Purchasing overview and controls

Go to Purchasing & expenses. The page has six tabs:

Tab	What it is for
Orders	Purchase orders: draft, submit, approve, receive, close
Receipts	Deliveries waiting for verification, and every confirmed, rejected or reversed receipt
Suppliers	The supplier directory
Prices	Approved buying prices and price changes waiting for approval
Invoices	Supplier invoices and payments against them
Expenses	Operating expenses that are not stock

How the pieces fit together

1. Each product has a purchase unit (for example a crate) and items per unit (for example 24 bottles). You set these on the product in the Catalogue.
2. Each product is linked to one or more suppliers, with an approved buying price per purchase unit. A price only becomes approved through a price change, so there is always a record of who set it and why.
3. A purchase order fills in the approved price for each line and flags any line that differs.
4. When goods arrive, someone records the delivery: accepted, rejected and damaged units. Stock only goes up when the delivery is confirmed.
5. The supplier’s bill is posted as a supplier invoice against the order.

Two kinds of cost stay separate. The approved buying price is what the supplier charges per purchase unit. The average cost is the stock value per selling unit, which reports use for cost of sales. Only confirmed deliveries and their reversals change the average cost. Approving a price never changes stock or average cost on its own.

Standard and Strict controls

The current mode shows at the top of the Prices tab. Only an owner, or an administrator with permission to manage branch settings, can change it with Change.

	Standard	Strict
Approved prices recorded	Yes	Yes
Price change approved by the person who asked for it	Allowed	Needs a different approver
Purchase order approved by the person who created or submitted it	Allowed; a draft can be approved directly	Needs a different approver; the order must be submitted first
Order lines at a price other than the approved price	Allowed, but flagged	Must be fixed before the order can be submitted
Delivery cost on receiving	Can be edited	Locked to the order price
Receiving	Post received stock in one step, or Send for verification	Send for verification only
Delivery confirmed by the person who recorded it	Allowed	Never allowed
Product cost edited directly in the catalogue	Allowed	Locked

In both modes every action is in the history, rejected and damaged goods never enter stock, and a receipt can only be reversed with a reason.

Owners in Strict mode

An owner can still approve their own price changes and orders in Strict mode. Each such approval is marked requester approved their own change in the history. Owners still cannot confirm a delivery they recorded themselves.

Second approval for price changes

Below the mode, the Prices tab shows when a price change needs a second approval. A second, different approver is always needed for a back-dated price, one that takes effect before today. In Change, you can also require a second approval when a change is at least a set percentage, or at least a set amount per unit. Second approvals need the high-value price approval permission, which managers and administrators have by default.

Who can do what by default

These are the starting permissions for each role. An owner or administrator can adjust them per person under Users and roles.

Role	Orders	Approve orders	Prices	Receive and confirm	Reverse receipts
Owner, Admin	Yes	Yes	Propose and approve, including second approvals	Yes	Yes
Manager	Yes	Yes	Propose and approve, including second approvals	Yes	Yes
Storekeeper, Inventory	Yes	Yes	Propose and approve	Yes	With a manager PIN
Procurement	Yes	Yes	Propose only	No	No
Accountant	View only	No	View only	No	No

Before you switch to Strict

By default storekeepers can approve orders and prices that someone else created. If you want only managers to approve, remove those permissions from storekeepers first. See the owner set-up guide.