The purchase order workspace surrounds the order form with supporting panels: the notes tabs on the order itself, and a side panel with cards for related orders, tags, attachments, and recent activity. These areas hold the operational context around a purchase order, why it exists, what it connects to, and what has happened to it.
Use them before changing a purchase order that is tied to a sale order, a production order, a supplier bill, a goods receipt, a return, or a refund. Most of the side-panel cards only appear once the purchase order has been saved for the first time.
Where these panels appear
The order form (line items, pricing, notes) fills the main pane. A side panel on the right holds the supporting cards.
The Notes to Supplier and Private Notes tabs sit at the bottom of the order form and are available whether the order is new or saved.
The Related Orders, Tags, Attachments, and Activity cards only appear after the order has been saved at least once. On a brand-new, unsaved order they are hidden. Save the order first (see Create a purchase order), then reopen the side panel to use them.
The side panel also shows read-only summary cards for goods receipts, bills, payments, returns, and refunds when those records exist. Those are covered in their own articles. This article covers the cards you add context with: related orders, tags, attachments, and activity.
Related orders
Use Related Orders to link this purchase order to other orders, so that anyone opening either record can see the connection.
The Related Orders card is shown for standard purchase orders once they are saved. Dropship purchase orders do not show this card. A dropship purchase order is already tied to its sale order, so the side panel shows a Drop Ship To card pointing at that sale order instead.
The card text reads Link this order to other purchases, sale orders or production orders. Each existing link appears as a row showing:
- A direction arrow. An arrow pointing right marks an order this purchase order links out to; an arrow pointing left marks an order that links in to this purchase order.
- The linked order number, as a link. Selecting it opens the connected order in a new browser tab.
- The linked order’s status badge.
- A red remove icon (x).
The order number link routes to the correct workspace for the linked record: a sale order, another purchase order, or a production order.
Link an order
- Open the purchase order.
- Save it if it is still new or has unsaved changes.
- In the side panel, find the Related Orders card.
- Select Link an order.
- In the Add / Edit Link dialog, use Search orders… to find the order you want.
- Tick the orders to link and set the Link Type for each.
- Select Save & close.
The dialog lists candidate orders in a table with these columns: order number, Type, contact, created date, and Link Type. The button along the bottom shows how many orders you have selected. Choose cancel changes to close without linking.
After you confirm, Qoblex attaches the links and refreshes the purchase order so the new relationships appear in the card.
You must save the purchase order before you can link another order to it. If you select Link an order on an unsaved order, Qoblex shows the message Please save your order first prior to adding a new order relationship and does not open the dialog.
Remove a related order
Select the red x icon on the relationship row.
Qoblex removes the link and refreshes the order. Removing a link only breaks the connection between the two records. It does not delete either the purchase order or the order it was linked to.
Notes
The order form has two notes tabs at the bottom. Both are part of the order and are saved when you save the order.
- Notes to Supplier is the default tab. Use it for information intended for the supplier, such as delivery instructions or references. Depending on your document template, this text can appear on supplier-facing documents like the printed purchase order.
- Private Notes is for internal notes. The tab shows the reminder Only you and other staff can see private notes. Use it for approval context, supplier reliability notes, or warehouse instructions that should never reach the supplier.
Both tabs are rich-text editors, so you can format the text.
Before sending a purchase order to a supplier, check that internal-only information is in Private Notes and not in Notes to Supplier, since the supplier notes can be printed or emailed to the supplier.
Tags
Use the Tags card in the side panel to label the purchase order for search and filtering. Type a tag and press Enter to add it; each tag appears as a badge. The Tags card appears once the order has been saved.
Tags added here are the same tags you can filter by on the purchase order list. See Find and filter purchase orders.
Attachments
Use the Attachments card to keep related files with the purchase order, such as supplier quotes, supplier invoices, packing slips, freight or customs documents, and internal approval files.
The Attachments card appears once the order has been saved. Use it to upload and view files kept with the order. For support investigations, check the attachments before deciding whether a bill, goods receipt, return, or refund was created correctly.
Activity
The Activity card in the side panel lists recent events recorded against the purchase order. Each entry shows the author’s email, the time, and the event message. The card appears once the order has been saved.
Select the refresh icon in the top-right of the Activity card to reload the most recent events.
Use Activity when a customer needs to understand who acted on a purchase order and when.