A purchase order in Qoblex does not move along a single line. It tracks its progress on three separate tracks at once: an overall order status, how much of the goods have been received, and how much has been billed. A fourth badge reports how much has been paid to the supplier. Each track has its own badge at the top of the order, and together they decide which buttons Qoblex shows you and which fields you can still edit.

This article explains each track, what its values mean in plain terms, and which actions are available at each stage. After reading it you should be able to look at any purchase order and understand why a button such as Approve, Receive, Bills, or Close PO is shown, hidden, or blocked.

The three tracks (plus payment)

At the top of every purchase order, Qoblex shows a row of small badges. They report on the order from different angles, so a single order can be, for example, Approved, Partially-Received, and Partially Billed all at the same time.

Order status – the overall stage of the order: Draft, Approved, or Closed.
Receiving – how much stock has arrived: Partially-Received, then Received. Before anything is received this badge sits in its starting state.
Billing – how much has been billed: Not Billed, Partially Billed, or Billed.
Payment – how much has been paid to the supplier: Unpaid, Partially Paid, or Paid.

These tracks are independent. Receiving goods and creating bills move the receiving and billing badges on their own, but they leave the overall order status on Approved until you close the order.

You do not set the receiving, billing, or payment badges by hand. They follow the goods receipt notes, bills, and payments you create. Only the overall order status is changed directly, through the Approve and Close PO actions.

In its starting (nothing-received) state the receiving badge reuses the Unpaid label from the payment track. That is a display quirk of the screen, not a payment indicator. It changes to Partially-Received as soon as the first goods receipt note is authorized.

Order status

The overall order status follows a simple three-step path.

Status	What it means	How the order gets here
Draft	The order is still being built. Everything on it can be changed, and no stock or accounting has been affected yet.	A new purchase order always starts here.
Approved	The order has been confirmed. Qoblex now counts the ordered quantities as incoming stock, and you can receive goods and create bills.	Someone with approval permission selects Approve on a draft order.
Closed	The purchasing workflow is finished. The order is locked and kept for reference and reporting.	You select Close PO on a fully received and fully billed order.

The normal flow is Draft -> Approved -> Closed. Receiving and billing happen while the order is Approved; they advance the receiving and billing badges but leave the overall status on Approved until you close it.

Draft

A draft order is fully editable. This is the safest stage for correcting the supplier, ship-to and bill-to locations, currency, tax-inclusive setting, and line items, because nothing has affected stock or accounting yet.

From a draft order you can:

Edit the header and line details, and add or remove line items and additional (landed) costs.
Save your changes with Save.
Send the order for approval with Request Approval, if you cannot approve purchases yourself.
Confirm the order with Approve, if you have approval permission.
Print or email the order once it has been saved.
Clone the order or start a fresh one with Create New, from the More actions menu.
Delete the order, from the More actions menu.

Delete is only offered while the order is a draft. Qoblex asks Delete Order? and Are you sure you want to delete this order?, with a confirming button labelled Yes, delete it!.

Requesting approval

If your user account cannot approve purchases, Qoblex shows Request Approval on draft orders in place of Approve. Use it to send the order to a colleague who can approve it.

Open the draft purchase order and save it first (Qoblex shows Please save the order first on an unsaved order).
Select Request Approval. The approval request dialog opens.
Choose one or more approvers, and pick the document template for the attached PDF.
Send the request.

Requesting approval sends a notification and PDF to the chosen approvers. It does not change the order status. The order stays a draft until an approver opens it and selects Approve.

Approving an order

If you have permission to approve purchases, draft orders show an Approve button. Approving confirms the order and moves it from Draft to Approved.

Before it approves, Qoblex saves and validates the order: it needs a supplier, a ship-to (shipping) location, a bill-to (billing) location, and valid line items (a known product, a quantity greater than zero, a valid cost, and a tax class). If anything is missing, Qoblex lists the problems at the top of the order and does not approve it.

Once approved:

The ordered quantities are counted as incoming stock at the ship-to location.
You can receive goods and create bills.

Only draft orders can be approved. If an order is already approved, received, or closed, the Approve action is not available. Qoblex enforces this on the server: Only draft orders can be approved.

Approved

An approved order is where most purchasing work happens. Depending on the order type and what has already been created, you can:

Receive goods into stock (regular purchase orders), either manually or With a Barcode Scanner.
Drop Ship the order (drop-ship purchase orders) to fulfil it in one step.
Create bills from the Bills menu: Bill selected for chosen lines or Bill All for everything billable, and record supplier deposits with Add Deposit.
Under the Edit menu, revert the order to draft with Edit, or move unreceived lines to a separate back order with Move to Back Order.
Print or email the order, or Clone it and Create New from More actions.

As you receive and bill, the receiving and billing badges advance while the overall status stays Approved.

Receiving

Receive appears only on a saved, approved (or partially received) regular purchase order that is not yet fully received. Choose the lines to receive and select Receive, or use With a Barcode Scanner to scan items. Receiving creates a goods receipt note (GRN). For drop-ship orders the button is Drop Ship instead, which fulfils the whole order.

After the first receipt, the receiving badge shows Partially-Received.
Once every ordered unit has been received, it shows Received.

Billing

The Bills menu appears on any saved, non-draft order until billing is complete. Bill selected bills the lines you have chosen; Bill All bills every remaining billable line. As bills are authorized, the billing badge moves from Not Billed to Partially Billed to Billed.

Reverting an approved order to draft

Edit (under the Edit menu) sends an approved order back to Draft so you can change it again. It stays available while the order has no bills against it, and disappears once a bill has been authorized. Receiving does not remove it: an order that is fully received but still unbilled continues to show Edit. Once any bill exists, Edit is no longer available and you correct the order through its goods receipt notes and bills instead.

Moving items to a back order

Move to Back Order (under the Edit menu) splits selected, not-yet-received lines onto a brand-new purchase order, so the part that will arrive later can be tracked separately. Qoblex asks Are you sure you want to move those items to a new purchase order? before it moves them.

Qoblex blocks the move for any line that is already recorded downstream:

Cannot move item [product] – it is present in one or more Goods Receipt Notes
Cannot move item [product] – it is present in one or more Bills

Move to Back Order is hidden once the order is fully received.

Partially Received

Partially-Received means at least one line has been received but the order is not yet complete. It is a receiving badge, not an overall status: the order stays Approved while receiving is in progress.

From here you continue to receive the remaining quantities and can keep billing. Once a line has been received, its product and tax class can no longer be changed, because that would conflict with recorded inventory and cost.

Received

Received means every ordered unit has been received. Receiving-related edits are now closed, but the order usually still needs billing before it can be closed. From a received order you can also create supplier returns and refunds from the goods receipt and bill screens.

When an order is both Received and Billed, the Close PO action becomes available.

Closing an order

Close PO marks the purchasing workflow as finished. It appears only when the order is fully received and fully billed, and it disappears once the order is already closed.

When you select Close PO, Qoblex runs a three-way check that compares the ordered quantities, the received quantities, and the billed quantities and amounts. If they all match, the order is closed. If they do not, Qoblex opens the Three-Way-Check Failed dialog instead of closing the order.

The dialog explains the check with the text The three-way check ensures accuracy before closing a purchase order by verifying that the items on the purchase order, goods receipt, and supplier’s invoice all match., followed by the specific mismatches it found. It has a single Ok button, which just closes the dialog. The order is not closed and nothing is changed. To close the order, correct the mismatches on the order, its goods receipt notes, and its bills, then select Close PO again.

Qoblex will not close a purchase order until it is fully received and fully billed. Closing is also final: a closed order is locked, so it cannot be edited, received, or billed, and there is no reopen action in the purchase order screen. Only use Close PO when the order is genuinely finished.

Which edits stay open at each stage

Beyond the buttons, the tracks control which fields you can still change:

Supplier, ship-to location, bill-to location, currency, exchange rate, and tax-inclusive setting (the order header) can be edited until the order is received or partially received, until any bill is authorized, or until the order is closed.
A line’s price is locked once that line has been billed, or once the order is closed.
A line’s product or tax class is locked once that line has been received or billed.
A line’s quantity stays editable until the order is closed.
An additional (landed) cost’s price is locked once it has been billed.
Deleting a line is blocked if the line is already in a goods receipt note or a bill; remove it from those documents first.

Why can’t I see the Approve button?

Check that the order is still a Draft, and that your user account has permission to approve purchases. Users who cannot approve purchases see Request Approval in its place instead of Approve.

Why can’t I see Request Approval?

Request Approval only shows on draft orders for users who cannot approve purchases. If you have approval permission you will see Approve instead. If the order is no longer a draft, neither button appears.

Why is the Edit action missing?

The Edit action (which sends an approved order back to Draft) is only available while the order has no bills against it. Once any bill has been authorized, Edit disappears and you correct the order through its goods receipt notes and bills instead. Receiving alone does not hide it: a fully received but unbilled order still shows Edit.

Why is Move to Back Order missing or blocked?

Move to Back Order is hidden once the order is fully received. It is also blocked for any individual line that is already in a goods receipt note or a bill. Receive, bill, or return those lines through their own screens instead.

The Close PO button opened a mismatch dialog

That is the three-way check. It found a difference between the ordered, received, and billed quantities or amounts, so it opened the Three-Way-Check Failed dialog and did not close the order. The dialog lists the mismatches and has a single Ok button that just closes it. Review the order, its goods receipt notes, and its bills, correct the mismatch, then select Close PO again.

Email or Print is blocked

Both require a saved order, and email also needs a supplier. If the order has not been saved, Qoblex shows Please save the order first; if no supplier is set it shows Please set the order supplier and try again. Save the order (and choose a supplier) and try again.

Purchase order statuses and actions