Purchasing Overview
If you work in purchasing, receiving or accounts payable, this page is the map: which documents exist, which one actually books your stock and your liability, and where each task lives. It is orientation, not procedure — each task has its own guide.
Meet GadgetSphere
GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd buys from about 1,200 suppliers into 22 branches and a fulfilment centre. Head office raises the orders; the branches receive; accounts payable books the bills. That split is the reason the order of the documents matters more than the speed of any one of them.
The fact that decides everything else
A standard Goods Received Note does not add anything to your stock balance, and posts nothing. It records what arrived, closes the purchase order line down, and queues itself for the invoice. The purchase invoice is what books the stock in, makes the input tax claimable and creates the creditor balance.
Between the two, the received quantity sits visible as GRN quantity — here but not yet stock, and not yet a liability. That gap is the point of the document.
Some companies run the opposite pair. Purchase GRN Stock In books stock on receipt (accruing inventory and the creditor as not-yet-invoiced) and is matched by Purchase Invoice No Stock In for the money.
Your company uses one pair or the other, never a document from each. Mixing them counts stock twice or never. Nothing warns anybody, and it is the single most expensive mistake available in this module. Find out which pair your tenant is set up for before you receive anything.
Which path for which purchase
| Situation | Path | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Regular supplier purchase, stock replenishment | Purchase order → GRN → invoice → payment | Standard procurement |
| Walk-in or emergency buy, no order raised first | Receipt → invoice → payment | Direct GRN |
| Services, utilities, subscriptions, anything non-stock | Invoice → payment | Direct invoice |
| Supplier wants paying before delivering | Invoice first | Invoice-first |
| Stock held on consignment | Consignment documents | Consignment purchasing |
Who does what, in what order
Purchasing at a multi-branch business splits across three desks. The order matters more than the clock.
The buyer raises purchase orders — by hand, from a requisition, a quotation or a blanket order, from a CSV, or from a replenishment run that reads stock balances rather than memory. They finalise the order, which puts its lines into the open queue, send it, and watch the Purchase Order Queue for anything overdue.
The warehouse receives against the order. They count first, then record what actually arrived on a Purchase GRN, capture serials and batches, attach the delivery note, and finalise. A short delivery leaves the balance in the queue for a later receipt; nothing needs adjusting.
Accounts payable books the supplier’s bill by knocking off the GRN, checks quantities and price against the supplier’s paperwork, and finalises. That is the point at which stock goes up, the input tax becomes claimable and the creditor balance appears. Later they settle it — from the invoice’s own payment tab, or in a batch through a Payment Voucher.
About approvals
Approvals are off until somebody creates an Approval Setting, and they exist for purchase orders, purchase requisitions and stock requisitions only. A purchase invoice has no approval workflow — whatever review your business wants there happens off-system.
Two behaviours to know before you design a rule:
- Min Approval Amount decides how many levels a document must clear, not who sees it.
- The document reaches FINAL on the first approval, not the last. A second level records sign-off; it does not hold the order. If you need a genuine stop, it has to come from permissions.
Full detail in document approvals.
Where each task lives
| Task | Applet and menu |
|---|---|
| New purchase order | Purchase Order (Internal) › Purchase Order › Create |
| Approve a purchase order | The link in the approval e-mail, or Purchase Order (Internal) › Approval Request |
| What is still outstanding | Purchase Order (Internal) › Purchase Order Queue |
| Ordered versus received, ordered versus invoiced | Purchase Order (Internal) › PO Line with GRN KO / PO Line with PI KO |
| Generate orders from stock levels | Purchase Order (Internal) › PO Replenishment |
| Bulk-create orders from a file | Purchase Order (Internal) › File Import |
| New goods receipt | Purchase GRN (Internal) › Create |
| New supplier invoice | Purchase Invoice (Internal) › Create |
| Pay several invoices at once | Payment Voucher (Internal) › Create |
| Supplier lookup | Supplier applet |
| What we bought, from whom, at what cost | Purchase Report |
Some of those menus can be hidden by a company setting — if one is missing for you and present for a colleague, that is why.
Situations that come up
“The purchase order has been waiting for approval for days.” Open the order’s approval tab and check the e-mail notification status — if it says the approver’s e-mail was empty, nobody was ever told. Then chase the approver yourself: BigLedger sends no reminders, has no escalation, and has no delegation or stand-in for these documents. If the approver is away, add a second person at that level and resubmit.
“We ordered 100 and 75 arrived.” Receive the 75. The remaining 25 stay in the open queue for a later receipt. Nothing needs adjusting, and the order should not be edited.
“The invoice price does not match the order.” Check the order price against the invoice and against the quotation. If the order was wrong, correct the order; if the supplier was wrong, ask for a revised invoice; if the increase was agreed, make sure somebody has said so in writing before finalising.
“The goods are here but BigLedger says we have none.” Almost always a finalised GRN with no invoice behind it yet. That is the system working correctly; the fix is to invoice it.
“A purchase does not appear in the purchase report.” The report reads finalised purchase invoices, returns and no-stock-in invoices only. Orders, GRNs and draft invoices are not in it.
Month end
- Every GRN for the month is finalised.
- Every supplier invoice received is entered.
- Supplier statements reconciled against the creditor report.
- Aged payables reviewed.
- Goods received but not invoiced reviewed — that is the gap the standard GRN path creates, and at month end somebody has to look at it.
- Purchase orders still open with nothing due reviewed and closed.
What success looks like
Three checks, two minutes:
- Open the Purchase Order Queue. Nothing on it is older than your longest genuine lead time.
- Open PO Line with GRN KO. The gap between ordered and received is explainable, line by line.
- Open PO Line with PI KO. The gap between received and invoiced is your goods-received-not-invoiced position — and somebody owns it.
Common mistakes
| What goes wrong | What you see | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Mixing the two receipt pairs | Stock double-counted, or never counted | Confirm which pair your tenant runs, and use only that one |
| Expecting a standard GRN to add stock | Goods on the bay, none in the system | The purchase invoice books the stock |
| Typing an invoice instead of knocking off the GRN | Purchase orders that never close; quantity disputes settled from paper | Knock off, always |
| Editing a partly received order | The queue stops making sense | Leave the balance open; receive again later |
| Treating a second approval level as a hold | A FINAL order nobody senior approved | Approval reaches FINAL on the first approval |
| Expecting a purchase invoice to be approved | There is no approval workflow on it | Review happens off-system |
| Looking for a purchase in the report before its invoice is final | It is not there | The report reads finalised invoices only |