Purchase

Purchase keeps your vendors and the orders you place with them. A purchase order states what you agreed to buy, at what price and for which warehouse; once it is approved, the goods are received against it in Inventory and billed from those receipts in Payables, so the order always shows how much has arrived.

How it fits together

Part	What it is
Vendor	Who you buy from. Their currency, payment term, posting profile and price list fill in every order and bill you raise for them.
Purchase order	What you have agreed to buy from a vendor. It is drafted, submitted, approved, then received and billed.
Price list	What a vendor charges you for each item and unit. Kept under Sales ‣ Pricing ‣ Price lists, with the Usage Purchase.
Receipt	The goods arriving against an approved order. Kept in Inventory. See Receive goods.
Bill	The vendor’s invoice, drawn from the receipts. Kept in Payables. See Record vendor bills.
Debit note	Lowers what you owe a vendor, and sends goods back to them. Kept in Payables. See Debit vendors.

What each step creates

When you	What changes
Save a purchase order	Nothing in stock or in the books. The order is a commitment, priced from the vendor’s price list.
Approve the order	Goods can now be received against it. It counts as Outstanding on the workspace until everything has arrived.
Receive the goods	The stock comes into the order’s warehouse at the order’s price, and the ledger raises the stock value against goods received but not yet billed. The order shows the quantity as Received. See Receive a purchase order.
Bill the receipt	The bill takes the order’s prices. Posting it books the payable and clears the goods received but not yet billed. See Bill the goods received on a purchase order.
Post the last bill	The order closes itself once all its goods are received and every receipt is billed.
Send goods back	A debit note against the bill takes the goods out of stock as a vendor return and lowers what you owe. See Debit a bill.

Purchase orders do not reach the ledger. The books change when the receipt, the bill and the debit note post.

Nota

Creating an order needs the Create access level on Purchase Orders, and editing or submitting a draft needs Edit. Approving and cancelling an order need Approve, so a buyer can prepare orders that someone else signs off.

Before you start

Purchase reads its defaults from Finance, Inventory and Pricing, so set these up first:

• The payment terms you buy on, and a Vendor posting profile with your payable account.
• At least one warehouse to receive into, and the items you buy.
• Exchange rates for any foreign currency you buy in, in Currencies.
• The defaults new vendors start with, in Set up vendors for payables.
• A purchase price list for each vendor, or one default list, in Vendor prices.

Where to start

1. Create your vendors, or import them from a spreadsheet.
2. Record what each vendor charges, and give the vendor its list.
3. Create a purchase order and submit it.
4. Approve the order and send it to the vendor.
5. Receive the goods and bill them.
6. Follow your purchasing on the workspace and the purchases by vendor report.