Overview

   This article will detail vendor invoicing in Cloud Retailer.  

Procedure

To enter an invoice from a vendor

1. Go to the back office > Tools menu > Purchase orders/store transfers
2. Click the "Add purchase order" button
3. Choose a supplier, enter a reference number if you want, choose the location, then start adding products.  
4. To add products, go to the products text box and find the product you want to add, set the quantity, then the cost.  Repeat as needed.
5. Once done confirm that the extended cost is the same as the invoice total, then change the status to "Inventory received". 
6. Save the PO.  Inventory quantities and costing should now be updated.

Status Definitions

• Open / Not received - The PO is open, and the values have no effect on the current inventory.
• Receiving - Once you flip into receiving mode and save, you'll then have the added "quantity received" column.  If you set any "quantity received" not equal to "quantity ordered", the value will turn red.  Once this happens if you save one more time, you'll have a new button to "use the remainder to create a new PO".  After creating a new PO you'll then change the original to "inventory received" for everything to finalize.
• Inventory Received - The PO has been received and the values have been added to the inventory and costs have been adjusted.  This status can be reversed and all values will be backed out if there is a need to make a change or correction.
• Posted - This status is specifically for use with accounting integrations.  Once a PO is set to the status of posted it is locked and can no longer be edited. 
• Inactive - This will hide the PO from view, and the contents will have no effect on inventory.  

Notes about purchase orders

Fixing a PO where there was a mistake

Once a purchase order has been marked as "received" it is read-only.  If you made a mistake on the order and you need to fix it, you can change its status to "Inventory not received" provided you have permission to do so.  Once you do, save it and then you'll be able to edit the PO (quantities and costs), once fixed change it's status back to received.  All costing and quantities will be retroactively fixed.  Please note that any reporting you did on sales and cost of goods sold, etc will be impacted.  With Cloud Retailer, it's very simple to correct a mistake that's impossible to fix in most systems.

Purchase order "Entry time"

If you forgot or it was too busy you can enter a PO and backdate it to a time in the past.  If you set the entry time to last week (as an example),   The costing and inventory levels will true themselves based on the PO being received as of that date/time. 

The product text box/searching for products

The text box for searching for products is very flexible.  You can start typing a description to find an item, or you can type a product code, an alternate product code, or if you've selected a supplier, you can find it by the supplier part number.  Additionally, if you have a barcode scanner you could scan a UPC or supplier part number as well.

How to add shipping costs

To track shipping costs with purchase orders you need to create a Not Contributing to Sales item called shipping (if one does not exist) and add that the PO with its cost.  Cloud Retailer does not currently apply shipping costs to the costs of the products on the PO (landed cost).

What if you want to create an order for a vendor and place it with them without receiving the product?

No problem.  Simply leave the status flag to "Inventory not received" until you're ready.

How do you track the product you ordered independently from the quantity that was received?

That is possible with the Advanced Purchase Order functionality.  You can use it to create orders for one or more locations, view data analytics on products to help make purchasing decisions, etc.  You input the quantity you desire to purchase and it will create purchase orders from that data.  When you receive the PO it can be compared back to the original order to determine differences.   The Advanced Purchase Order tool is a topic in itself and has some other training materials that go along with it.

Why can't I add a "non-inventory" item to a PO?

A non-inventory item is an item that is not typically ordered from a supplier.  An alternative to using this item type for an item that is ordered from a supplier would be to set it to the type of "Not contributing to sales".

Here is a video that highlights the main steps for purchase order creation:

Average Time to Complete

5 minutes