I was wondering if anyone has a solution to handle PO# changes on sales orders/invoices? Currently we lock invoices down once approved so it requires the admin (me) to update the PO#. The typical issue is some customers provide multi-year PO# so after year 1 we need to update future invoices with the year 2 PO. Is there a way to tie the PO# to a billing schedule or provide a way for users to update without providing edit access? I was thinking about other possibilities like workflows or maybe a custom record so that way a user could update the custom record without needing access to the transaction record

Well, there are a number of issues here - why the change at all? if the PO no longer mirrors the original order why not create a new SO to process then? Depending on type of sale it breaks a number of compliance regulations, not to mention how changing an invoice after approval (I assume at least before period close) is also not great from that perspective and even worse if it was printed and sent off

The SO# is a multi-year order. Customer provides PO# to include on the invoice for Year 1; The Customer will provide a new PO# to be included on the year#2 invoice etc. I am based in the US and have been at other companies where they have done this so I don't believe there are any compliance issues. I also should add the PO# Number I am referring to is a free-form field on the Sales Order/invoice form that is included at the customers request.

The point was changing the documents after approval but disregarding that you could introduce somewhere to source it from, like a contract record or similar that can be updated with e.g. a new yearly PO reference - my point here is you still want to keep the old one and make sure that the SO also doesn't need to be changed after approval - for this to be compliant you would set up a reminder to get a new PO ref before the billing run e.g.

The PO# number is typically just captured on the invoice we are sending and sometimes on the SO# as well. I will talk to the finance team about this to get further clarification because maybe there is something I am missing, but I don't think they intend to create multiple SO# per order. I think they would like to capture multiple PO# under specific billing rules so it can automatically applied when billing out that year. That is what led me to thinking maybe a custom record type that can be attached to the transaction that can be modified without touching the underlying transaction.

at least using standard billing schedule functionality it can't be done but what I have seen before is that there would be changes, co-term, add-ons etc. which I still will say is just bad practice to modify an approved order for - depending on size of business it may not be a big deal but it does break basic compliance rules, especially if any revenue is pro-rated but ultimately it is on Finance to yay or nay that - the custom record is of course a bigger thing to do