To import purchase orders into QuickBooks Desktop, build an IIF file, because the Batch Enter grid does not offer purchase orders and the Excel import only handles lists. Add every vendor and item to Desktop first, spelled exactly as in your file. Back up the company file, then run File > Utilities > Import > IIF Files.
Which Desktop tools accept purchase orders from a spreadsheet?
Of the three spreadsheet tools in QuickBooks Desktop, only the IIF import takes purchase orders. Intuit's guide to batch entering transactions as an accountant lists checks, deposits, card charges, invoices, credit memos, bills and bill credits. Purchase orders are not on that list.
The Excel import under File > Utilities > Import > Excel Files is for customers, vendors, items and accounts. It will not create a transaction of any kind. That leaves IIF, the tab-separated text format Desktop has read for many years. Intuit's guide to importing and exporting data in QuickBooks Desktop counts purchase orders among the transactions you can bring in, and says plainly that an import cannot be undone. A backup made just before the import is the only way back.
Vendor and item names a purchase order import must match
Every vendor and item named in a purchase order file must already exist in Desktop, spelled the same way down to spaces and punctuation. A purchase order is a list of items ordered from one vendor, so a name that does not match either breaks the line or creates a record you did not mean to make.
Intuit's IIF overview and Import Kit page warns that an account missing from the company file is created as a new bank account. It also says IIF has only limited error checking. So a near-miss name may not stop the import at all.
A name-matching checklist
Work through these with the spreadsheet open before you save it as IIF:
- Export your vendor and item lists from Desktop (File > Utilities > Export > Lists to IIF Files) and copy names from that export.
- Check sub-items, which Desktop writes with a colon, such as
Packaging:Mailer boxes. - Confirm each item has a purchase cost and an expense or cost of goods sold account set.
- Confirm the vendor on each order is a vendor, not a customer with the same name.
- Use four-digit years and one date format throughout.
A purchase order IIF file, line by line
A purchase order in IIF has three header rows, then one TRNS line for the order as a whole, one SPL line per item and an ENDTRNS line. Intuit's Import Kit includes a sample purchase order file. Start from that sample, because it carries the exact column set your version expects.
The sketch below is illustrative. The vendor, items, amounts and order number are examples, and the signs and columns should be checked against Intuit's sample before you use it.
!TRNS TRNSTYPE DATE ACCNT NAME AMOUNT DOCNUM
!SPL TRNSTYPE DATE ACCNT NAME AMOUNT DOCNUM INVITEM QNTY PRICE
!ENDTRNS
TRNS PURCHORD 04/06/2026 Purchase Orders Example Box Supply -310.00 PO-118
SPL PURCHORD 04/06/2026 Cost of Goods Sold Example Box Supply 250.00 PO-118 Packaging:Mailer boxes 500 0.50
SPL PURCHORD 04/06/2026 Cost of Goods Sold Example Box Supply 60.00 PO-118 Packaging:Tissue paper 200 0.30
ENDTRNS
Read the file as one order for two items. The two SPL amounts add up to the 310.00 on the TRNS line, with the opposite sign, so the order balances. Order numbers in the DOCNUM column should not repeat numbers already used in Desktop, or two orders will share a number and receiving gets confusing.
Do imported purchase orders change the books?
Imported purchase orders do not change the profit and loss or the balance sheet. A purchase order in QuickBooks Desktop is a non-posting record of what you asked a vendor to send. The books move only when you receive the items or enter the vendor's bill against the order.
That makes a purchase order import lower risk than an invoice or bill import, but not risk free. Open orders show up in the Open Purchase Orders report and in the reminders when you receive items, so a doubled import leaves every order listed twice. Whoever receives the goods may then match a delivery to the wrong copy. Run the Open Purchase Orders report right after the import and compare the count with your file.
Where reorder quantities come from
Most purchase order spreadsheets start from sales history: what sold last month tells you what to reorder. If that history comes from an online store, importing sales into QuickBooks explains the shapes sales data can take, and importing Amazon sales into QuickBooks covers the settlement reports Amazon sellers work from.
Purchase orders better left out of an import
Some orders are faster and safer to type. A handful of purchase orders a month takes less time in Desktop's Create Purchase Orders window than building and checking an IIF file. Orders with new vendors, new items or unusual units should also be entered by hand, so you see each setting before it is saved.
Two other cases call for care:
- Orders already partly received. An import creates the order as fully open. If some goods have arrived, you would have to receive them again in Desktop, which is easy to get wrong.
- Books moving to another system. If the business is switching to Xero, rebuilding old purchase orders in Desktop is wasted effort. Bank history is the part that has to travel, and importing an OFX file into Xero covers that side.
Purchase orders end in bills, and bills end in payments that show on a bank statement. When that statement only exists as a PDF, SimpleBankConvert is being built to turn it into a file QuickBooks can open; the Get started page adds you to the early-access list.