Order entry Owned by Jodie Marchant · reviewed 27 Jun 2026
A site requires a purchase order number
The site says they need a PO on the docket. What now?
Some sites will not accept a delivery without their own PO number on the docket, and the invoice gets rejected without it. That is a blocker, not a preference.
This catches portal and EDI orders most often, because the customer's own system does not always pass the reference through.
Get the number before the order is confirmed. Chasing it after the truck has been is how an invoice sits unpaid for a month over a piece of information that took two minutes to collect.
What to do
- 1 Ring the site contact and ask for the purchase order number.
- 2 Record it against the order.
- 3 The number prints on the delivery docket and carries through to the invoice.