Purchase orders: from request to receiving

Ordering parts by phone and sticky note works right up until it doesn't. Two people order the same windshield. A part arrives and nobody tells the scheduler. A vendor credit for a cracked mirror is promised and never checked. Purchasing gives you one place where every part your business needs is tracked from "we need this" to "it's on the shelf, or on the car."

This article walks through the whole cycle: order requests, purchase orders, sending, receiving, releasing jobs that were waiting, and returns.

When you'd use this

• You order parts for specific jobs and need to know when they'll arrive, so you can book the work.
• You restock shelves or vans from the same handful of vendors every week.
• More than one person orders parts, and you want one person deciding what actually gets bought.
• Your vendors want a PO number, or you want a paper trail for disputes, backorders and returns.

If you buy parts at the supply house on the way to each job and pay by card, you don't need purchase orders. The overhead won't pay for itself.

How it fits together

Four things, in order:

1. Order request. "We need 1 x windshield FW04567GTY for job #1042." Requests come from a job, from someone pressing New request, or from Restock low items. A request is a need; nothing has been ordered yet.
2. Purchase order. One per vendor. When you approve a request, it lands on that vendor's draft order. Twenty windshields requested in a day become two orders: one to Mygrant, one to Pilkington.
3. Delivery. What actually arrived, and where it went: into a warehouse, or straight to the job that was waiting for it.
4. Return. A part going back against the order it came on, with the vendor's RMA and the credit you expect.

A purchase order moves through these statuses:

Before your first order: set up your vendors

Open each vendor you order from and fill in the ordering fields. Ten minutes here saves a phone call on every order.

• Order Email. Where purchase orders are emailed. Use the vendor's order desk, not your sales rep's personal address, if they have one.
• Copy Email To. Optional second address, such as your rep. It gets its own copy of every order.
• How We Send Orders. Email the PO for vendors that take email orders. Print or phone it in for vendors you call.
• Usual Lead Time (days). Used as the expected date on a new order until the vendor gives you a real one. Be honest here: if "next day" really means two days, enter 2.
• Our Account Number. Your customer number with them. It's printed on every order, so the vendor bills the right account.
• Send Automatically. Emails each order the moment it's approved. Leave this off until you've sent two or three orders to that vendor by hand and know the address works.

The typical workflow

1. Requests come in

• From a job. In a guided workflow such as Auto Glass, a technician sourcing parts picks "Order" for anything that isn't in stock. That creates a request tied to the job and the customer, and puts the job on hold waiting for parts.
• New request. Search the price list, or choose It is not in the price list for a one-off. Pick the vendor, the quantity, and optionally the job it's for and the date it's needed by.
• Restock low items. Lists every stocked item below its minimum quantity in a warehouse, after subtracting what's already on order. You tick what to reorder and set the quantity.

Before approving anything, glance at the in stock chip on each request. A request for something you already have three of is usually a request someone didn't need to make.

2. Approve requests (Order requests tab)

Requests are grouped by vendor, with anything that has No vendor yet at the top. For each one you can:

• Approve it, which adds it to that vendor's draft order. Use Approve all to do a whole vendor at once.
• Adjust the quantity or unit cost right in the row.
• Choose or change the vendor.
• Mark it Don't order, with a reason (not needed, already in stock, duplicate, ordered another way).

Approving and Don't order can both be undone from the message that pops up.

Recommended rhythm: approve once or twice a day, per vendor. Stock requests for the same item merge into one line, and fewer, fuller orders mean fewer delivery fees and less receiving work.

3. Approve and send the purchase order

Open the order from the Purchase orders tab and review it while it's still a draft:

• Add a part if you need to.
• Write Notes for the vendor. These are printed on the order.
• Keep anything private in Internal notes.

Then press Approve order. If you change a line after approving, the order drops back to draft and needs approving again. That's deliberate: nobody can quietly add to an approved order.

To send it:

• Email vendors get a secure link to view and confirm the order, plus a PDF copy attached. You can change the address or add a message before it goes.
• Print-or-phone vendors open the PDF to print. Mark the order as sent once you've faxed, dropped off or read it over the phone. Always do this, or the order sits at "not sent yet" and nobody knows it's been placed.
• Send Automatically vendors are emailed as soon as you approve.

The expected date starts at today plus the vendor's lead time. Change it any time, at any status. Individual lines can carry their own date when part of an order is backordered.

4. The vendor confirms

When the vendor opens the link, the order shows Vendor opened it. If they press Confirm order and enter a ship date, tracking number and a note:

• the order's expected date updates;
• any job waiting on those parts is updated with the new date;
• you get a notification.

Ask your regular vendors to use the link. It's the difference between "should be here Tuesday" and "ships Tuesday, tracking 1Z999...".

5. Receive the delivery (Receiving tab)

Purchase orders live under Inventory in the left menu, next to stock, adjustments and the movement history.

When the boxes arrive, open the order. Each line starts at the full quantity still to come, so you only change the lines that came short, then press Receive. If the whole order is there, press Everything arrived instead: it receives every line in full in one click, using the warehouse and destination shown on each line, so check those first if a part should go somewhere other than the default.

A delivery nobody ordered through the system (a counter purchase, a rep dropping off stock, a vendor sending what you phoned for) is received with Receive without an order. Pick the vendor, the warehouse, what came and what it cost; Suprata creates the purchase order already received, so the delivery still has a number, shows in that vendor's history, costs your stock correctly and can be returned against like any other. Add the packing slip or invoice number so you can match the bill later.

• Short deliveries are fine. The rest stays on backorder with its own expected date.
• Over deliveries are fine too. The extra goes into stock.

For parts ordered for a job, choose where they go:

• Straight to job #1042. The part is recorded as arriving in the warehouse you pick and going straight to the job's line in the same step. Your shelf count doesn't change, because the part never sat on it.
• Into stock, with Set aside for job #1042 ticked (the default). The part goes into the warehouse and is reserved for the job. Untick it only if you want the part to be general stock.

If the vendor's invoice price differs from the order, enter the real unit cost. Tick Also update the price list cost if the new price is here to stay.

Put the packing slip number in Delivery notes. When you finish, Suprata shows which jobs now have everything they were waiting for.

6. Release jobs to scheduling (Waiting on parts tab)

This tab lists every job with parts on order. Each shows its expected date, Waiting for shipping info when nobody has a firm date yet, or Everything has arrived.

Release to scheduling sends the job to whoever books appointments. While parts are still coming, the button reads Release early; add a note such as "Glass lands Thursday AM, book Thursday PM or later." The scheduler sees that note.

Jobs in a guided workflow like Auto Glass release themselves when their last part arrives; the button is there for releasing early.

7. Returns

Wrong part, damaged in transit, broke during install, or no longer needed: use Return a part on the order, or New return on the Returns tab. Record:

• how many are going back, and why;
• the vendor's RMA number;
• any restocking fee, and the credit you expect (Suprata suggests quantity x cost minus the fee);
• who absorbs the cost: the shop, the vendor or the technician;
• which warehouse the part leaves from.

Tick Order a replacement and the replacement request is created in the same step. Tick Put it straight on the vendor's next order as well to skip the approval queue.

Then track the return as it happens: Mark sent back, then Credit received (enter the amount), then close it. An open return with no credit after 30 days is money you should be chasing.

8. When things go wrong

• The vendor can't supply part of an order. Use Vendor cannot supply the rest on that line. What arrived stays; the missing quantity goes back on the request list so you can order it elsewhere.
• The whole order is off. Cancel this order works only while nothing has arrived. If the vendor already has it, tell them yourself.
• You're done with an order. Close order once everything is in. Close and cancel the rest does both when you've given up on a backorder.

Everything is recorded

Every order has a full history. You can see who approved it, when it was emailed and to whom, when the vendor opened and confirmed it, and every change to quantities, costs and dates, with the before and after values. When a vendor says "you ordered two," the history settles it.

Who can do what

• Manage Purchase Orders covers approving, sending, editing, setting dates, receiving, returns and releasing jobs.
• Manage Inventory alone can see purchase orders and raise requests, and can receive a delivery without an order, but can't approve or send orders.

When Purchasing was added to your account, every role that could manage inventory was also given Manage Purchase Orders. If you want technicians to request parts but not approve orders, remove Manage Purchase Orders from their role.

A note on cost

The unit cost you enter when receiving is what those parts cost you. When they're later sold on an invoice, that cost is used for your margin, oldest stock first. A return takes the returned parts back out at the cost they came in at, so a returned part is never counted as sold.

This is why entering the real invoice price at receiving matters more than it looks.

Common mistakes

• Receiving the full quantity when a box came up short. Your stock is overstated, and a job may be released for a part that isn't there. Enter exactly what arrived; the rest stays on backorder.
• Phoning an order in and never marking it sent. The order shows Not sent yet, and someone orders it again. Mark it sent as soon as you hang up.
• Leaving the expected date on the default lead time when the vendor has told you the real date. Schedulers book work around that date. Update it, or have the vendor confirm through the link.
• Adjusting stock by hand for a return. You lose the RMA, the credit tracking and the link to the original order. Use Return a part.
• Turning on Send Automatically before checking the order email. A typo means orders silently go nowhere. Send a few by hand first.
• Approving and sending one request at a time all day. Every send starts a new order. Batch your approvals so each vendor gets one or two orders a day.

Related articles

• Vendors and vendor price books
• Warehouses and stock tracking
• The stock movement report
• The job-to-invoice chain
• Built-in roles explained