Page Contents

Table of Contents

How do I open the purchase search?
What does each search field do?
How do I search by supplier name?
How do I search by receipt number or supplier reference?
How do I search by description?
How do I search by date, amount or currency?
How do I search by status or project tag?
How do I combine fields?
Troubleshooting
Related topics

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Search tips - Purchases

You can search your purchase invoices from the Purchase Management page. Open the search panel to find purchases by supplier, receipt number, description, supplier reference, receipt scans, date, amount, currency, status or project tag.

You can fill in one field or several. Below is a table outlining each field and its capabilities, followed by more detail on how each one matches what you type.

How do I open the purchase search?

Click Purchases in the top menu, then Show all purchases.
Click Search to open the search panel.
Fill in one or more fields.
Click Submit Search.

The results appear under the panel, with a line showing how many purchases were found and their total amount. If nothing matches, the page shows No Items found. Click Cancel Search to clear the search and show all your purchases again.

Capital or lower-case letters make no difference in any of the text boxes.

What does each search field do?

Please note: some fields support “Enhanced Search” methods where you can apply partial matching and phrase matching.

Field	Description	Search Type
Supplier Name	The business name for your supplier	Whole word match, not case sensitive. Several words must all be present in the order typed. Put `*` at the end of a word to match the start of it. Contact names are not searched.
Receipt Number	The QuickFile assigned incremental receipt number	Exact string match. Type the full number including QF.
Description	Searches the text in all the lines of the purchase.	Enhanced search - whole word match, use `*` at the end of a word for partial matching.
Supplier Ref	The supplier reference assigned to the purchase invoice	Exact string match. Type the whole reference.
Receipt scans	Does the purchase have one or more attached receipts	Tick with, without or both to include purchases that have, or have not got, a receipt attached.
Receipt Date	The receipt date for the purchase invoice	From, to or between supplied dates.
Amount Range	The total of the purchase invoice, including VAT	From, to or between the supplied amounts.
Currency	The currency of the purchase invoice	Choose a currency from the list.
Status	The current status of the purchase invoice	Select from the list of statuses.
Project tags	Does the purchase invoice have any project tags?	All, Untagged or Tagged. With Tagged, you can also type the name of a tag.

How do I search by supplier name?

Type the supplier’s business name, or part of it, in Supplier Name. The search matches whole words.

Acme returns purchases from Acme Test Plumbing Supplies Ltd and from any other supplier with Acme in its name. Acm and cme return nothing, because they are only part of a word.
If you type more than one word, the name must contain all of them in the order you typed them. Acme Test Plumbing returns Acme Test Plumbing Supplies Ltd, but Plumbing Acme returns nothing.
To match the start of a word, put an asterisk at the end of it. Acm* returns every supplier whose name has a word starting with Acm. An asterisk at the start of a word does not work.

Supplier Name searches business names only. The words AND, OR and NOT do not work as operators here, so Acme OR Google returns nothing, and the names of supplier contacts are not searched.

How do I search by receipt number or supplier reference?

Both boxes need the whole value. Part of a value does not match, and a * does not work in either box.

Receipt Number: type the full number including the QF prefix, for example QF00023. 00023, 23 and QF0002 return nothing.
Supplier Ref: type the whole reference exactly as it is saved, for example ATP-1001. 1001 and ATP return nothing.

How do I search by description?

Description searches the text of every line of the purchase, not only the first line, and not the supplier’s name. It supports Enhanced Search methods. See Enhanced Search Fields for more about them.

Whole words: boiler returns purchases with the word boiler in their description. boil returns nothing.
Start of a word: boil* returns the same purchases as boiler. The asterisk must be at the end of the word.
Several words: Cafe mileage returns purchases that contain either word.
A phrase: put the words in quote marks to find them together and in order. “Gas safety” returns purchases containing those two words in that order, but “safety gas” returns nothing.
AND, OR and NOT: type them in capital letters. Cafe AND lunch returns purchases containing both words, Cafe OR mileage returns purchases containing either, and mileage NOT Cafe returns purchases containing mileage but not Cafe. In lower case, and, or and not are searched for as ordinary words.

The Purchase Name column in the results shows the first line of the description, so Description finds it too.

How do I search by date, amount or currency?

Receipt Date and Amount Range each have a From and a To box. Fill in either box or both. The dates and amounts you enter are included in the results.

Receipt Date: type dates as dd/mm/yyyy, for example 01/10/2026. dd/mm/yy and yyyy-mm-dd also work.
Amount Range: the amounts are compared with the purchase total including VAT. A purchase with a net amount of 120.00 and a total of 144.00 is found by 144, not by 120.
Currency: choose ANY, EUR Euro, GBP British Pound or USD Dollar from the list.

To fill in both dates from a list, click [preset range] under Receipt Date. The pop-up has the tabs Accounting Years, Months, Quarters, Calendar Years and Custom.

How do I search by status or project tag?

Choose a value from the Status list: ANY, UNPAID, PAID IN PART, PAID IN FULL, OVERDUE, VAT EXEMPT, VAT OUT OF SCOPE, CREDIT or CREDITED.

Under Project tags, choose All, Untagged or Tagged. Tagged shows a Tag name box. Leave it empty to list every tagged purchase, or type the whole name of a tag to list only purchases with that tag. The name is not case sensitive, but it must be the whole tag, so project does not find a tag called project-1.

How do I combine fields?

A purchase is returned only if it matches every box you have filled in. For example, a Supplier Name of Acme with a Description of boiler returns only Acme purchases that mention a boiler, and a Receipt Number of QF00023 with a Supplier Name of Google returns nothing, because that purchase is from a different supplier.

Tip: To find one particular purchase, use its full Receipt Number on its own, or a Supplier Ref on its own.

Troubleshooting

My search finds nothing

Supplier Name, Receipt Number, Supplier Ref and Tag name need whole words or whole values, so part of a word returns nothing. To match the start of a word in Supplier Name or Description, put an asterisk at the end of it. Remember that every box you fill in must match.

I typed a receipt number and nothing was found

The Receipt Number box needs the full number including QF, for example QF00023. To find a purchase from part of its number, use Quick Search.

I typed a contact’s name in Supplier Name and nothing was found

Supplier Name searches business names only. Type the supplier’s business name instead.

I used AND or OR in Supplier Name and nothing was found

AND, OR and NOT only work in Description, and only in capital letters. In Supplier Name, type the words you want to find in the order they appear in the name.

My Description search finds the wrong purchases

Several words without quote marks find purchases containing any of the words. Put a phrase in quote marks to find the words together and in order, or join words with a capital AND to require both.

The list is still filtered

Click Cancel Search to clear the search and show all your purchases again.