What a supplier LPO is

A supplier LPO is your order to a supplier. The document the supplier receives is a Document Generation purchase order, printed on your purchase order template and numbered on your purchase order series. Procurement manages it, as it manages quotations: it is changed, issued and closed from here, never from the Documents screen. The LPO's page adds what the document cannot say — which customer orders it buys for, whether it was approved, and how much has arrived.

Procurement › Supplier LPOs lists them — To receive, Open, Draft, Awaiting approval, Approved, Issued, Closed, Cancelled or All — with the Supplier, Status, how much is Received (Nothing yet, Part received, All received), Expected on, and the Total for people who may see prices. Search by the LPO number, the supplier or the supplier's reference; people who may see prices can also type a total (1,250). The list is newest raised first; Sort gives oldest first, the LPO number either way, and — for people who may see prices — Largest amount first or Smallest amount first. An LPO still in draft has no number and goes last in number order.

Raise a supplier LPO

For a customer order that is short, open the order's Stock and buying step. Still to buy groups what is needed by supplier — the item's usual supplier where one is known, otherwise under No usual supplier yet — and Raise a supplier LPO starts one with those lines — Raise the LPO at the quoted prices for a supplier chosen on a request for quotation. To restock, press Raise a supplier LPO on Supplier LPOs.
Choose the Supplier, where to Deliver to, and when it is Expected on (optional).
Under What to buy, check each line's Item, Description, Quantity, Unit and Price per unit. Left blank, the price is what this supplier last charged on an issued LPO, else the item's buying price. Lines from a customer order are marked For a customer order. Add a line adds another.
Press Raise the draft LPO. It is a Draft: nothing is numbered or sent yet.
On the draft, Lines and terms holds the rest: Expected on (delivery date), Payment terms, What this LPO is for, Delivery address the supplier sees, and each line's Price per unit, Discount % and VAT. Press Save changes.

A line bought for a customer order is allocated to it, up to what the order is short of: the order counts those goods as Coming and stops showing them as short. Anything beyond that is restocking. If a line is later cut below what it was buying for an order, that order shows the shortfall again.

A line can be in any unit the item has — 3 boxes of 12 for an order short of 30 pieces. What it buys for orders is counted in the item's own unit, so the order sees 30 pieces coming and the other 6 are restock. Suggestions are rounded up to whole buying units, at the unit's own buying price when it has one.

Buy for several orders at once

Supplier LPOs › To buy lists everything confirmed orders are short of that nobody has ordered yet, one line per item and supplier covering every order that needs it — so a week's cement is one LPO line, not one per order — with the orders it covers, their customers and when each is needed. Tick the lines and press Raise LPO for that supplier; lines under No usual supplier let you choose one. Lines whose supplier was chosen on a request for quotation come at the quoted price.

Low stock below it lists items at or below their reorder level, less what is already coming on LPOs for nobody in particular, with the suggested quantity (the item's reorder quantity) in its buying unit and its usual supplier; Raise restock LPO starts one.

Approval and issue

Submit approves the draft at once when your company has no approval limit or the LPO is within it. Above the limit it is Awaiting approval, and by default somebody other than the person who raised it must approve it.
The approver presses Approve, or Return for changes with a reason; a returned LPO is a draft again, with the reason shown. Saving a change to an approved LPO sends it back to draft, because an approval is of what was approved.
Issue numbers the LPO and freezes it; Issue now on a draft that needs no approval does both steps at once. It is then Issued and can be sent with Email to supplier or Download PDF, and received against.
If your company is VAT registered, every line needs a VAT code before the LPO goes out: the input VAT on the supplier's bill is claimed from it.

Change an LPO already issued

When the supplier's price changes, or you need more, fewer or a later date, press Revise on the issued LPO and say why.
The revision opens as a draft of the next revision of the same LPO (PO-00031-R1). Until it is issued, the supplier still has the issued one, and goods keep being received against it; the LPO's lines change when the revision is issued.
Change what needs changing and save. The page says what would stop it being issued — asking for less than has already arrived, or changing the item or unit of a line already received.
Press Issue (or Submit where your company approves LPOs). A revision over the approval limit that costs more than what was issued is approved like a new LPO; while it waits, nothing is received. Discard revision throws it away and leaves the issued LPO exactly as it was.

Delivered straight to the customer's site

When raising an LPO for one order, tick The supplier delivers straight to the customer's site: the supplier gets the order's site as the delivery address, and the LPO says to hand the goods to the order's recipient and have them sign the supplier's delivery note. Only what the order needs can go direct — nothing is kept in stock on a customer's site.

When the supplier has delivered, press Record delivery to site on the LPO.
Enter how much of each line was delivered, the supplier's delivery note number and the date they delivered.
Press record. In one step the goods are received, a delivery order is made for the order and dispatched, dated the day the supplier delivered — the date of supply for VAT. The credit check is not asked (the goods are already there), and the delivery order says so.
Get the delivery order signed as usual: send the customer the signing link, or upload the supplier's delivery note they signed.

Record the goods received

On the issued LPO, press Receive goods.
Enter Received on — not a date still to come — and where it arrived under Received at (the LPO's delivery location unless you choose another).
Add the Supplier's delivery note no. and, if the invoice came with the goods, the Supplier's invoice no. (optional).
Under What arrived, enter how much of each line came. More than was ordered is refused unless your company accepts a percentage over; record extra goods as a stock adjustment, or change the LPO.
Add Notes (optional) — damaged boxes, short on the pallet — and press Record goods received. The note is numbered GRN-00001 onwards and listed under Goods received on the LPO.

Stock comes in at the LPO's price after its discount and before VAT — the VAT is recovered through the supplier's bill and was never part of what the goods cost — and the average cost is worked out again. Whatever was bought for a customer order is set aside for that order the moment it is received, so goods bought for Villa 12 are not handed to the next customer who asks. Anything beyond what orders needed is free stock. The LPO's lines show Ordered, Received and Outstanding.

The supplier's bill

Under Goods received, press Draft the supplier bill on the note the invoice is for.
Enter the Supplier's invoice number — it is how the same invoice is caught if it is entered twice — and, if you like, the Supplier's invoice date (optional). Left blank, the bill is dated the day the goods arrived.
Press Draft the bill. For people who can read the books, Open the draft bill takes you to it under Bills; everybody else sees the bill's number, status and total on the goods received note.

The draft has what arrived (less anything reversed), at the LPO's prices, discounts and VAT codes, landing on each item's purchase account or the one mapped under Procurement setup. It posts nothing: the accountant checks it against the supplier's invoice and approves it under Bills, and any difference from the LPO — a price change, freight — is theirs to accept.

If your company chose Draft the bill as goods are received, a goods received note that records the supplier's invoice number drafts its bill at once. If that cannot be done, the LPO's history says why, and the goods received note is kept.
A line with a reverse-charge or import VAT code is never drafted here: the accountant enters that bill.
While the bill is a draft, Discard the draft bill deletes it, and the note can be billed again.
If the accountant voids the bill under Bills, the note stays tied to it until somebody presses Release for a new bill on it, with a reason. It can then be billed again, or reversed. The voided bill stays under Bills as it is.

Send goods back to the supplier

On the LPO, under Goods received, press Return to supplier on the note the goods came on.
Enter how much of each line goes back — never more than is left of that note — and the reason.
Choose what the supplier does: Send replacements — the LPO line is open for them again and the order they were for still sees them as coming — or Credit us instead — they are not coming, the LPO line is closed that much short, and the order shows the shortfall so somebody buys them elsewhere. A credit is a buyer's decision.
Record it. The return is numbered RTS-00001 onwards; Download return note gives the driver the paper to hand over with the goods.

The goods leave stock at the cost they came in at, from where they arrived; free stock goes back before goods set aside for an order. Returned before the supplier's bill is drafted, they are simply not billed. Returned after it, the return says so: the accountant records the supplier's credit as a debit note under Debit Notes.

Getting it wrong

Situation	Do this
A goods received note was wrong	Reverse it, then Reverse the receipt, with a reason. The whole note is reversed at the cost it came in at, and whatever it set aside for customer orders is released. Refused if the goods have already gone out — count the stock instead — or once a bill was drafted from it: discard the draft bill first.
Nothing has arrived, and nothing will	Cancel LPO, then Cancel the LPO, with a reason. The orders it was buying for show the shortfall again. Once goods have arrived it cannot be cancelled — close it instead.
Part arrived, and no more is coming	Close, then Close the LPO. Closing short of what was ordered needs a reason, and the orders it was buying for show what is still missing.

Who sees prices

Buyers, approvers and anybody with See costs, average stock cost and margins see prices and totals. Somebody who only receives goods, such as a storekeeper, sees what is coming and records what arrived by quantity — with no price, no total and no printable LPO.

Supplier LPOs and goods received