What Procurement is for
Procurement is for trading and contracting companies. A customer asks for goods, you quote, they send their LPO, you deliver from stock or buy from a supplier, the customer signs for what arrived, and you invoice it. Each of those steps usually lives in somebody's email, a spreadsheet and a paper file. Procurement keeps them on one page per order, and hands the money steps to Accounting's own documents — invoices, bills and receipts — so nothing is entered twice.
The Owner or an Administrator adds it from the Marketplace, where it is listed under Connectors as Procurement. It then appears as a Procurement group in the sidebar, beside Sales and Purchases: Orders, Supplier LPOs, Supplier quotes, Deliveries, Stock, Procurement reports and Procurement setup. You see only the pages your role allows, and opening Procurement itself takes you to the first of them you may use. The people who work in it are given access where everybody else is, under Workspace › Users and Access.
If Procurement is switched off for your company, not added yet, or turned off, its pages say which and who can change it. Turning it off keeps everything it recorded; invoices, receipts and cheques are in Accounting as always.
The flow, from enquiry to paid
| Step | What happens | Where |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Enquiry | A customer asks for something. You register who asked, the site, and what they asked for. | Orders › New enquiry |
| 2. Quotation | Made from the order's lines on your quotation template. Issue it, email it or download it. | The order's Quotation step |
| 3. Customer's LPO | Record their LPO number and date and attach the scan. Their quantities and prices become the contract, and any difference from the quotation is shown. The credit check may warn or refuse. | The order's Customer LPO step |
| 4. Stock | What is free in stock is set aside (reserved) for the order. | The order's Stock and buying step |
| 5. Buying | Anything short is bought on supplier LPOs, one per supplier — after asking several suppliers for prices if you like. Above your company's limit, somebody else approves. | Supplier quotes, Supplier LPOs |
| 6. Goods received | What arrives is recorded on a goods received note (GRN) and goes straight to the order it was bought for. | The supplier LPO |
| 7. Delivery order | Quantities, site and recipient — no prices. Making it ready numbers and freezes it; dispatching it takes the stock out. | The order's Delivery orders step, then Deliveries |
| 8. Signature | The customer signs on your phone, through a one-time link, or on paper you photograph — accepting or refusing each line. What they refuse goes back into stock. | The delivery order |
| 9. Invoice | Prepared from the accepted quantities, dated the delivery date, with the customer's LPO number as its reference. Somebody allowed to approve sales issues it. | The order's Invoice and payment step |
| 10. Paid | A payment for the order — or a cheque, which goes into Post-dated Cheques and becomes a receipt when the bank clears it. | The order, Banking |
What reaches your books
Procurement records and drafts; it never posts by itself. The only things that reach the ledger are Accounting's own documents, and each still needs Accounting's own permission.
| You do this in Procurement | This happens in the books | Permission |
|---|---|---|
| Register an enquiry, issue a quotation, record the customer's LPO | Nothing | Procurement's own |
| Receive goods, dispatch a delivery order, adjust or count stock | Nothing — stock is kept in quantities (below) | Procurement's own |
| Prepare the invoice from delivery orders | A draft invoice under Invoices. Nothing posted | Prepare the customer invoice from a delivery order, or Create sales |
| Issue that invoice | An ordinary invoice: debit Accounts Receivable, credit the sales account, credit Output VAT | Approve sales, always |
| Draft a supplier bill from goods received | A draft bill under Bills, posted when the accountant approves it | Prepare a supplier bill from goods received, or Create purchases; approving needs Approve purchases |
| Record a payment | An ordinary receipt: debit the bank, credit Accounts Receivable | Record payments, always |
| Take cheques | Nothing until the bank clears each one; then one ordinary receipt | Record a cheque handed over by a customer, or Record payments |
Whether an invoice is paid is never stored in Procurement: the order reads it from Accounting every time it opens.
Words you will meet
| Word | Meaning here |
|---|---|
| LPO | Local purchase order: the order a buyer sends. The customer's LPO is theirs to you; a supplier LPO is yours to a supplier. |
| Contract | What the customer's LPO says: the quantities and prices that are delivered and invoiced. |
| Set aside, reserved | Stock promised to a confirmed order. Nothing else can take it. |
| GRN | Goods received note: what arrived from a supplier, line by line. |
| Delivery order | The paper that goes with the goods: what, where and to whom, with no prices. |
| Acknowledgement | The customer's signature on a delivery order, with what they accepted and did not accept. |
| Post-dated cheque | A cheque dated for later. A promise, not money, until the bank pays it. |
Orders are numbered SO-00001 onwards, delivery orders DO-00001, goods received notes GRN-00001 and stock changes ADJ-00001, each in its own gap-free series. Quotations and supplier LPOs take their numbers from the quotation and purchase order series under Workspace › Document Templates › Document numbers.