Vista does have a purchase order import. The Imports module ships standard PO and POItems templates that load purchase orders into a batch you validate and post, and Trimble documents every column of the Purchase Order Items (POIB) form. What Vista cannot do is read the supplier confirmation, quote or field order that arrived as a PDF. Upload that document here and get the order number, vendor, dates and every line with quantity, unit price and extended amount back as CSV or Excel, ready to map into your Vista import template.
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Most Vista shops know PO Entry well. The retyping happens because a large share of orders start somewhere else: a supplier portal, a counter quote, a jobsite purchase, a fabrication system, or the open commitments list from the accounting system you are replacing. Every one of those has to be turned into Vista records by somebody.
Vista IM can batch-load purchase orders through the standard PO and POItems templates. It still needs a delimited file with one row per PO item, and a supplier PDF is not a file IM can read. Building those rows is where the hours go.
The POIB import form uses LineType 1 for Job, 2 for Inventory, 3 for Expense, 4 for Equipment and 5 for Work Order. A job line needs Job, Phase and JCCType. An inventory line needs Loc and Material, and the location must be set up in IN Location Setup with the material assigned to it. Mix them up and the batch will not validate.
POIB carries Units, UnitCost and an ECM flag of E per each, C per hundred or M per thousand, plus a required GrossAmt. Fasteners, wire and lumber are routinely priced per hundred or per thousand, so a unit cost keyed as per each can overstate a commitment a hundred or a thousand times over.
Save a Vista import file from Excel and leading zeros drop off job and phase codes, long numbers become scientific notation, and dates change format. The file still looks right on screen and then fails cross reference or validation in IM.
PurchaseOrders is a document data capture layer. It reads the purchase order, supplier order confirmation or quote you received and returns structured fields you map into a Vista import template. It does not connect to Vista, does not hold Vista credentials, does not create IM batches and does not post anything. Your template, your cross references and your batch validation stay exactly where they are.
Order number, vendor name and address, order date, requested delivery date, ship-to, payment terms and any job reference printed on the document return as separate fields, covering what PO Entry asks for in its upper section.
Each line returns with item or part number, description, quantity, unit of measure, unit price and extended amount. POIB wants one record per PO item, and a 70-line supplier confirmation becomes 70 rows in one pass.
The header and the full line table show on screen before download. That is the moment to catch a per-hundred price and set ECM to C in your mapping, instead of finding it when the invoice arrives.
CSV suits a delimited IM template directly. Excel is easier for a person checking codes before import. JSON and the API suit a team that already scripts its Vista loads.
Trimble documents the Imports module as a fixed sequence. You pick or build a template in IM Template, set up IM Cross Reference entries where incoming values need converting, import the data file, review and correct the records in IM Work Edit, and move them into Vista with IM Upload. For a batch import the records land in a batch instead of going straight to the tables, and you validate and post that batch through the normal batch forms, exactly as if the lines had been typed into PO Entry. Trimble notes that IM Upload does only minimal validation, so anything it misses surfaces at batch validation, where you either correct the record or remove it from the batch. The IM Upload Error Report, under Imports and then Reports, lists what failed at the upload stage.
Vista ships standard import templates that you can use as delivered or copy and modify. On the purchasing side they include PO for purchase orders, POItems for purchase order items, PO Receipt for receipts, POVendMatl for vendor materials, PO_MMI, and POEntryPS for ProjectSight. There are also Tekla Purchase Order and Tekla PO Receipts Import templates for steel fabricators coming from Tekla PowerFab, and both run as batch imports. Copy a standard template before you change it, so the delivered version stays intact for the next person who needs it.
The Purchase Order Items form is where most failed loads fail. Co has to exist in HQCO. Mth, BatchId, BatchSeq and BatchTransType are set by the import, with BatchTransType always A for additions, so there is no point supplying them. POItem, LineType, GLCo, GLAcct, Units, UnitCost, GrossAmt, MiscAmt and MiscYN are required. JCCo, EMCo and INCo are used inside Vista but are not used for imports, which catches out people who map them and then wonder why nothing changed; PostToCo is the importable company column. A lump sum line with a UM of LS skips Units, UnitCost and ECM. TaxType is 1 for sales tax, 2 for use tax and 3 for VAT, and use tax is the one that matters on materials bought from out-of-state suppliers who did not charge sales tax. Finally, any value you hard code as a default in IM Template overwrites whatever came in the file. That is handy for a company number and dangerous for anything that changes from order to order.
Every one of those columns has to be filled from something. When the order was created in another system that exports cleanly, such as Tekla PowerFab or Procore, a connector or an export does that work. When the order arrived as a document, nothing does. That covers supplier order confirmations, counter quotes that turned into orders, orders placed in a supplier portal, field purchases e-mailed back to the office as photos, and the open PO list printed out of a system you are leaving. A request on Viewpoint's own Vista ideas board described the problem years ago: orders entered in the supplier's system, then recreated by hand in Vista. Those documents are what PurchaseOrders reads. Upload them, check the header and the line table on screen, and export a CSV whose columns you map once in IM Template.
Contractors moving to Vista from Sage 300 CRE, Foundation or a spreadsheet usually need open commitments in place on day one, because job cost reports are wrong without them. The outgoing system can almost always print an open PO report, even when its data export is awkward or incomplete. Extracting those printouts into rows and loading them through a copied POItems template is typically faster than keying them, and it leaves you with a file you can reconcile against the old report line by line before anything posts.
Procore's Viewpoint Vista connector is built by Ryvit and syncs automatically once an hour on a schedule that cannot be changed. It exports commitments and commitment change orders from Procore to Vista, and exporting commitments created in Vista into a Procore project is not supported. Pick one system of record for commitments before go-live. Our purchase order to Procore page covers getting PO data into Procore itself, and the wider tool choice is compared in purchase order software for Viewpoint Vista.
If crews raise orders themselves, Trimble's Field Management portal lets users with the Create PO, Quick PO or PO Requisition permissions submit purchase orders to Vista. Trimble's setup notes flag one condition that trips people up: Approval Required on RQ for Purchase must be unchecked in PO Company Parameters, or purchase orders cannot be submitted through the portal at all.
For the construction workflow as a whole, see purchase order extraction for construction. Long confirmations with dozens of lines are covered in purchase order line item extraction, and a drawer of open orders clears in one pass with bulk purchase order upload.
Only some of these load in bulk, and only one starts from a document. Pick the row that matches where your orders begin.
| Route | What creates the PO | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| PO Entry by hand | A person keying header and items | Low volume, or orders with unusual coding |
| IM with the PO and POItems templates | A delimited file mapped in IM Template, then validated and posted as a batch | Bulk loads, migrations and recurring feeds from another system |
| Viewpoint Field Management | Portal users with Create PO, Quick PO or PO Requisition permission | Crews ordering materials from the jobsite |
| Procore Vista connector (Ryvit) | Commitments created in Procore, exported on an hourly sync | Contractors running commitments in Procore |
| Tekla PowerFab export | PowerFab purchase orders sent to Vista in a batch | Steel fabricators already buying in PowerFab |
| PurchaseOrders plus an IM template | Rows extracted from the supplier PDF, loaded by you through IM | Orders that arrive as documents: confirmations, quotes, portal orders, printouts |
Extraction removes the typing. The import, the validation and the posting stay inside Vista under your own security.
Drag in the PDF, scan or photo exactly as it arrived. There is no template to configure first and no vendor layout to teach the system.
Tip: Confirmations from several suppliers can go in together.
Confirm the order number, vendor, dates and every line before export. Fixing a quantity here takes seconds. Fixing it after the batch posts means a PO change order.
Tip: Look hard at pricing units. Per hundred and per thousand prices need ECM set to C or M.
Download the CSV, import it against your copied POItems template, review in IM Work Edit, run IM Upload, then validate and post the batch.
Tip: Load two or three orders first and read the batch validation before you commit a whole backlog.
Yes. The Vista Imports module includes standard PO and POItems templates. You map a delimited file in IM Template, import it, review it in IM Work Edit and move it with IM Upload. For a batch import the records land in a batch that you validate and post through the normal batch forms, the same as purchase orders keyed in PO Entry.
Vista ships standard templates named PO for purchase orders and POItems for purchase order items, alongside PO Receipt, POVendMatl, PO_MMI and POEntryPS. You can use a standard template as delivered or copy it and modify the copy. Trimble also provides Tekla Purchase Order and Tekla PO Receipts Import templates for fabricators on Tekla PowerFab.
POIB is the Purchase Order Items import form, the line-level half of a purchase order import. Each record is one PO item with a LineType of 1 Job, 2 Inventory, 3 Expense, 4 Equipment or 5 Work Order, plus the GL company and account, units, unit cost and gross amount. BatchId, BatchSeq and BatchTransType are generated by the import.
Trimble lists Co, Mth, BatchId, BatchSeq, POItem, BatchTransType, LineType, GLCo, GLAcct, Units, UnitCost, GrossAmt, MiscAmt and MiscYN as required. Mth, BatchId, BatchSeq and BatchTransType are set by the import itself, so your file supplies the rest. Job, Phase and JCCType matter on job lines, and Loc and Material on inventory lines.
Because IM Upload does minimal validation by design. Whatever it does not catch is caught when the batch validates, typically an invalid job, phase or cost type, a GL account that does not exist, or an inventory location without the material assigned in IN Materials. Correct the record or remove it from the batch, and check the IM Upload Error Report for upload-stage failures.
ECM tells Vista how the unit cost is quoted: E is per each, C is per hundred and M is per thousand. It matters for materials priced in bulk, such as fasteners, wire or lumber. On a line with a UM of LS, meaning lump sum, the import skips Units, UnitCost and ECM entirely.
Yes, in one direction. The Procore Vista connector, built by Ryvit, exports commitments and commitment change orders from Procore to Vista on an automatic hourly sync whose schedule cannot be changed. Exporting commitments created in Vista into a Procore project is not supported, so decide which system owns commitments before you connect the two.
Yes, through Viewpoint Field Management. Portal users with the Create PO, Quick PO or PO Requisition permissions can submit orders to Vista. Trimble notes that Approval Required on RQ for Purchase must be unchecked in PO Company Parameters, otherwise purchase orders cannot be submitted through the portal.
Review it in Excel if you like, but do not import the copy Excel saved. Excel strips leading zeros from job and phase codes, turns long numbers into scientific notation and rewrites dates, and the damaged file then fails cross references or validation. Keep the original CSV as the file you import.
No. PurchaseOrders reads purchase order documents and returns the data as CSV, Excel, JSON or API output. It does not hold Vista credentials, does not create IM batches and does not post to Vista. You map the file in IM Template and run the import yourself, so your security, cross references and batch controls are unchanged.
Getting PO data into Procore commitments.
The construction capture workflow end to end.
How two construction platforms handle POs.
The general ERP load pattern.
Capture the full line table.
Clear a backlog of open orders in one pass.
See the output shape in Excel.
The same problem on Workday EIB.
Same fields as JSON for a scripted load.