Purchase orders are used to order or reorder items 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.

To order products, you'll need to add the desired items to the purchase order. You can manually search for items, add items using manual reordering, add special order items, or import items.

Manually adding items

1. Navigate to Inventory > Purchase Orders and select the purchase order you want to add items to.
2. To search for your items across all available catalogs, in the Add items section, enable the Search all catalogs checkbox.

   To search only within items associated with your selected vendor, uncheck the box and use the dropdown Filters to select categories and brands.

   

3. Enter a product or keyword in the search field for the relevant items.

   

4. Click Add item. Clicking Add item with a blank search field displays all items across all shops.
5. 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.

   

6. The items you selected will be added to the purchase order. Optionally, you can make changes like the order quantity and price under the listed Items section.
7. Save Changes.

Items have now been manually added and updated on your purchase order.

Adding items using manual reordering

If you’ve previously set item reorder points and reorder levels for the currently selected shop, you can add the items that have reached their reorder points for the selected vendor to your purchase order.

Items must:

• Have reached their Reorder points in the currently selected shop.
• Have 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.

To add items using manual reordering:

1. Navigate to Inventory > Purchase Orders.
2. Select the purchase order you want to add items to.
3. In the Add items section, check the Add items using manual reordering box to order based on your minimum and maximum inventory quantities.

   

4. (Optional) 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.
5. 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.

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

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. Navigate to Inventory > Purchase Orders.
2. Select the purchase order you want to add items to.
3. In the Special Orders tab, add individual items to the purchase order by checking the box beside the item you want to add, or select and add all the items by checking the box beside the +Add Selected To PO button at the bottom of the list.
   If you add an item that isn't already in the purchase order, the item will be added, and the total quantity will match the special order item quantity.

   

4. Click +Add Selected To PO.

   

A confirmation banner displays, and the status for the special order item automatically changes to Ordered. The selected special orders will now be displayed under Special Orders On Purchase.

To permanently delete a special order item, click the trash bin icon. This action cannot be undone.

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.

Return to your purchase order's main screen by clicking Order from the tabs on the left side.

Importing items into a purchase order

To simultaneously add items to a purchase order and create the items in Lightspeed Retail, you can import items into a purchase order.

Adjusting item quantities

On the Order page of the purchase order, under Items, click into the Order Qty. field to adjust the quantity.

• Qty. On Hand: How many of the items you currently have in your store.
• Qty. On Order: How many items are already ordered or backordered on existing purchase orders for the same shop location. To be included in this column, the existing purchase orders' statuses need to be set to Ordered or Check-In.

When you're done changing the quantity, click outside of the field to save your order quantity change.

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.

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