The pallet arrives on Tuesday. The supplier’s invoice arrives eleven days later.
In between, that stock is sitting on your shelf and, unless you tell the system otherwise, missing from your figures. Anyone checking availability is working from a number that’s wrong in the direction that costs you sales. This separates the two events, so goods arrive when they arrive.
What you can do
- Receive against a purchase order, line by line, with ordered, already received and still outstanding shown as you go.
- Choose which warehouse the goods land in.
- Record part deliveries: take what came, leave the rest outstanding.
- Note what you rejected as well as what you accepted.
- Keep a list of receipts, each against its order, with date, line count and status.
How it works in practice
Start from the order (Procurement → Goods Receipts → Receive goods). Pick the purchase order and its lines load with three numbers each: ordered, received so far, and remaining. The quantity defaults to the remaining amount, because a full delivery is the common case and retyping it is just an opportunity to be wrong.
Say where it went. Choose the receiving warehouse and stock arrives there immediately on submit, through the same single stock path everything else uses, so the movement shows in the product’s history with the receipt as its cause.
Take part of a delivery. Enter what actually turned up. The order keeps the remainder outstanding, so the next lorry gets received against the same order without anyone tracking the difference on paper.
The purchase invoice then stops moving stock. This is the important consequence and the reason the whole thing exists. With goods receipts switched on, the supplier’s invoice is a financial document only: the goods were already booked in at the receipt, so nothing gets counted twice. With the extension off, the purchase invoice moves stock the way it always did.
Good to know
- You’ll need the Procure-to-Pay extension switched on (Settings → Extensions), and stock switched on first, since this moves stock and there has to be stock to move.
- It’s named for exactly what it does. This is goods receipt against a purchase order. It’s the groundwork for three-way matching between order, receipt and invoice, but it isn’t three-way matching: there’s no tolerance checking, no match board and no payment gate. If you’re evaluating against a procurement suite, that’s the line.
- A receipt moves stock, but doesn’t post an accrual. The accounting for the purchase still happens on the supplier’s invoice. In a period where goods arrived but the invoice hasn’t, the stock is in your figures and the liability isn’t yet. Remember it at a year end, and raise it with your accountant if the amounts are material.
- There are no requisitions or approval steps. Somebody with the permission receives goods, and any approval you need happens before the purchase order.
- The quantity you reject is recorded, not returned. Sending it back is a conversation with your supplier and, usually, a credit note.