Purchase orders are documents used to order or reorder items across multiple shops from an external vendor. They allow for centralized purchasing workflows and maintaining a record of ordered products across vendors, ensuring your inventory numbers stay accurate.

You can also create master orders to manage purchase orders for different vendors and shops from a central location, such as a warehouse or distribution center.

Creating a purchase order

1. Navigate to Inventory > New Order.

   

2. For multi-store accounts, in the Location drop-down, select the shop you're creating the purchase order for. The shipping address for the shop you select will appear on the purchase order.

   

3. Under Details, in the Vendor drop-down list, select the vendor.
4. Click Save Changes.

You will be brought to the main page for this purchase order.

Populating a purchase order

Vendor information

You can update the vendor's account number, contact information, representative's name, and general notes in the vendor section of the purchase order page.

To add further information, click on the Vendor's name to be brought to the detailed vendor page.

Here, you can adjust the vendor's currency, change catalog settings, update from catalog, and add the vendor's website.

Adding notes

You can add notes to your purchase order by typing them into the General Notes section.

Any text in the General Notes field will also appear in the Purchase Orders list (found under Inventory > Purchase Orders).

Understanding the Check In Summary and Costs sections

Purchase orders allow you to see their subtotal and the quantity and cost of all ordered items in comparison to checked-in items. Purchase orders include the following key fields in their Check In Summary and Costs sections:

• Received Total: The sum of the cost of checked-in items before the discount, shipping charges and/or credits are applied. As you check in items and save the purchase order, this field is updated. When you click Print > Order, this field is included in the document.
• Ordered Total: The sum of the cost of all ordered items before the discount, shipping charges and/or credits are applied. When you click Print > Order, this field is included in the document.
• Subtotal: The sum of the cost of all ordered items before the discount, shipping charges, and/or credits are applied.
• Ordered Total (under Costs): The sum of the cost of all ordered items including shipping charges, other adjustments, and/or discounts are applied.

You can also create custom fields for additional purchase order information.

Adding items

To order your items, you will need to add your desired items to the purchase order. To import many items at once, you can batch import items into a purchase order. You can also manually search for items, add by reorder points, or add special order items.

Applying costs

The cost in the UNIT COST column is based on the cost of the item from the specified vendor, adjusted to include shipping and/or discounts, and then divided by the number of units in ORDER QTY. for each item.

1. You can adjust the costs by clicking into the RETAIL PRICE box for the item and typing in a new retail price.

   The default price in this field is the item's cost from the selected vendor. You can optionally adjust the item's cost per vendor, which will affect the default price for this purchase order as well as future transactions involving this item.

2. Using the Shipping Cost drop-down list, select your preferred shipping cost option.

   

   There are three options for how to handle shipping costs for your purchase order:

   • Don't apply to items

     Choosing this option means that the items' unit cost is unaffected. This has previously been the default option.

     

   • Split based on vendor cost

     Choosing this option means that the shipping costs are applied based on the current unit cost of each item.

     

   • Split evenly based on item quantity

     Choosing this option means that the shipping costs are applied based on the quantity of items ordered from each vendor.

     

3. Using the Discount drop-down list, select your preferred discount option.

   Select $ or % to determine if the discount will be a dollar amount or a percentage.

   

   To add a discount and still be able to edit the unit cost, you must select Don't apply to items for both the Shipping and Discount fields.

   There are four options for how to handle discounts for your purchase order:

   • Don't apply to items

     Choosing this option means that the items' unit cost is unaffected. This has previously been the default option.

     

   • Split based on vendor cost

     Choosing this option means that the discount is applied based on the current unit cost of each item.

     

   • Split evenly based on item quantity

     Choosing this option means that the discount is applied based on the quantity of items ordered from each vendor.

     

   • Apply manually to individual items

     Choosing this option allows you to apply a discount to one or more specific items.

     

4. Once you have selected your shipping and discount preferences, click Apply changes to confirm your choices.

   

   If you have chosen to apply a discount to individual items, you must enter the appropriate discount in the UNIT DISCOUNT section.

   

   Whichever options you choose for Shipping and Discount will be saved for the next purchase order you create.

5. To change your order's status, click the Ordered button or select Ordered from the drop-down list under Status and then click Save Changes.

   

What's next?