What does good PO tracking look like?
Good PO tracking means anyone on the team can see the current status of any open order — without asking the buyer.
For most small manufacturers, that means a shared spreadsheet or a field that someone updates when they get to it. The result is always the same: the real status lives in one person’s inbox, and everyone else is working from whatever was last entered. Close enough isn’t good enough when production decisions depend on it.
The small team problem
When one buyer owns all the supplier communication, everyone else is flying blind.
Lean teams can’t afford a dedicated analyst to manage visibility. So the buyer wears every hat — sourcing, tracking, relaying updates, answering the same status questions over and over. All that information lives with them. When they’re heads-down or out of office, everyone waits. That’s not a people problem. It’s a system problem.
How it works
Everyone stays aligned as soon as new information comes in.
AWB 789101112 - Shipment departed Shanghai PVG
Invoice #450092 overdue reminder for PO-112233
Weekly Inventory Sync - Q4 Projections report
Connect your email
Works with your existing Gmail or Outlook setup. Connected in minutes — your team keeps working exactly as they do today.
PO-Relay reads every supplier communication
Every hold notice, shipment update, delay, and confirmation is extracted and categorized the moment the email arrives. Nothing slips through.
Production and supply chain see the latest — instantly
The dashboard reflects what’s actually happening now, not what was entered last. Every team member sees the same current picture without asking anyone.
What you get
PO-Relay keeps your whole team current — automatically.
Live part status
Delivery dates, hold notices, and shipment updates pulled from supplier emails and shared across your team the moment they arrive.
No extra work for buyers
Buyers keep working the same way. PO-Relay runs quietly in the background — nothing new to learn, nothing to change.
Complete audit trail
Every status change is logged with the email that caused it. When a delay or dispute comes up, the full timeline is already there.