Purchase orders

A purchase order records what you order from a supplier, at what price and for which warehouse. You send it to the supplier as a PDF, record each delivery as a receipt that puts the goods into stock, and close it when nothing more is expected. With Accounts Payable enabled, you then turn what you received into a vendor bill.

Before you begin

• The Purchasing module must be enabled, together with Contacts, Product Catalog, Inventory and Taxes.
• The supplier must exist and be active. See Suppliers.
• To create, send and close orders you need purchasing.order.write. To record receipts you need purchasing.order.receive, which members have by default so warehouse staff can receive goods. See Permissions.
• To email orders, your organization's email provider should be set up. Without one, sending only logs the email (see Send the order).

How purchasing fits together

Purchase order ──Send──▶ Supplier
      │
      └─Receive──▶ Stock receipt (stock ledger, warehouse) ──▶ Stock on hand
                          │
                          └─Create a bill──▶ Vendor bill (Payables) ──Approve──▶ General ledger

1. Order: you create a draft purchase order for a supplier, add lines, and send it.
2. Receive: when goods arrive, you record a receipt. Stocked products go into the order's warehouse and appear in the stock ledger with the order's number.
3. Bill: with Accounts Payable, Create a bill on the order makes a draft vendor bill for the quantities received and not billed yet, at the order's prices. Approving the bill posts it to the general ledger. See Accounts payable and General ledger.

note

Receiving goods changes stock quantities only. Nothing is posted to the books until the supplier's bill is approved in Accounts Payable.

Statuses

Status	Meaning	What you can do
Draft	Being prepared. Not yet sent.	Edit details and lines, Send, Mark as sent, delete.
Sent	Sent to the supplier (by email or otherwise). Locked.	Send again, Receive, Close.
Partially received	Some goods have arrived, some are still expected.	Receive, Close.
Received	Every line has been received in full.	Close.
Closed	Nothing more is expected, whatever is left.	Nothing; the order is kept for history.

The status moves from Sent to Partially received to Received automatically as you record receipts.

Open the purchase order list

1. Select Purchasing in the main menu.
2. Select the Purchase orders tab.

Purchase orders, newest first.

The list shows Number, Supplier, Status, Order date, Expected, Total and Buyer, newest first. Filter by Status, search with Search purchase orders (by number or supplier reference), add the hidden Supplier reference and Deliver to columns, and save views. A supplier's page also lists its purchase orders.

Create a purchase order

1. On the Purchase orders tab, select New purchase order.

2. Fill in the form:

   Field	What it is
   Supplier	Required. Cannot be changed later. Inactive suppliers cannot be chosen.
   Currency	Defaults to the supplier's currency.
   Order date	Defaults to today.
   Expected	When you expect delivery. Must be on or after the order date. Used for the supplier's on-time rate.
   Deliver to	The warehouse receiving the goods. If empty, receipts go to the default warehouse.
   Supplier reference	The supplier's own reference for the order (a quote number, for example).
   Language	Language of the PDF and the email: English, Français, Deutsch or Español. Defaults to your organization's language.
   Buyer	Defaults to the supplier's buyer.
   Notes	Printed on the PDF.
   Terms	Printed on the PDF. Defaults to the terms in the purchasing settings.

3. Select Save. The order is created as a Draft with the next number (for example PO-00001) and its page opens.

Add lines

1. On the draft order's page, in Lines, select Edit lines.
2. Add lines:
   • Add a product to pick a product or variant from the catalog.
   • Add a free-text line for anything that is not in the catalog (freight, a one-off item).
3. For each line, enter the quantity (Qty) and, if needed, a Unit price.
4. Select Save.

Editing the lines of a draft purchase order.

How prices are filled in. Leave Unit price empty (Empty: the supplier's price) to use:

1. the supplier's price for that product or variant, if it is in the order's currency (see Record the products a supplier supplies); otherwise
2. the product's Purchase cost from the catalog, if it is in the order's currency.

If neither exists, enter a price yourself. The supplier's SKU is copied to the line and printed on the PDF.

Taxes. Taxes are calculated by the Taxes module from the supplier company's address and each product's tax class (free-text lines use the Standard class). The order shows the Subtotal, each tax with its rate, and the Total. See Taxes.

Services and non-stocked items. Lines for services, products that do not track stock, and free-text lines are marked Not stocked. They can be received (to track delivery) but do not change stock.

tip

If you change a draft order's Currency, its lines are priced again in the new currency.

The purchase order page

A partially received purchase order with its receipts and bills.

• Header: number, status, supplier and total, with the actions available in the current status: PDF, Send, Mark as sent, Receive, Close, Edit and delete.
• Lines: description, Supplier ref., Qty, Received (once sent), Unit price and Amount, then the subtotal, taxes and total.
• Receipts: each receipt with its date, the number of lines received, the stock movement numbers and the note (once sent).
• Bills: the vendor bills made from the order (with Accounts Payable, if you can view payables).
• Details: order date, expected date, warehouse, supplier reference, currency, language, buyer, the Sent, Received and Closed times, notes and terms.

Select PDF at any time to download the order as a PDF.

Send the order

1. Open the draft order and select Send.
2. Check the email. To is filled in with the supplier's main contact; you can enter several addresses separated by commas. Subject and Message are prefilled in the order's language.
3. Select Send.

The PDF is attached, the order becomes Sent, and the time is recorded in Sent. You can send a sent order again (for example to another address) with Send.

If you placed the order another way (by phone or on the supplier's website), select Mark as sent instead. The order becomes Sent without an email.

An order needs at least one line before it can be sent or marked as sent.

note

If no email provider is configured, you see Marked as sent (no mail server: the email was only logged). The order is still marked as sent, but nothing reached the supplier.

warning

Sent orders are not changed: close them and order again. Once an order is sent, its details and lines are locked. If you need to change what you ordered, close the order and create a new one.

What the PDF contains

The PDF shows your details (from the purchasing settings), the supplier's name and address, the order date, the expected delivery date and the supplier's reference, then the lines with the supplier's references, quantities, unit prices and amounts, the subtotal, each tax and the total, followed by notes and terms. It uses the order's language and the color and footer set in the settings.

Receive goods

Record a receipt each time a delivery arrives. You can receive an order in several parts.

1. Open the sent or partially received order and select Receive.
2. In Receive number, each line still to receive is listed with the quantity left. The quantity field is prefilled with what is left; change it to what actually arrived, or clear it for lines that did not arrive.
3. Set Received on (defaults to today) and, optionally, a Note (a delivery note number, for example).
4. Select Receive.

Receiving part of a purchase order.

What happens:

• Stocked items go into the order's Deliver to warehouse (or the default warehouse), at its default location, valued at the order's unit price. Each one is recorded as a receipt movement in the stock ledger, with the order number as its document.
• The Received quantity of each line increases, and the order becomes Partially received or Received.
• The receipt appears in Receipts with its stock movement numbers.

You may receive more than was ordered on a line (an over-delivery is accepted). Once every line is fully received, there is nothing left to receive.

tip

Use Received on for the day the goods actually arrived. The supplier's on-time rate compares this date with the order's Expected date.

Close an order

When nothing more will arrive (the supplier cannot deliver the rest, or everything is received), select Close and confirm Close number?. The order becomes Closed and no more receipts can be recorded. You can close a sent, partially received or received order.

Bill what you received

With the Accounts Payable module, the order page has a Bills section.

1. Open the order (it must have been sent) and, in Bills, select Create a bill.
2. A draft bill is created for the quantities received and not billed yet, at the order's prices and in its currency, and opens in Payables.
3. Check it against the supplier's invoice, enter the supplier's invoice number, and approve it there.

You can bill each receipt as it comes: every new bill only covers what was received since the last one. If everything received has been billed, Modulix tells you there is nothing left to bill. On the bill, stocked products are charged to the inventory account by default. For the rest of the process (approval, payment scheduling, payments) see Accounts payable.

Delete an order

Only drafts can be deleted. Open the draft, select the delete (trash) button and confirm. To stop a sent order, close it instead.

Settings

An administrator with purchasing.manage can change these in Settings (in the administration menu), on the Purchasing tab:

Setting	Default	Effect
Prefix of purchase order numbers	PO-	Prefix of new order numbers, for example PO-00042.
Default terms of purchase orders	empty	Terms prefilled on new orders.
Main color of PDFs (#rrggbb)	#1f2937	Accent color of the PDF.
Your details on PDFs: address, tax number… (one per line)	empty	Your organization's details printed on the PDF.
Footer of PDFs	empty	Footer printed on each page.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows	Granted by default to
purchasing.order.read	View purchase orders (can be limited to their own or their team's)	Admin, Member
purchasing.order.write	Create, send and close purchase orders (can be limited)	Admin
purchasing.order.delete	Delete draft purchase orders (can be limited)	Admin
purchasing.order.receive	Receive purchase orders into stock	Admin, Member
purchasing.manage	Manage purchasing settings	Admin

"Can be limited" means an administrator can restrict the permission to orders where the person is the Buyer, or to their team's. Creating a bill from an order needs payables.write; seeing the order's bills needs payables.read.

Troubleshooting

Message	Why	What to do
Enter a price on a line	The product has no supplier price or purchase cost in the order's currency.	Enter a Unit price, or record the supplier's price in that currency.
Add at least one line	You tried to send an order without lines.	Add lines with Edit lines.
Only draft orders are changed	The order is sent.	Close it and create a new order.
This warehouse is inactive when receiving	The Deliver to warehouse was deactivated.	Reactivate it in Warehouses.
Nothing received is left to bill	Everything received has already been billed.	Receive more goods first, or open the existing bills.