Getting a PO at each Xero invoice stage: draft, approved and sent

Summary

• A Xero sales invoice runs through draft, then approved but unsent, then approved and sent, then paid. Approving an invoice is what posts it to the ledger. “Approved”, “authorised” and “awaiting payment” all describe that same posted state; “sent” is a separate flag on top of it.
• The PO number lives in the Reference field. You can get a PO onto an invoice at any of the three pre-payment stages, but some stages create more admin.
• Draft is the clean place to capture the PO, before the invoice is posted or chased.
• Approved but unsent is posted to your ledger but hasn’t reached the customer. It’s a good last checkpoint to confirm the PO before it goes out.
• Approved and sent means the customer has it but cannot pay it. You can still edit the Reference field to add or correct a PO, as long as no payment has been applied but you will need to resend the invoice.
• Xero won’t chase for a PO at any stage. Trove pre-chases the PO on your approved invoices, before the due date, routed to the contact who holds it.

The states a Xero invoice moves through

A sales invoice in Xero has a clear lifecycle, and knowing which state an invoice is in tells you what you can still change and who is chasing it.

• Draft. Created but not approved. Fully editable, not posted to your ledger, and not on your aged receivables. Nothing is chasing it.
• Approved but unsent. When you approve an invoice, Xero posts it to the ledger and it becomes a real receivable, showing on the Awaiting Payment tab. But until you actually send it (or mark it as sent), the customer hasn’t received it, and Xero’s reminders don’t fire, because reminders only run on invoices marked as sent.
• Approved and sent. The invoice has been emailed or marked as sent. The customer has it, it’s on their side, and Xero’s reminder schedule now applies.
• Paid. Fully settled.

One terminology note: “posted” isn’t a separate stage after “approved”. Approving the invoice is what posts it. The meaningful distinction for POs is draft versus approved, and then, within approved, whether it’s been sent yet.

Getting a PO at the draft stage

Holding an invoice in draft until you have the PO is the cleanest approach, and it’s the right call when you know upfront that a customer won’t pay without one.

The invoice sits in draft, off your aged receivables and out of any chase sequence. You put the confirmed PO into the Reference field, approve, send, and it goes out already matched-ready. The clock only starts once it’s clean. No parked invoice, no scramble.

The one real risk is that a draft is invisible. Because nothing chases a draft, an invoice you’re “waiting on a PO for” can sit in drafts for weeks. If you use draft-and-hold, you need your own way of tracking which drafts are waiting on a PO, because Xero won’t remind you.

Getting a PO at the approved-but-unsent stage

Once you approve an invoice, it’s on your books, but the customer still hasn’t seen it.

This is a useful moment to confirm the PO is right before it goes out. The invoice is editable enough to update the Reference field, so you can drop in or correct the PO before sending.

Getting a PO on an approved-and-sent invoice

Often the invoice is already out before anyone realises the PO is missing or wrong. That’s recoverable meaning you don’t have to void it and start again.

On an approved invoice with no payment applied yet, you can still edit non-financial details, including the Reference field. So you can drop the correct PO into the reference and re-send the invoice. The amounts, tax and accounts are locked once it’s approved, but the PO reference isn’t part of that.

How Trove collects PO numbers across different Xero invoice stages

Xero won’t chase for a PO at any stage. A draft gets no reminders. An approved-but-unsent invoice gets none either, because it isn’t marked sent. And an approved-and-sent invoice only gets Xero’s standard schedule, which sends the same generic message to the same contacts, not a targeted “please confirm the PO” note to the person who can supply it.

Trove works on your approved invoices, the ones live in Xero as awaiting payment, whether or not Xero itself marked them sent. It sends a pre-due reminder against those invoices, before the due date, routed to whichever contact holds the PO and sent from your own email address. So for the invoices that are posted and running, the PO request reaches the right person while there’s still time to make the run.

For the invoices you’re deliberately holding in draft, capture the PO before you approve where you can, then let Trove pre-chase the PO on everything that’s already live. The hub for this cluster shows how the pieces fit together.