The Purchase Order Discipline: Numbered POs, Thresholds & the Three-Way Match

In the sample month, $9,200 of $38,000 in purchases happened with no PO: someone called someone, something showed up, an invoice followed. Unquoted, untracked buying pays a quiet tax — about 6% overpay and 2% duplicates — $8,832 a year. This log ends it with a number, a threshold, and a hold button.

How it works

• The PO Log — every purchase gets the next number BEFORE the order. The approver assigns itself from your thresholds (small stuff never queues; big stuff never slips through). Received and matched check off → CLEAR TO PAY, or HOLD
• The three-way match — PO, packing slip, invoice: all three agree or the invoice holds. The sample catches $310 a month of price creep and freight surprises at the HOLD instead of after payment
• The Maverick Math — track one honest month of no-PO buying and see the tax. Then the month-end review: one question per line — what made the PO harder than the phone call? Fix those
• The Discipline — no PO no pay (your vendors will enforce it for you), the five-minute PO, thresholds that match trust instead of paranoia

Built for

Purchasing and office managers at shops, contractors, restaurants, stores — any business where "who ordered this?" is a real question with a real invoice attached.

What you get

One .xlsx file, four tabs, instant download. Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers, LibreOffice. No macros, no subscription. Thresholds, rates and rows all yours.