Your first order: from purchase order to stock

This walkthrough takes one order from purchase order to received stock. Creating or approving the order does not change stock; stock moves only when you record the delivery on the Shipments page.

Before you start, set up the supplier, the product, and at least one warehouse. A purchase order cannot be saved without a ship-to warehouse, so if no warehouse exists yet you cannot get past the first step.

Create the purchase order

1. In the main menu at the top, open Purchase Orders, then Create New PO.
2. Choose the supplier. A supplier is required, and selecting one fills in the currency, as well as the incoterm and payment term if the supplier has them.
3. Check the Currency.
4. Set the Conversion Rate if the order is not in your organisation's own currency. When it is, the rate is set to 1 for you. Check the rate before saving: it turns the supplier's prices into the value your stock is held at.
5. Set the PO Date.
6. Set Expected Delivery if needed. It cannot be earlier than the PO Date.
7. Choose the Ship To Warehouse. This is required and is where the stock will land when you receive it.
8. Choose Add product for each product you are buying.
9. Set the product, quantity, price and Tax on each line.
10. Choose Save.

An order needs at least one product. Every line needs a product, a quantity above zero and a tax.

Save stays greyed out until the supplier, PO date, currency and ship-to warehouse are filled in, along with a product, quantity and tax on every line. If the button will not respond, one of those is missing.

Orders in other currencies are included in the Starter plan and above. On Free, the currency is your organisation's own.

Creating and editing orders requires the Create / Edit / Delete Purchase Orders permission.

Approve the order

A new purchase order is created as a Draft. Drafts and orders waiting for approval do not appear on Shipments, so you cannot receive against them.

1. Open the order.
2. If you cannot approve orders, choose Request Approval in the coloured banner above the order details. The order moves from Draft to Pending and waits for someone who can approve it.
3. If you can approve orders, choose Go to Approval in the banner. The order moves to Pending, and Approve then appears in the banner so you can approve it yourself.
4. On a Pending order, choose Approve.
5. Confirm the approval. The status becomes Approved, and the banner shows who approved it and when.

The banner's button is not offered while the order is open for editing. Save your changes first, then use it.

Approving requires either Approve Purchase Orders, or Approve Own Purchase Orders if you created the order yourself. An organisation owner can always approve.

Approval is refused if the supplier has been deleted, the year of the PO date has been locked, or someone else changed the order after you opened the page. If someone else changed it, reload the order and look at the change before approving.

Record the delivery

Shipments lists approved purchase orders only, under Incoming Shipments and Completed Shipments.

1. Open Shipments in the main menu.
2. Find your order on the Incoming Shipments tab.
3. At the end of the row, in the actions column, choose the lorry icon labelled Edit delivery. This opens Manage Delivery on the Receive products tab.
4. Choose the Product.
5. Enter the Quantity that actually arrived.
6. Set the Date.
7. Choose Add. The line is held as pending until you save it.
8. Repeat for each product in the delivery.
9. Choose Save changes.

Record what arrived, not what was ordered. For a part delivery, the order stays open for the rest. Its delivery status reads Partially Delivered until the full quantity is in, then Delivered.

The delivery date cannot be earlier than the purchase order date, in the future, or in a locked financial year. If the purchase order is dated in the future, you cannot record anything against it until that date.

Stock lands at the order's ship-to warehouse. Recording a delivery requires Manage Shippings; without it, the lorry icon is not shown on the row.

Once the full quantity is in, the order moves to Completed Shipments, where the row offers only View details. You can look at what was received, but you cannot add to it from there.

Check the stock and its value

Open Inventory, then View Inventory. Find the product and check Current On Hand and Current Value. The totals above the list include the value you have just brought in.

To see the individual event, open Inventory, then Movements. The delivery appears as a Stock In row, dated with the delivery date you entered and recorded at the warehouse the goods went to.

Received stock value is the order line price converted into your own currency at the order's conversion rate, plus that line's share of shipping and any additional costs recorded on the order. To see the split, expand the order's row on Shipments. It shows Product value, Shipping, Additional costs and Landed cost.

Value columns and inventory totals are shown only to people with View Inventory Value. Without it, the page says values are hidden because your role does not include permission to view them. Anyone who can see values can also hide them on their own screen using the eye beside the total on View Inventory or the dashboard; the choice is remembered.

Reopen an approved order

Receiving does not close the purchase order. It stays Approved, and its delivered status is tracked separately.

To change an approved order, use Reopen in the banner at the top of the order. This puts it back to Draft, and it must go through approval again. Reopen requires Create / Edit / Delete Purchase Orders and is not offered once the year is locked.