Suppliers and purchasing
The Purchasing tab, the supplier records behind it, and how products are linked to the supplier you buy them from.
Everything you buy in is organised around your suppliers. The Purchasing tab — Inventory → Purchasing — holds four views:
| View | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Orders | Purchase orders, from draft to received. See Purchase orders |
| Suppliers | The businesses you buy from, described below |
| Bills | Their invoices, due dates and what is paid. See Supplier bills |
| Reports | Open orders, stock received but not billed, and what you owe |
Deliveries are received from the order itself. See Receiving stock.
What a supplier record holds
- Name, contact person, email, phone and website
- Postal address and your account number with them
- Their business number — an ABN in Australia, an NZBN in New Zealand, a TIN in the Philippines — checked for a valid format when you save it. New Zealand suppliers also have a separate GST number
- Payment terms: a number of days, days after the end of the month, cash on delivery, or prepaid. Bills take their due date from these
- Typical lead time in days
- Whether their prices include GST, which new orders to them follow
- Notes
Supplier names are unique, ignoring capitals: a second "Acme Parts" is refused and you are pointed at the first one, even when it is inactive.
Linking products to a supplier
Each product can have a preferred supplier and that supplier's own code for it, set in the product's edit screen. The preferred supplier decides which order a low-stock product lands on, and the supplier's code is printed on the order so they know exactly what you mean. Receiving a delivery also remembers the last price you paid that supplier, which is what the next order to them starts from. A product can also list other suppliers you buy it from, each with their own code and price — see Supplier price lists and order imports.
If you recorded supplier names on products or special orders before purchasing existed, each distinct name became a supplier record and those products were linked to it. Changing the supplier name on an existing product or special order matches it to your supplier list the same way, adding it if it is new. Two spellings of the same business become two suppliers: point the products at the right one from their edit screen, then deactivate the spare. Suppliers cannot be merged yet.
Deactivating a supplier
A supplier you no longer use can be made inactive. It disappears from the pickers and cannot be put on a new order, but its old orders and bills stay, and you can still record a late bill from it. Deactivating is refused while it has an order waiting on a delivery — receive or close that first. Reactivate it at any time.
The supplier list can be exported as CSV. Adding, editing and deactivating suppliers needs purchasing.manage.
Special orders
A part ordered in for one customer is still a special order, which carries the supplier, their order reference and its own status. Purchase orders are for stock.
Returning stock to a supplier
Stock going back to a supplier is recorded as an adjustment with the reason returned_to_supplier, so it leaves an audit trail rather than vanishing from the count. There is no return or credit document yet.