1. Purpose
Take a purchase order from raising it to closing it out, and set out exactly what each status and each action does to the paperwork and to the stock, so that nobody has to guess whether inventory is about to move. Covers all seven statuses, what is available in each, and the one action that can silently double a delivery.
2. Scope
Covers raising a purchase order, getting lines onto it, moving it through the statuses, receiving against it from the dashboard, rejecting goods, and closing it out, along with the limits on editing and deleting one. Creating the supplier record itself is covered in SWI-025. Receiving on the handheld scanner follows the same rules but is not stepped through here. Correcting the stock itself, once received, is done on the Inventory screen and is covered in SWI-004.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Buyer or operations lead: raises the purchase order, confirms it, and decides when it is closed.
Receiving team: counts the delivery and enters accepted and rejected quantities.
Support: checks what has already been receipted against a purchase order before anyone receives against it a second time.
4. When you need this
Stock is being bought in and needs recording before it arrives.
A purchase order was raised but the goods are not showing as Incoming.
A delivery has arrived and needs booking in against a purchase order.
Part of a delivery was damaged or short and needs recording as rejected.
A purchase order was superseded or duplicated, and it is not clear which one the goods were booked against.
A purchase order is finished in the warehouse but still reads Partially Received.
Delete is greyed out and it is not clear why, or what to do instead.
A purchase order was marked finished and no stock ever appeared.
5. Key concept: the status and the stock are two separate things
What people assume | What actually happens |
|---|---|
Mark as Received books in whatever is still outstanding. | It changes the status and nothing else. No stock moves, no bin changes, no fee is charged. Outstanding lines simply stay outstanding on a closed purchase order. |
Receive All books the delivery in. | It only fills the form in. Every quantity is a suggestion until Submit is pressed, and Submit is the step that moves stock. |
Receive All knows what has already arrived. | It knows only what has been receipted against this purchase order. Goods booked against a different purchase order are invisible to it, so it will offer to receive them all over again. |
Reject cancels a receipt or reverses stock. | It records units that were refused. It never moves stock. It counts towards the line's total, so it closes the balance out rather than undoing anything. |
Cancelling or deleting a purchase order takes its stock back off the shelf. | Neither touches received stock. Both are paperwork actions only. |
A receipt can be undone if it was entered by mistake. | It cannot. There is no un-receive. An over-receive is corrected by adjusting the bin on the Inventory screen, and the receipt stays on the record as history. |
The system will stop you receiving more than was ordered. | It will not. Receiving more than the ordered quantity is allowed deliberately, because deliveries genuinely run over. A warning appears; it does not block Submit. |
6. The status lifecycle
Seven statuses exist. The normal route runs Draft, Open, Confirmed, Partially Received, Received, and nothing moves between them on its own; every step is a button somebody presses.
Status | What it means | Lines editable | Counts as Incoming | Buttons offered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Draft | Raised but not committed to anything. Where a new purchase order lands. | Yes | No | Set Status to Open |
Open | Treated as sent to the supplier. Still fully editable. | Yes | No | Confirm Order, Cancel Order |
Confirmed | The supplier has accepted it. Lines lock here, and the full ordered quantity starts counting as Incoming. Receiving becomes possible. | No | Yes, the full ordered quantity | Start Receiving, Mark Completed, Cancel Order |
Partially Received | At least one receipt has been submitted. A purchase order sits here after receiving even when every line came in full. | No | Yes, the outstanding balance only | Continue Receiving, Mark as Received |
Received | Closed. Only ever set by hand; receiving never reaches it on its own. | No | No | Cancel Order |
Cancelled | Abandoned. Paperwork only, and any stock already received stays received. | No | No | Reopen Order, which returns it to Open |
Request Declined | Defined in the product but nothing ever sets it, and it offers no buttons at all. A purchase order in this status cannot be moved from this screen. | No | No | None |
Two things in that table are worth reading twice. Confirmed is the gate: nothing is Incoming and nothing can be received until it is pressed, which is why a purchase order left in Open looks like it has done nothing. And the same closing action carries two different labels depending on where you are standing, Mark Completed on Confirmed and Mark as Received on Partially Received. Both do exactly the same thing, and neither adds stock.
7. Procedure — raise a purchase order
Open Products, then Purchase Orders, and click Create New Order.
Choose the Supplier and the Warehouse. These two are the only required fields; the purchase order will not save without them. Adding the supplier record itself is SWI-025.
Fill in whatever else you have. Expected arrival, payment terms, shipping carrier, tracking number, reference number, a note to the supplier and tags are all optional.
Add any costs that sit on the order rather than the goods under adjustments: freight, customs duties, discount, foreign transaction fee, insurance, rush fee, surcharge and other.
Save. The purchase order lands in Draft, and its number is generated for you.
Fill in the reference number if the supplier uses one. It is the field that shows on the purchase order list, and it is what makes a duplicate obvious before anyone receives against the wrong document. Section 12 is what happens when nobody checks.
8. Procedure — add the lines
Lines can only be added or changed while the purchase order reads Draft or Open. There are two routes, and they behave differently.
One at a time. Click Add product to purchase order and search. The search matches the SKU, the product name, the variant title, the barcode and any SKU aliases, so a product whose code is not what you expect can still be found by name. If a supplier's code returns nothing, search the product name instead and then teach the catalogue that code, per SWI-036.
In bulk from a spreadsheet. Click Upload Line Items, then Download CSV Template. The columns are sku, quantity, unit_of_measure, unit_price, tax_rate and subtotal; only sku and quantity are needed, and subtotal is worked out for you when it is left blank. Upload the file and the result reports how many rows went through and how many did not, with the rejected rows offered back as a downloadable error file naming the row and the reason.
The upload matches on the sku column alone. SKU aliases are not consulted here even though the search box honours them, so a file written in a supplier's own codes has to be translated before it is uploaded. A rejected row stops only itself and the rest of the file still lands.
Once the lines are right, press Set Status to Open, then Confirm Order. Confirming is what makes the goods count as Incoming and what makes receiving possible, and it locks the lines.
9. Procedure — receive a delivery
Open Products, then Purchase Orders, from the dashboard menu.
Open the purchase order. It must read Confirmed or Partially Received. A purchase order in Draft or Open cannot be received against; confirm it first.
Check the Receipts section before doing anything else. It lists what has already been booked in against this purchase order.
Click Start Receiving, or Continue Receiving if some of the delivery is already in.
Set the Warehouse Location under Bulk Receive if the whole delivery is going to one bin. Individual lines can still be pointed elsewhere.
Enter the accepted quantity against each line, or press Receive All to fill every line with its outstanding balance and adjust from there.
Enter a rejected quantity against any line where goods were refused, damaged or short.
Add a note and a photo of the delivery if there is anything to record.
Click Submit. Accepted units go into the bin at this point and the purchase order moves to Partially Received.
9A. Closing a purchase order out
Submitting a receipt always leaves the purchase order at Partially Received, even when every line has been received in full. Nothing closes it automatically.
Open the purchase order and click Mark as Received to finish it. That flips the status only, so it is safe on a purchase order with lines still outstanding, which is the right move when a delivery is short and the balance is never coming.
Cancel Order does the same job for a purchase order that is being abandoned rather than completed. Neither action moves stock.
9B. When the goods went onto the wrong purchase order
This happens when a purchase order is superseded by a second one carrying the same lines, and the delivery is booked against the first. The stock is right and the paperwork points at the wrong document.
Do not press Receive All on the second purchase order. Its lines show a full outstanding balance because nothing has been receipted against it, and Submit would book the whole delivery in a second time.
Mark as Received on the second purchase order instead. The duplicated lines stay unreceived on it, which is correct, and the outstanding quantity drops out of Incoming.
10. Verification
The saved purchase order carries a generated number and reads Draft.
The line count and the total match the supplier's paperwork before Confirm Order is pressed, because neither can be changed afterwards.
After confirming, the ordered quantity shows in the Incoming column on Inventory for those SKUs.
The Receipts section on the purchase order lists the receipt, with the accepted and rejected quantities and the bin.
The Inventory screen shows the accepted units in the bin they were received into, and nothing extra.
Rejected units appear on the receipt and nowhere in inventory.
A closed purchase order reads Received, and its outstanding quantity no longer appears in the Incoming column on Inventory.
Incoming can take a little while to catch up after a status change. It settles on the next inventory recalculation for those items rather than the instant the status flips.
11. Constraints and caveats
Full access to Purchase Orders is needed to raise, receive, confirm or close one.
Supplier and warehouse are the only fields required to save. Everything else can be added later, while the purchase order stays in Draft or Open.
Purchase order numbers are generated in sequence and cannot be typed in. A supplier's own number goes in the reference number field.
Lines can only be added, changed or removed in Draft and Open. Confirming locks them.
A purchase order can only be edited while it reads Draft or Open. Once confirmed, lines, quantities and prices are locked.
The only route back to an editable purchase order is Cancel Order followed by Reopen Order, which returns it to Open. Everything already received against it stays received.
Delete is available only in Draft and Open. It is greyed out in every other status, with no explanation given.
Deleting a purchase order archives it. It never removes stock that has already been received, and the receiving record is kept.
A receiving fee is charged per receipt, where one is configured. Booking the same delivery in twice charges twice.
Rejected quantities close out a line's balance in the same way accepted ones do, so a line rejected in full will not be offered again by Receive All.
Only Confirmed and Partially Received purchase orders count towards Incoming. A purchase order left in Open contributes nothing.
Where a purchase order is fed in from an external system, that system tracks what is received on every receipt and may close the purchase order on its own terms.
Request Declined offers no actions at all. A purchase order that somehow reaches it cannot be progressed from this screen.
12. Worked example
A purchase order is superseded by a second one carrying the same lines plus an extra item, and the first is cancelled. The delivery is then received against the cancelled purchase order rather than against its replacement. This is the most common way the paperwork and the stock end up pointing at different documents.
What was observed | What it meant |
|---|---|
The first purchase order reads Partially Received with every line received in full. | The goods were booked in exactly once. Nothing is missing and no count is wrong. |
The second purchase order shows every line at zero received. | The receipts hang off the first document. The second has no record of the delivery and never will. |
Receive All on the second purchase order offers the full ordered quantity. | It counts only what has been receipted against that purchase order, and nothing has. Submitting would double a delivery already on the shelf. |
The extra item has been received against the second purchase order. | That purchase order is genuinely part-received, which is why Delete is greyed out on it. |
Both purchase orders carry the same supplier reference. | The duplication is visible on the list all along, and a reference check at receiving time catches it. |
The stock never needs correcting here. What needs correcting is the paperwork, and the safe move is Mark as Received on both, with a fresh purchase order raised for anything genuinely still outstanding.