you must map required fields for this sublist on the Field Mapping page. See Required Items Sublist Fields for Transactions Imports. Selectively updatable based on Line/Order Line or Item key field. See Line Item Updates on Transactions Imports. |
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Expenses |
When the Allow Expenses on Purchase Orders preference is enabled. Expenses data must be in a separate CSV file. |
If you use classes, departments, or locations, you can set these values either for an entire purchase order, or per individual item/expense lines.
If the Item Options feature is enabled in your account, you can import values for custom transaction item options along with Items sublist data. Transaction item options must first be set up at Customization > Lists, Records, & Fields > Transaction Item Options > New, with one of the following Applies To settings: Purchase, All Items. For details, see Importing Transaction Item Options.
For imports that update existing Purchase Order records, handling of sublist data updates depends upon the setting for the Overwrite Sublists advanced option, and on whether the sublist is keyed. Complete deletion of sublist data currently is not supported. For more information, see Sublist Data Import.
For non-keyed sublists, you shouldn't update main transaction fields and sublist fields during the same import job.
Using Multiple Files for Purchase Order Sublist Data
For purchase order imports that include items data but no expenses data, you can choose the one file to upload option, and include all data in a single CSV file, or you can choose the multiple files to upload option, and include mainline data in one file and items data in another file.
For imports that include expenses data, you must use the multiple files to upload option, with one file for mainline data, and one for expenses data. If you are also importing items data, it should be in a third file.
If you choose the multiple files option, be sure to include the external ID or key field values in the sublist files as well as in the main file.
For a multiple files upload example, see Sample Purchase Order Multiple CSV File Format.
Supported Purchase Order Subrecord Data Imports
The Purchase Order import supports the import of the following subrecord data:
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Subrecord |
Notes |
|---|---|
|
Billing Address |
By default, the subrecord Address field is read-only, and data from other subrecord fields is copied into it. If you map the Override field and set it to Yes (meaning true), you can import data for the Address field. |
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Items — Inventory Detail |
When Advanced Bin/Numbered Inventory Management feature enabled. |
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Shipping Address |
By default, the subrecord Address field is read-only, and data from other subrecord fields is copied into it. If you map the Override field and set it to Yes (meaning true), you can import data for the Address field. |
Importing Purchase Orders with Billed-Back Items and Expenses
If you are importing purchase orders with items or expenses that need to be billed back to customers, you can set the value of the Billable field to “TRUE” and include a value for the Customer field, for each of these item or expense lines.
Importing Purchase Orders with Serial or Lot-Numbered items
If you are importing purchase orders with serial or lot-numbered items, you need to define serial or lot numbers in the Serial/Lot Numbers field for each item.
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You must enter a number for each serialized item; for example, if the Quantity field has a value of 2, you must enter two numbers.
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You can separate multiple numbers with spaces, commas, or Returns.
Importing Purchase Orders when Advanced Taxes is Enabled
If the Advanced Taxes feature is enabled, you can include values for the Tax Code and Tax Amount fields for purchase order item and expense lines as needed in CSV files. Tax codes should be set up in NetSuite before the import. Note that other tax-related values for line items and expenses are calculated by the system.
The Advanced Taxes feature is required for NetSuite OneWorld accounts. For information about working with taxes in OneWorld, see Nexuses and Taxes in OneWorld. For general information about setting up tax codes, see Managing Tax Codes.
Working with Closed Purchase Orders
You can import a purchase order as closed, by setting its Items sublist records' Closed field values to “TRUE”.
If these values are not set in the CSV file itself, you can set a default value by adding the Items sublist's Closed field to the field mapping, clicking the edit icon and selecting the Yes option button. For more information, see Assign Default Values during Field Mapping.
You can use an import to update closed purchase orders by setting the Closed field value for one or more items in an order to “FALSE”.
Sample Purchase Order Single CSV File Format
The following table illustrates example column headers and data snippets in a single file upload of purchase orders. This file includes data for purchase order header fields and item lines. Note that in this case, the same purchase order number can be repeated in multiple rows.
|
External ID |
Vendor |
PO Number |
Date |
Item |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
EXT2003 |
American Computers |
2003 |
7/28/2009 |
Computer Systems : Desktop : HP Compaq d230 |
|
EXT2003 |
American Computers |
2003 |
7/28/2009 |
Computer Systems : Laptop : Compaq Evo n800c |
|
EXT2004 |
American Computers |
2004 |
7/28/2009 |
Accessories : Standard Keyboard |
Sample Purchase Order Multiple CSV File Format
The following tables illustrate example column headers and data snippets in a multiple file upload of purchase orders, including items and expenses data. Note that External ID is the key column that would be specified on the Import Assistant File Mapping page.
Primary File:
Each row of the primary file must include a unique identifier, in this case the external ID.
|
External ID |
Vendor |
PO # |
Date |
|---|---|---|---|
|
EXT2003 |
American Computers |
2003 |
7/28/09 |
|
EXT2004 |
American Computers |
2004 |
8/3/09 |
Linked File - Items:
The items file can include multiple rows with the same purchase order external ID.
|
External ID |
Item |
Quantity |
Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
|
EXT2003 |
Computer Systems : Desktop : HP Compaq d230 |
1 |
800 |
|
EXT2003 |
Computer Systems : Laptop : Compaq Evo n800c |
1 |
1200 |
Linked File - Expenses:
The expenses file can include multiple rows with the same purchase order external ID.
|
External ID |
Account |
Amount |
Memo |
Customer |
Billable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
EXT2003 |
6150 Office Expense |
350 |
laptop repair |
107 Fabre Art Gallery |
Yes |
|
EXT2003 |
6150 Office Expense |
20 |
laptop part |
107 Fabre Art Gallery |
Yes |
|
EXT2004 |
6150 Office Expense |
60 |
misc. |
— |
No |
Using Import Assistant for Purchase Orders Mass Update
You can perform a mass update of existing Purchase Order data by creating a Transaction saved search with a filter of Type is Purchase Order, changing data externally, then using the Import Assistant to import modified data, using the Update data handling option. For more information, see Creating Transaction Saved Searches for Reimport.
The Import Assistant is available at Setup > Import/Export > Import Tasks > Import CSV Records. After you select the record type for import, you choose the import character encoding. For more information, see Select a Record Type for Import and Choose Import Character Encoding.