Draft vs Active purchase orders
Every supplier purchase order in Luminous carries a status that controls what you can do with it.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | The order has been saved but is not yet placed. It is visible on the Draft Orders tab of the PO list, but it does not count toward incoming inventory and receiving is blocked until the PO is promoted. |
| Active | The order has been placed with the supplier. It counts toward your incoming stock numbers, can advance through production and shipping milestones, and can receive inventory against it. |
In short: a Draft is a holding space for an order you are not ready to commit. Only Active (and later milestone) POs affect your available and incoming inventory.
Creating a Draft from the standard PO form
- Go to Inventory → Purchase Orders and click Create Purchase Order in the top-right corner.
- Complete the supplier, dates, and line-item tabs as normal.
- On the final review tab, click Save as Draft instead of Create Order.
The PO is saved in Draft status and appears under the Draft Orders tab. If you later open and re-save that PO from the form, it will stay in Draft until you explicitly promote it (see below).
Promoting a Draft to Active
- Open the PO detail page (click the PO number from the Draft Orders tab).
- Click Actions → Update Status.
- Select Active and confirm.
Once Active, the order counts toward incoming inventory and receiving becomes available.
Tip: Active and Completed are the only statuses that can never be hidden from the PO timeline. You can customise which intermediate milestones (Production Started, In Transit, etc.) appear in Settings → Purchase Orders → Statuses.
Using the grid buy (Bulk order by variant)
The grid buy (also called Bulk order by variant) is a dedicated page that lets you place orders for many master SKUs at once — each master gets its own purchase order, and quantities are entered through a size/colour matrix rather than a line-by-line table.
Important: POs created from the grid buy are always created as Active. There is no Save as Draft option in the grid buy wizard.
Getting to the grid buy
Go to the Purchase Orders list and click Bulk order by variant next to Create Purchase Order. You can also go straight to /orders/grid-buy.
Step 1 — Purchase order (header + master SKUs)
- Fill in the header fields: supplier, order date, payment terms, and logistics/incoterm. These fields apply to every PO the buy creates.
- Once valid, the header collapses automatically to give you more screen space. Click it to re-open if you need to edit it.
- If a supplier has a preferred vendor set on the first SKU you add, the supplier field is filled for you automatically.
- Add master SKUs using any combination of:
- Search — type at least two characters to find a master SKU by name or code.
- Paste — paste a newline-separated list of SKU codes into the paste box.
- CSV/Excel upload — download the template first, fill in SKUs and optional quantities per variant, then upload.
- For each master SKU, the system resolves a size/colour curve (grid template) and displays the matrix. You can:
- Type a total quantity to distribute it automatically across sizes using the matched curve.
- Edit individual cells in the matrix to set quantities manually.
- Switch to a different curve from the dropdown on that master's panel.
- Override the supplier, warehouse, or logistics for a specific master using the Overrides button (pencil icon).
- Click Review N purchase orders when the header is complete and at least one master has quantities entered.
Step 2 — Review
A summary shows all masters with their line counts, unit totals, and estimated value. Review for accuracy and go back if you need to adjust anything. Click Create N purchase orders to create them.
Step 3 — Create
Click the Create N purchase orders button on the Review step. Luminous creates one Active purchase order per master SKU that has at least one line with a quantity. Masters with no quantities are reported as skipped. Each created PO is listed with a link you can click to open it directly.
If a master has more than 50 line items, its PO is queued as a background job — the screen polls automatically and updates when it finishes. If any fail, a Retry the ones that did not succeed button appears so you can re-run without duplicating the ones that already succeeded.
Note: The grid buy session is held in your browser only and is not saved anywhere until you reach the Create step. Refreshing the page will lose your work. For large runs, consider splitting into multiple buys.
Quick comparison: standard form vs grid buy
| Standard PO form | Grid buy | |
|---|---|---|
| POs created per session | 1 | 1 per master SKU |
| Draft option | Yes (Save as Draft button) | No — all POs created as Active |
| Quantity entry | Line-by-line | Size/colour matrix per master |
| Extra costs (freight, duty) | Yes | Not supported in the grid buy |
| Custom fields | Yes | Yes (header level, and per-master overrides) |