Purchase: Vendors, Orders & Receiving

Purchase is where you manage everything your business buys from outside vendors.

What Purchase does here

Purchase covers the whole path from "we need to buy this" to "it's arrived and we owe the vendor" — vendors, purchase orders, an optional approval step, receiving, returns, and the vendor's invoice at the end.

Vendors

Before you can buy from someone, you need a vendor record. Purchase keeps a directory of everyone you buy from, so vendor details don't have to be re-entered every time you place an order.

Purchase orders

A purchase order is created against a vendor and lists what you're ordering. As the order progresses, its status tracks where it stands — sent, partially received, or fully received — so you always know what's still outstanding.

Approvals

Purchases can go through an optional approval step before they go ahead — a chance for someone to review an order before it's actually sent to the vendor.

Receiving goods

When goods physically arrive, what actually came in is recorded against the purchase order as a Goods Receipt Note. Receiving updates the order's status automatically, based on how much of each item has been received so far. If only part of an order arrives, it's tracked as partially received — not forced to look complete when it isn't.

Purchase returns

If something needs to go back to the vendor, a Purchase Return records the goods sent back against the original order.

Purchase invoices

The vendor's bill is recorded as a purchase invoice. It can be one of three kinds: a standard tax invoice, a non-tax invoice, or an import invoice recorded in a foreign currency.

Where to go deeper

• How a purchase bill flows into Finance → — a purchase invoice becomes an accounts-payable record in Finance