Blanket Purchase Orders

A blanket purchase order (also called a standing PO, framework order or master PO) is a single purchase order that covers repeat purchases from one supplier over a set period, up to an agreed total value. Instead of raising a new PO for each delivery of workshop consumables, for example, a business might raise one blanket PO for AU$50,000 of consumables from a supplier over 12 months. Each delivery is then invoiced against that one PO number.

Blanket POs suit recurring, high-frequency purchases where raising a PO each time costs more in admin than the order is worth: consumables, maintenance, cleaning, plant hire and freight. The work moves to accounts payable, where each invoice has to be matched against the agreed items and prices and someone has to track spend against the ceiling. Our guide to how a blanket purchase order system works and how to match invoices against it covers the process step by step, including how Xero and MYOB handle it.