Purchase Order (PO)

What this is about

In corporate environments the signed offer is not what releases money — the purchase order is. Procurement issues a numbered document, the budget is committed against it, and accounts payable only pay an invoice that carries that number and stays inside the ordered amount. For producers the consequences are practical: work starting before the order exists is unsecured, additional costs need an amended or second order rather than a friendly email, and the invoice has to mirror the order's wording. Ask about the process during the first project with a new corporate client.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• No order number, no payment — most corporate payables systems reject the invoice outright
• Additional costs need an amended or second order, not an email from the project contact
• Starting work before the order arrives is a financing decision rather than a formality

With TillyGen

TillyGen ties scope and cost lines together, so the order and the later invoice describe the same project.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.