Purchase orders and job site purchasing

A construction purchase order is the written commitment you send a supplier before buying: what, how much, at what price and for which job. In OKTO PSA for construction, the purchase order follows the material all the way through: receiving, matching against the supplier’s invoice, then paying for what was actually received.

From purchase order to receiving

A purchase order starts from the project. It’s tied to the job, so what you buy shows up in the project instead of getting lost in a stack of invoices at the office. Your price lists keep the rates agreed with each supplier, so nobody retypes them or digs through an old email to find them.

When the delivery shows up, you record what was received. Receiving is what counts, not the order: a supplier who drops off 180 sheets out of 200 delivered 180 sheets, whatever the invoice says.

A written purchase order protects the contractor too. If the supplier delivers a different product than the one ordered, or at a different price, you have the document showing what was agreed. An order placed over the phone leaves no trail like that.

Counter purchases made without a purchase order have a place too. The foreman takes a photo of the receipt, OKTO PSA reads it and enters it as a job expense. Nobody has to keep the paper in the truck until month end.

Matching the supplier invoice before you pay

The supplier’s invoice is compared to the purchase order and the receiving record. If it goes over what was received or the agreed price, the difference is held and you pay for what you received. The rest waits for a delivery or a credit note.

On a job site these small gaps come up all the time: a short pallet, a price that went up between the quote and the delivery, an item billed twice. One at a time, they don’t look like much. Over a year, they eat into your margin.

It also gives whoever approves payments a clear answer when a supplier calls about a short payment: the receiving record shows what came in, and the purchase order shows the price.

Accounts payable: invoices read for you

Most suppliers email their invoices. In OKTO PSA, AI reads the invoices you receive and prepares a draft payable: supplier, date, amounts, taxes. A person approves the draft before it goes into your books. Nothing gets paid on its own.

The time saved is mostly in data entry. Instead of typing every invoice, whoever handles payables checks the draft and fixes it if needed. The accounts payable page shows how it works.

OKTHAV, the built-in assistant, also answers purchasing questions with your numbers, like “what did we receive from this supplier for that job last month?” See what it can do on the OKTHAV page.

Inventory and material taken from stock

If you keep material in a warehouse, inventory is tracked by lot and by serial number. Lot tracking helps when a manufacturer recalls a batch of product, for example: you know which jobs it went to. Serial tracking is for items you want to find one by one.

When material leaves stock for a job, the move is logged with the time. The cost follows the material to the project. At the end, the job carries both what was bought for it and what came out of your stock.

A made-up example: 12 gallons of primer leave the warehouse at 7:10 a.m. for a job on Maple Street. The cost moves to the project right then and inventory drops by the same amount. When someone asks where the primer went, the answer is already there.

Subcontractors: paperwork before closing

For each subcontractor, you set the documents you require: a release, for example, or anything else you ask for before the final payment. As long as one is missing, OKTO PSA blocks the project from closing. Nobody closes out a job forgetting that a release never came in.

There’s a legal reason for that. Under article 2123 of the Civil Code of Québec, the client can hold back enough of the price to pay workers, along with subcontractors and suppliers who gave the client written notice of their contract, until the contractor provides a release. If your subcontractor didn’t pay their material supplier, it’s your payment that may be held.

Subcontractors and material suppliers who didn’t contract with the owner can also hold a legal hypothec on the building, for work done or materials supplied after they gave the owner written notice of their contract. The legal hypothec guide explains the deadlines and what that notice changes.

The real job cost in one place

Purchase orders, receiving records, expenses, receipts and material taken from stock are all tied to the project. They sit next to the hours, phases and invoices for the job. When you compare a phase to its budget, you’re not chasing numbers across three programs. When a job closes, you can see what was bought, received and paid for it without asking the office to pull a report. The breakdown is explained on the phases and sub-projects page.

OKTO PSA doesn’t replace your accounting software. It handles job, purchasing and supplier tracking; bookkeeping stays with your accountant.

To see it all with a sample project, the interactive demo opens without a long sign-up.

Sources: Civil Code of Québec, LégisQuébec, checked on October 27, 2026.