To order products, you'll first need to create a purchase order (PO), then add items to it.

POs are used to order items from an external vendor. They centralize purchasing workflows, and record what inventory you’ve ordered from different vendors.

You can add products to a PO in four ways:

• Manually searching for items: Add items individually. This is helpful when you have a smaller PO or need to add a few items to an existing PO. To add a large batch of items, use a spreadsheet import instead.
• Adding items using manual reordering: Add inventory to the PO using item reorder points and reorder levels.
• Adding special order items: Add a special order item to an unsent PO.
• Importing items to the order with a spreadsheet: Add items to a PO in bulk. This also allows you to add items to Retail POS at the same time as you’re creating a purchase order.

Manually adding items to a purchase order

A purchase order must exist before you can add items to it.

1. Create a purchase order, or navigate to Inventory > Purchase Orders to select an existing PO.
2. From within the PO, scroll down to Items.

3. Locate the item using the Locate a product field. You can enable or disable the Search all catalogs checkbox to search all vendors for the item. To search items from a selected vendor, uncheck the box and use the dropdowns to filter categories and brands.

   

4. Click Add item. If the field is blank, clicking Add items displays all items across all shops.

   • If only one item matches your search, it will be automatically added to your purchase order.
   • If multiple items match your search, select the item you want to add.
   • To select multiple items, check the boxes for each item and then + Add Selected.

   

5. Once you’re finished adding items to the PO, send it to the vendor.

Once an item is added to a PO, you can adjust order quantity, price, unit cost, and vendor ID under the item’s entry in the Items section.

Adding items to a purchase order using manual reordering

If you’ve set item reorder points and reorder levels for the currently selected shop, you can add items that have reached their reorder points for the selected vendor to your PO. To do this, items must have:

• Reached their Reorder points in the currently selected shop.
• A Vendor ID from the purchase order vendor, or have its Default vendor set to the purchase order vendor.
• Have a Quantity in stock and on backorder that is less than or equal to the Reorder point for the item.

A purchase order must exist before you can add items to it. To add items using manual reordering:

1. Create a purchase order, or navigate to Inventory > Purchase Orders and select an existing PO.

2. In the Add items section, check the Add items using manual reordering box.

   

   If needed, under Filters, use the category dropdown to select All categories, or select items from a specific category, or use the brands dropdown to select All brands, or select items from a specific brand.

3. Click Generate PO > Ok. Your items will be added to the purchase order. If there are no items to add, an error message will display.
4. Once you’re finished adding items to the PO, send it to the vendor.

If you have access to Lightspeed Analytics and the demand forecasting feature, you can also add items using demand forecasting calculations.

Adding special order items

If a special order item already exists for the currently selected shop, you can add this to your purchase order if it has not already been sent. To add special order items to an existing, unsent purchase order:

1. Create a purchase order, or navigate to Inventory > Purchase orders and select an existing PO.

2. In the Special orders tab, add individual items to the purchase order by checking the box beside the item you want to add. You can also select and add all the items by checking the box beside the +Add selected to PO button at the bottom of the list.

   

3. Click +Add selected to PO.

   

In the Special orders tab, the status for the item will change to Ordered and appear under Special orders on purchase.

To remove a special order item from a purchase order without deleting it, click Remove in the item row on the Special orders on purchase page. If the item also exists in the purchase order, its quantity will be deducted from the total order quantity.

To permanently delete a special order item, click the Delete (trash can) icon. This action cannot be undone.

Once you’re finished adding items to the PO, send it to the vendor.

Importing items into a purchase order using a spreadsheet

You can bulk add items to a purchase order using a CSV or XLSX spreadsheet. These can be items you have ordered before, or new items you want to add to Retail POS and order at the same time.

Retail POS determines whether an item exists already by checking item values. For each item in your import file, Retail POS checks for a matching:

• System ID
• Vendor ID
• UPC
• EAN
• Custom SKU
• Manufacturer SKU

If any of these fields match an existing item, Retail POS won’t create a new item. If you select Update existing items when you import the file, your products will be updated with the new information.

You must create separate import files for each vendor. If you purchase the same item from multiple vendors, you can add that item to as many vendor-specific import files as needed.

Importing vendor catalog items

If you use vendor catalogs, you can import catalog items to a purchase order. If the item isn't in your inventory, the item will be created based on the details in the catalog.

To import using vendor catalogs you must select a vendor for the purchase order and then make sure the items use the correct Vendor ID in the import file. The Vendor ID is the vendor's part number for the item.

To choose a vendor for your purchase order, from the Order tab:

1. Scroll down to Details.
2. In the Vendor dropdown, either select an existing vendor, or type the name of a new vendor and click Add vendor.
3. Click Save changes.

Preparing the import file

When a new item is added to Lightspeed Retail through purchase order import, the item's default vendor is set to the vendor you selected for the purchase order. Since a purchase order is specific to a vendor, you should create a separate item import file for each of your vendors.

An import file can have a maximum of 500 items.

1. Download the import file template or use a .CSV file formatted identically to the template:
   • Purchase order product import template for multicurrency shops
   • Purchase order product import template for single-currency shops
2. Open the import file template in Excel or Google Sheets.

To avoid import errors, do not edit, add, delete, or reorder the columns in the template.

Uploading the import file

Before you can upload your import spreadsheet, check for any data which can cause the data import to fail. The steps below are based on using Excel to edit your spreadsheet.

• Remove special characters to avoid issues with how data is displayed.
• Correct rows that extend into other columns.
• Erase cells with N/A so that they have a blank field instead.
• Change cells with scientific numbers, such as 4.001E+11 (usually UPC or EAN values), so that they are regular integers instead, such as 40010000000.
• Remove line breaks from cells or rows.
  1. Highlight all of the data in the spreadsheet.
  2. Press Ctrl+F or Find.
  3. Click the Replace tab.
  4. In the Find box, while holding Alt, type 0010. No change will display changes, but a character has been added to the field. Don't type anything in the Replace box.
  5. Click Replace all.
• Add a missing 0 to UPC numbers. Some spreadsheet software will remove the leading 0 from UPC numbers. To correct this, add "0" (a zero in apostrophes) to the beginning of a UPC number. Typically, UPCs are 12 digits long, so you can sort your spreadsheet by the UPCs and fix any that are 11 digits or fewer. This isn't always the case with UPCs, so check your product's barcode.

After you've prepared the import file and verified the data, you're ready to upload the file to a purchase order in Lightspeed Retail.

Only one purchase order import file can be imported at a time, per store.

1. Navigate to Inventory > New Order.

   

2. Choose an option from the Vendor dropdown.
3. If you have a multi-store account, select the shop you’re creating the purchase order for in the Location dropdown. The shipping address that appears on the purchase order is linked to the selected shop. Otherwise, skip this step.
4. Click Save Changes.

5. Click Import.

   

6. If you want to update existing items in your inventory with the new values in the import file, select Update existing items.

   

7. Click Upload CSV File and select the file.

8. Under Assign columns, match the column headings of your import file to the appropriate product field in Retail POS.

   

9. Click Import Items to Purchase Order to confirm. It can take several minutes for the import to finish. It’s safe to navigate away from the page.

When the order is completed, the job will change status. You may need to refresh the page to display the outcome of the upload.

• If the upload was successful, the uploaded items will be displayed in the purchase order screen.

  

• If the upload was unsuccessful, the page will state the issue. Correct any errors and reupload.

  

Once you’re finished adding items to the PO, send it to the vendor.

Adjusting item quantities

To change the quantity of an item in an order, from the purchase order:

1. Navigate to the Order tab.
2. Under Items, click into the Order qty. field.
3. Enter the number of items you’d like to include in the order. The update will save automatically.

The PO will also display the quantity on hand and quantity on order for an item.

• Qty. on hand: how many items you currently have in your store.

• Qty. on order: how many items are ordered or backordered on existing purchase orders for the same shop location. To be included in this column, the existing purchase orders statuses must be Ordered or Check-in.

  

If you use QuickBooks, the Shipping and Other amounts under Costs are exported to QuickBooks. The Discount % amount is applied to the item Unit cost and is factored into the Total cost of the purchase order.

What's next?

Attachments

• Retail (R-Series) purchase order product import template - multicurrency enabled.csv96 Bytes
• Retail (R-Series) purchase order product import template - multicurrency disabled.csv93 Bytes