Xero Purchase Order Software and System Apps by Price

Xero includes purchase orders on every US plan, so most small businesses do not need extra purchase order software at all. You need an app when you want more than one approval step, goods receipts, three-way matching, or requisitions, none of which Xero has. The cheapest published option with a real two-way Xero sync is ApprovalMax at $50 a month billed yearly; full procurement suites such as ProcureDesk and Precoro start around $500 to $830 a month. Zoho Books is the other small business ledger that buyers often compare with Xero; the purchase order to Zoho Books page covers importing PO data there.

This page compares the purchase order apps that actually connect to Xero, on what US buyers ask before they sign: what each costs, what it adds on top of Xero, how it syncs, and who it suits. Every price below was read off the vendor's own pricing page in September 2026. Where a vendor publishes no price, we say so rather than guess.

Does Xero have purchase order software built in?

Yes. Xero's Early, Growing and Established plans all include purchase orders, listed on Xero's Early plan page under features in every plan. You can create a PO from a template or copy an old one, send it to the supplier as a PDF, and turn it into a bill when the invoice arrives, editing quantities for a partial delivery while the PO stays open for the rest.

What Xero does not do is just as clear. There is one approval step (Draft, Awaiting approval, Approved, Billed). There are no purchase requisitions, no goods received notes, no three-way match and no budget check. Xero's own purchase order page says that multi-level approvals, supplier portals and requisitions come from apps in the Xero App Store. That sentence is the whole reason this category exists.

How much does Xero cost with purchase orders?

US list prices are $25 a month for Early, $55 for Growing and $90 for Established. Xero has announced that from October 1, 2026 these rise to $27, $59 and $97 for new and existing US subscribers. The plan that matters for purchasing is usually Growing, because Early lets you enter only 5 bills a month, and every purchase order you receive against eventually becomes a bill. We walk through the plan math, and how it compares with QuickBooks Online, in Xero vs QuickBooks for purchase orders.

Xero purchase order apps compared

Prices are the lowest published tier on each vendor's pricing page and exclude taxes, onboarding and per-document overages. Several vendors bill yearly by default and show the monthly equivalent, so the number you pay on a month-to-month contract is higher. Check the tier limits (documents, users, orders per month) before you compare headline prices, because they decide which tier you actually land on.

What is the best purchase order software for Xero?

For most Xero businesses under about 50 staff, ApprovalMax is the practical default: it is the cheapest published option with multi-step approvals and a two-way sync, and it prices by document volume rather than per user, so adding approvers costs nothing. Pick something else when the job is bigger than approvals. If your books are in QuickBooks instead, the same category is priced in QuickBooks purchase order software. Retail stores on Lightspeed have their own shortlist in purchase order software for Lightspeed Retail.

• Approvals are the only gap: ApprovalMax Standard. Move to Advanced if you also want goods received notes and bill matching.
• You track spend against projects or budgets: CostTracker, which routes approvals by project and category and shows committed cost the moment a PO is approved.
• You want one flat price with known caps: Zahara, whose plans state users and orders per month up front.
• Supplier invoices are the heavier load: Lightyear, which is built as AP automation for Xero and adds 3-way match from its Standard tier.
• Several departments or sites, supplier catalogs, punchout: Precoro or ProcureDesk. These are procurement suites, and the price reflects that.

Procurify deserves a note because it ranks well in general procurement searches. Its Xero connection is a CSV export template for bills, not a live sync, and it publishes no price. It is a strong product for NetSuite, QuickBooks Online, Sage Intacct and Business Central shops, and a weaker fit for Xero. If you are pricing it anyway, our Procurify pricing breakdown shows what buyers report paying.

Do I need purchase order software if I use Xero?

Not if one person approves spending and you raise a few dozen POs a month. Xero's built-in purchase orders handle create, approve, send and bill well, and every app above adds a monthly fee on top of your Xero subscription. The signs you have outgrown it are specific: a second approver needed above a dollar threshold, deliveries that arrive short and need a receiving record, suppliers billing more than was ordered, or department heads who need to request spend rather than raise POs directly.

If you get to the point of evaluating a full source-to-pay stack with RFQs, supplier onboarding and contract management, you are shopping for a dedicated procurement platform rather than an add-on, and the comparison changes shape entirely.

Can you import purchase orders into Xero?

Not from a spreadsheet. Xero has no CSV or Excel import for purchase orders. A 2013 request for PO import and export was closed as not in the pipeline, and in May 2022 Xero's community team wrote that there was no direct plan to build it. A 2023 request for Excel import sits at 100 votes with no reply. You can export the PO list to CSV, but not load one.

The only bulk route in is the Xero API. Its PurchaseOrders endpoint creates purchase orders with PUT, creates or updates them with POST, and supports statuses DRAFT, SUBMITTED, AUTHORISED, BILLED and DELETED. There is no DELETE call; you remove a PO by setting its status. Every app in the table above uses this API to write POs into your Xero organization.

Where purchase orders arrive as PDFs

The apps above all start from the assumption that a person creates the purchase order inside software. Plenty of Xero businesses have the opposite problem. A customer emails a purchase order PDF that needs to become a quote or invoice. A migration leaves hundreds of open POs as PDFs from the old system. A supplier sends an order confirmation that has to be checked line by line against what you ordered.

None of the purchase order apps reads those documents, and Xero has no import to receive them. This is the gap purchase order to Xero covers: upload the PDF, scan or photo, and get the header and every line item back as Excel, CSV or JSON, ready to key against, compare, or post through the PurchaseOrders endpoint with a small script. For a backlog, bulk purchase order upload takes up to 50 files in one pass, and the purchase order API returns the same fields as JSON for an integration. Plans start at $49 a month, which is less than the gap between Xero Early and a mid-tier approval app for most teams.

How to choose, in order

1. Count your approvers and approval rules. One approver means Xero alone is probably enough. A threshold-based second approver is the most common reason to add ApprovalMax.
2. Decide whether you need receiving. If short or split deliveries cause billing errors, you need goods received notes and matching, which rules out the entry tiers of several apps.
3. Check the volume limits, not the headline price. Documents per month (ApprovalMax), orders per month (Zahara) and credits (Lightyear) decide your real tier.
4. Confirm what syncs. Two-way sync of suppliers, account codes and tracking categories saves hours of setup; a CSV export does not.
5. Price the Xero plan too. If you are on Early, the 5-bill cap may force Growing regardless of which app you add. See accounting software with purchase orders for how other platforms compare.

Frequently asked questions

Does Xero do purchase orders?

Yes, on every US plan: Early, Growing and Established. You can create, approve, email and bill purchase orders, including partial bills against one PO. Xero does not include multi-level approvals, requisitions, goods receipts or three-way matching; those come from App Store apps.

Which Xero plan includes purchase orders?

All of them. The practical minimum for a purchasing business is usually Growing at $55 a month ($59 from October 1, 2026), because Early allows only 5 bills a month and each received purchase order normally becomes a bill.

What is the cheapest purchase order app for Xero?

Among apps with a published price and a confirmed two-way Xero sync, ApprovalMax Standard is the lowest at $50 a month billed yearly, or $60 month to month, for up to 100 documents with unlimited users. Spendwise lists lower per-user prices but does not name Xero as an integration.

Can Xero do three-way matching?

Not natively. Xero matches a bill to a purchase order but has no goods received note, so a true three-way match needs an app. ApprovalMax Advanced, CostTracker, Zahara, Lightyear Standard, Precoro and ProcureDesk all add receiving and matching.

Can I import purchase orders into Xero from Excel?

No. Xero has no spreadsheet import for purchase orders and has said it has no direct plan to build one. Purchase orders can be created in bulk only through the Xero API PurchaseOrders endpoint, which is how third-party apps and custom scripts load them.