Buy From Suppliers

Use the full purchasing workflow when you need to prove what was ordered, what arrived and what the supplier billed.

Create and send a purchase order

1. Go to Purchasing > Purchase Orders and select New Purchase Order.
2. Select the supplier, enter the order dates and add the products or services, quantities, prices and VAT.
3. Save the draft, preview its PDF and email it to the supplier.
4. Use Confirm when the supplier accepts the order. A confirmed order is locked against casual editing.

Record the delivery

1. Go to Purchasing > Goods Received and create a goods received note against the purchase order.
2. Enter the quantities that actually arrived, not the quantities originally ordered.
3. Choose Awaiting receipt to save without posting, Received — post to stock to accept the goods, or Rejected for goods not accepted.
4. Save the GRN. Accepted quantities update tracked stock.

Record and approve the supplier invoice

1. Go to Purchasing > Supplier Invoices and select Create Supplier Invoice.
2. Select the supplier and link the related purchase order. The PO lines and totals are brought into the invoice.
3. Check the supplier's invoice number, dates, quantities, prices, VAT and tracking tags against the source document.
4. Save the draft, then select Approve when the check is complete.

For a PO-linked invoice, approval is blocked when invoiced quantities exceed quantities accepted on the GRNs. Draft, rejected and cancelled quantities do not count as received.

Record payment to the supplier

Open the approved supplier invoice and use its payment action. Select the bank account, date and amount. Partial payments are allowed and remain in the payment history. Removing a supplier payment reverses its ledger effect.

Before paying against a statement the supplier has sent, run Reports > Supplier Statements for that supplier and compare the two. It lists every charge and payment on the account with a running balance, which is the quickest way to find a bill still sitting in draft or a payment they have not allocated.

Pay a bill that is in a foreign currency

A bill from an overseas supplier is paid out of your rand account, and what leaves it is never the amount on the bill. Enter what the payment settles in the supplier's currency, and what actually left your rand account. Add the bank fees where you know them. The bill clears at the rate it was approved at, the fees post as bank charges, and the difference posts as an exchange gain or loss.

Record a credit from a supplier

When a supplier credits you for goods sent back, damaged goods, an overcharge or a discount agreed after the bill, record their credit note rather than a journal. It brings down what you owe them, corrects the VAT you claimed and shows on their statement and on Aged Payables.

1. Open the approved supplier invoice being credited and select Record supplier credit, or go to Purchasing > Supplier Credit Notes and select New supplier credit note.
2. Choose the bill being credited. Its lines fill in with the same products, accounts, VAT and tracking tags. Reduce the quantities or prices to what the supplier actually credited.
3. Enter the supplier's credit note number, the date you received it and the reason.
4. If the goods physically went back, switch on The goods went back to the supplier so they come out of stock. Leave it off for a price-only credit.
5. Save the draft, attach the supplier's credit note PDF, then select Approve.

Approving sets the credit against the bill it was raised on, so that bill's balance comes down straight away. A credit with no bill behind it, or the part of a credit left over once the bill is settled, can be set against another bill from the same supplier on the credit note's page.

Correct a supplier invoice

Edit it while it is a draft. Once approved, cancel and recreate it. An approved invoice with a recorded payment must have the payment dealt with before cancellation, and a locked accounting period can prevent reversal. If the supplier credited part of the bill, record their credit note instead: the bill itself was right when it was issued. A bill with a credit set against it cannot be cancelled until the credit note is.