Guide

Automatic purchase orders in Xero

Xero has purchase orders and it has reorder points, but nothing connects the two. This is how to get a correct draft purchase order raised automatically when stock runs low — without handing over control of what actually gets ordered.

The gap in Xero's purchasing flow

Xero handles purchase orders competently once you decide to raise one: you pick the supplier, add lines, approve, and email it. What it doesn't do is notice that you should raise one. Reorder points sit on the item record, purchase orders sit in Business → Purchase orders, and the connection between them is a human.

That human step is where money leaks. Not because anyone is careless, but because reorder decisions arrive in the middle of other work, and the cost of getting one wrong — a stockout on a fast-moving line — shows up weeks later as lost sales you never see.

What "automatic" should and shouldn't mean

There is a version of automation that nobody actually wants: software silently sending orders to suppliers and committing your cash. Purchasing is one of the few operations in a small business where a wrong action costs real money immediately, and where the owner's judgement — a supplier having a bad month, a promotion coming, cash being tight — isn't in the data.

The right split is that the machine does the tedious part and the human keeps the decision. Detecting the breach, choosing the supplier, computing quantities against minimum order quantities, pulling the correct cost and account code, grouping lines into one order per supplier: all mechanical, all easy to get subtly wrong at 11pm. Approving and sending: yours.

How ReorderPilot drafts a purchase order

Tracked items and supplier contacts sync from your Xero organisation on a schedule.
Every SKU with a reorder rule is compared against its reorder point after each sync.
Breached items appear on the dashboard with a suggested order quantity — from a fixed reorder quantity or a top-up to your max level, never below the supplier's minimum order quantity.
One click drafts the orders: one purchase order per supplier in Xero, DRAFT status, unit prices from each item's purchase details, each line posted to the item's own purchase account, tax left entirely to your organisation's defaults, and a "Created by ReorderPilot" reference so the origin is obvious to whoever reviews the books.
You open Xero, check it, approve, and send. Every PO created is logged in the app with a direct link into Xero.

The safety rails that matter

Draft only. Nothing is approved or sent by the app — the blast radius of any mistake is a draft you delete.
Duplicate protection. SKUs already on an open draft or submitted PO are skipped automatically.
Your accounts, your tax. No hardcoded account codes and no tax computed by us — Xero's own settings apply.
Idempotent writes. A network failure mid-request can't produce two purchase orders.

Full detail in drafting purchase orders.

Try it on your own Xero data

14-day free trial. Connect your organisation, confirm your reorder points, and see the first draft PO in minutes.

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Common questions

Can Xero create purchase orders automatically?

No. Xero can create, approve, and email purchase orders manually, and it can store reorder points on tracked items, but it will not raise a PO when stock crosses a reorder point. Nothing links the two.

Can I set up recurring purchase orders in Xero?

Xero supports repeating invoices and repeating bills, but not repeating purchase orders. Even if it did, a fixed schedule isn't the same as ordering when stock actually needs replenishing.

Will an automated PO be sent to my supplier without me seeing it?

Not with ReorderPilot. Purchase orders are created in Xero with DRAFT status only. You review, approve, and send them from Xero yourself — the app never contacts a supplier.

What stops it ordering the same thing twice?

Before drafting, open draft and submitted purchase orders in Xero are checked, and any SKU already covered is skipped. The dashboard also shows quantities already on order, so repeat clicks can't double-order.