Purchase orders & bills

Order stock from suppliers, approve the bills they send and pay them on time.

Purchase orders

Purchase orders is an app: if it isn't in your menu, an owner or admin can install it from the App Center. It needs Products, Inventory and Bills, which are installed with it.

Use a purchase order, under Purchases Purchase orders, whenever you order from a supplier. Orders are in your base currency. Stock is ordered in whole quantities. Inventory is on the Growth plan and above.

1. Select New purchase order, or Reorder from a product.
2. Add what to order: any product, whether it is for sale or not.
3. To order something that isn't stock, such as delivery, installation or a service, type it in the item box and select Order “…” (not a stock item), then choose its Category under the line. An order can mix both kinds.
4. Select Mark as sent when you send it to the supplier. By default an order of 500,000 or more (excluding VAT) goes for approval first.
5. When the goods arrive, select Receive stock (or Receive order when nothing on it is stock).

Receiving takes in every line in full, adds the stock at cost, and creates the supplier's bill already approved: debit 1200 Inventory and 1150 VAT input, credit 2000 Accounts payable. Lines that aren't stock are debited to their category instead and move no stock. The order then shows Received & billed. Receiving needs an Owner or Admin, because it approves the bill.

Bills

Bills, under Purchases Bills, are what you owe suppliers for anything other than stock. Bills are on the Growth plan and above.

From draft to approved

1. Enter the bill: supplier, dates, lines with an expense account and tax rate.
2. Select Submit for approval. Anyone can submit a bill.
3. An approver signs it off. By default every bill needs one Owner or Admin, and bills of 5,000,000 or more need a second approval from an Owner.

Final approval posts debit the expense accounts and 1150 VAT input, credit 2000 Accounts payable. A rejected bill can be edited and submitted again.

Bill statuses

Paying bills

• Record payment pays a bill now by bank transfer, card, cheque or direct debit. It posts debit Accounts payable, credit Bank.
• If the payment is more than the bank account holds, the form warns you and shows the balance it would leave. You can still record it, since a bank account can be overdrawn. A cash account can't: the payment is refused until it is topped up.
• Schedule payment sets the date you intend to pay. Change it with Change payment date or remove it with Unschedule.
• On the list, Record scheduled payments due today pays everything scheduled for today in one go.

By default a payment or batch of 3,000,000 or more needs approval.

Payment vouchers

A payment voucher is your own numbered record of a payment out: who was paid, how and from which account, what the payment is for, the amount in words, the accounts it went through, and lines to sign for prepared, checked, approved and received. It is for your files, where the remittance advice is for the supplier.

• When it is made: every payment out gets its voucher number (PV-1001, PV-1002 and so on) the moment it is recorded. You do nothing extra. If the payment went through approval, the approver's name is on the voucher.
• Which payments: bill payments; refunds to customers on credit notes; expense claims paid back (one voucher for each employee in a reimbursement); for a pay run, one voucher for the wages, listing each employee's net pay, and one for the payroll taxes; and payments made without a bill (below). They share one number series.
• Several bills at once: scheduled bills paid as a batch, or a payment batch that was approved, make one voucher per supplier and bank account. A cheque always has a voucher of its own.
• Where to find them: Purchases Payment vouchers lists every payment out, newest first, with search and filters. Select a voucher's number to open it in a side panel with who was paid, what for and from which account, links to the bill and the journal, and Print voucher. You can also print from where the payment was made: Print voucher on a bill's payment and on a reimbursed expense claim, Refund voucher on a credit note, and Wages voucher and Tax voucher on a pay run.
• Earlier payments: a payment recorded before the app was installed shows as "Not numbered" and is given its number the first time its voucher is printed.
• Cancelled payments: when a bill payment, a wages payment or a payroll tax payment is cancelled, its voucher is kept and marked Cancelled, so the number series has no gaps.
• Layout and numbers: in Tools Print design Payment voucher you set the title, the number series, the header, and whether the accounts and the signature lines show.

Paying without a bill

Use New payment on the Payment vouchers page for money that goes out with no supplier bill behind it: rent, a licence fee, a subscription, a one-off purchase. For a supplier's invoice, enter a bill and pay the bill instead, so what you owe that supplier stays right.

• What you enter: who is paid, the date, the bank or cash account it is paid from, the method (bank transfer, card, cash or direct debit), the amount with VAT included, the VAT rate, the expense account it goes to, a reference, and what it is for.
• What it does: it adds a reconciled line to that bank or cash account, posts debit the expense account (and the VAT, when you chose a rate), credit the bank, and gives the payment its voucher number.
• Approval: a payment at or above your payment approval amount (3,000,000 by default) is sent for approval and recorded only when it is approved. The voucher then names both the person who asked and the approver.
• Cancelling: open the voucher from its number and select Cancel payment. The entry is reversed on today's date, the money goes back on the account, and the voucher is kept, marked Cancelled.
• Who can: anyone who may pay bills can record one; cancelling also needs the permission to remove records.

A cheque cannot be used for a payment without a bill; write the cheque against a bill so the cheque register follows it.

Payment vouchers is an app of its own in the App Center and needs Bills and Bank accounts. If you uninstall it, payments keep working without new voucher numbers, and the numbers already given stay on their payments. Petty cash has its own voucher (PCV-), under Banking › Cash.

Debit notes

A debit note is a claim on a supplier: goods sent back, a short delivery, a rebate. Open the bill and select Debit note to choose the lines, or use Purchases Debit notes. It posts debit Accounts payable, credit the cost account and input VAT. Goods sent back come off stock. Apply it to the supplier's open bills, or select Record refund when they pay you back.

Suppliers

Suppliers, under Purchases Suppliers, have the same details as customers, plus a default account and bank details. A supplier whose default account is 1200 Inventory is treated as a stock supplier.

Each supplier has a Supplier ID (required, and no two suppliers share one) and an optional picture, set beside the name in the supplier window. A new supplier starts with the next free ID, such as SUP-0013. To change the prefix or the next number, open the gear on the Suppliers page and select Supplier IDs; the same page gives IDs to suppliers that have none. A supplier's page has the supplier's profile on the left, as a customer's does: the picture, name and ID, then contact details, the business details (tax number, terms, currency, expense account and bank details) and the category, each line with an icon, and Edit at the top. On the right are what you owe, the Actions and a tile for each of bills, purchase orders, payments, purchasing insights and documents.

A bank account always needs its bank's name. Importing a file of suppliers with bank columns makes one approval request for the whole file. The export has a bank_change_waiting column, since it only shows approved details.

A supplier's Statement tile lists its approved bills, your payments and any debit notes in date order, with a running total of what you owe, one list per currency. Copy statement as CSV puts it on the clipboard.