Hi @NNeese,

I'm here to take care of your query about purchase orders in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

A purchase order (PO) is a non-posting transaction. With that said, you're unable to include any expense accounts, since these affect your books. What you can do is utilize the Memo field if you wish to take note of the expense account(s) to use on the items in the PO.

You can take some time to view this article: Accounts Payable workflows in QuickBooks Desktop. This introduces 2 possible workflows available for QBDT. These are bills that have a PO paired to them, while the other doesn't. 

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have other questions. I'll be sure to get back to you.