Purchasing
Buying runs in four steps, and you may start at any of them:
Order what you want → Receive what arrives → record the supplier's invoice → pay it.
Only the receipt moves stock. An order is a promise, an invoice is a demand for money, a payment is money leaving. A clinic that never writes orders can go straight to receiving.
Find it under Money → Purchasing.
Where to Find It
Click an address to open that screen on your own clinic. The first click asks which clinic you are, then remembers it. Addresses holding a {id} need a specific record, so they are shown but not linked.
| Screen | Address |
|---|---|
| Purchase orders | /inventory/purchase-orders |
| New order | /inventory/purchase-orders/create |
| Goods receipts | /inventory/goods-receipts |
| Receive goods | /inventory/goods-receipts/create |
| Purchase returns | /inventory/purchase-returns |
| Supplier invoices | /inventory/purchase-invoices |
| Supplier payments | /inventory/supplier-payments |
| Outstanding payables | /inventory/reports/payables |
| An item's purchase history | /inventory/items/{id}/purchases |
Ordering
Purchase orders → New order. Choose the supplier, the branch the order is for, and the lines: item, quantity and the price you expect to pay. Which store the goods go into is decided when they arrive, not here — an order is a request, and a delivery can be split between stores.
The price is per the unit the item is held in, whatever unit you type the quantity in: ten cartons of twelve at 5 each is 600, not 50. The order total is shown as you type, with your order-level discount and carriage applied.
An order moves through draft → sent → part received → received, and may be cancelled while nothing has arrived against it.
- A draft is yours to change freely.
- Sent means it has gone to the supplier: the lines are no longer editable, because a copy of them is now in somebody else's hands.
- Part received and received are set for you by the receipts, never chosen by hand.
- Cancelling a partly received order keeps what arrived and closes the rest. It records who cancelled it and when.
Receiving
Goods receipts → Receive goods, or open the order and receive against it — then the supplier, the store and the lines are filled in for you and the supplier cannot be changed.
You may receive less than was ordered, in more than one delivery, and the order tells you what is still outstanding.
A receipt is a draft until you post it. Posting is what:
- moves the stock into the store,
- restates the item's average cost,
- raises what you owe the supplier.
A posted receipt cannot be edited or deleted. If the goods go back, record a return; if the quantity was typed wrong, record a correction on the item. Nothing that has moved stock is ever quietly unwound.
Delivery charges
A receipt has an additional charges field — freight, customs, whatever was paid to get the goods here. It is spread across the lines in proportion to their value, so the expensive line carries more of it than the cheap one, and the parts always add back to the figure you typed.
That is why every purchase shows two numbers:
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Unit price | What the supplier charged |
| Landed cost | What the item actually cost you, charges included |
The landed cost is what the item is valued at on the shelf. A supplier who quotes less but charges for delivery is only visible in the second column.
TIP
A free sample lowers your average cost, and that is correct: you now hold more units for the same money.
Returning Goods
Purchase returns lists them, and you raise one from the receipt it undoes — that is where the quantities and the costs are.
You cannot return more than arrived, however many times you press save. The goods leave at what they were carried at, which is the figure the supplier is being asked to credit.
The Supplier's Invoice
Supplier invoices. An invoice is the supplier asking for money, and it is attached to the receipts it covers — one invoice may cover several deliveries.
The invoice does not move stock. It is what turns "goods arrived" into "this much is due on this date", using the payment terms on the supplier record.
Paying
Supplier payments. Record the amount, how it was paid, and which invoices it settles. What you do not allocate stays on the supplier's account as an unapplied credit.
Paying more than is owed leaves the supplier in credit, and the balance says so rather than pretending it is zero.
What You Owe
Outstanding payables shows one row per supplier, split by how old the debt is:
| Band | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Current | Not yet due |
| 30 / 60 / 90+ | Days past due |
The totals reconcile with each supplier's statement, because both are read from the same documents.
What an Item Has Cost
Open an item's stock movements and click Purchase history. It lists every posted receipt of that item — newest first — with its date, supplier, quantity, unit price and landed cost.
Drafts are not listed. A price nobody has agreed to pay is not a price you bought at.
Who Can See It
Purchasing is costed by definition — a supplier balance is what you owe, a receipt is what you paid — so every purchasing screen needs See costs as well as its own permission. There is no half-open version of these screens.
| Permission | Lets somebody |
|---|---|
| See purchase orders | Read orders and an item's purchase history |
| Raise and edit purchase orders | Write an order, send it, cancel it |
| Receive goods and return them | Post a receipt and raise a return — the two actions that move stock |
| Record supplier invoices | Enter and cancel what the supplier asks for |
| Record supplier payments | Pay a supplier and read outstanding payables |
| See suppliers | Open the supplier list and statements |
A role that holds a purchasing key without See costs is refused at the door rather than shown an empty screen. Grant the two together on the roles screen.
Limits
- A purchase document always names a supplier, chosen from your supplier records and never typed as free text. Inactive suppliers are not offered.
- A receipt raised against an order takes the order's supplier and cannot be pointed at another one.
- Editing or deleting anything that moved stock or money is refused. The way back is a return, a reversal or a credit — each of which leaves both entries visible.
- Cost figures are stamped when the receipt is posted and never recomputed, so a later price change does not rewrite last month's valuation.
See Also
- Suppliers — the companies you buy from and what you owe them
- Stocked items — the unit, the packs and the cost figures
- Stock movements — everything that moved, and why
- Journal and Chart of Accounts — where the purchase postings land