If your institution funds research through purchase orders, you can now upload a PO directly into Connect to fund a wallet. This replaces the earlier process of emailing your account manager and waiting for funds to be loaded manually.

How PO Funding Works

The basic flow has three steps:

1. You upload a PO document and enter the funding amount.
2. Connect verifies the document and generates an invoice automatically. The invoice is sent to the accounts payable contact on file for your organization.
3. Once payment is received, the funds are released and become available in the wallet.

Until payment is received, the wallet shows the funds as awaiting payment.

Uploading a Purchase Order

From inside a wallet's detail view:

1. Click Upload Purchase Order.
2. Enter the amount you want to fund the wallet with.
3. Attach the PO document.
4. Click Submit.

Connect runs two checks before accepting the PO. First, it verifies that the document you uploaded is actually a purchase order — not a blank PDF or an unrelated file. Second, it confirms that the amount you entered matches the amount on the document. If either check fails, you'll be asked to upload a corrected version.

Once the PO is accepted, the invoice goes out automatically. You don't need to forward anything to your accounting team.

Auto Pre-Funding

Some accounts are designated for auto pre-funding. When this is enabled, the funds become available in the wallet as soon as the PO is accepted, even before payment has been received. The invoice still goes out to your accounts payable contact, but members can begin spending against the wallet immediately rather than waiting for the payment to clear.

Auto pre-funding is enabled on the back end by your CloudResearch account manager. If you'd like this turned on for your account, reach out to your account manager directly. It's typically offered to institutions with established billing relationships where prompt payment is expected.

Tracking PO Status

The wallet detail view shows the status of every PO submitted against it. POs awaiting payment are clearly marked, so you can see at a glance which funding has cleared and which is still in progress.

If you need to follow up on a PO with your finance team, the wallet history gives you the date the PO was uploaded, the amount, and the current status — everything you'd typically need to reference in a finance conversation.