Buying and receiving
Can I receive goods without a purchase order? How do I buy in a foreign currency? Most questions about buying come down to which document moves the stock and which books what you owe, and each path below exists because a real business needed it.
Each answer is two or three sentences and a link. The page behind the link is the one that owns the explanation and the one that gets corrected when the product changes.
What is the difference between a goods received note and a purchase invoice?
The standard goods received note only records that the goods arrived and were counted — no stock, no journal — and the purchase invoice brings the stock in and books what you owe. On the GRN Stock In pair the receipt brings the stock in and the invoice books only the money. Standard Procurement Workflow walks it and Purchase Invoice Processing covers the invoice.
How does consignment stock work when I don’t own it until it sells?
A Consignment GRN puts the units in your branch balance against consignment accounts, not as a purchase or a debt; you key a Consignment Billing for what sold — a purchase invoice despite its sales folder — and pay only that. Consignment Purchasing walks the six documents, including the return, which reverses value but moves no units.
How do I buy in a foreign currency?
Record the day’s rate for the currency pair in the Forex applet, then pick the pair on the document: it copies the newest rate once, whatever the document’s date. At FINAL a base-currency twin carries the posting, and realised gain or loss posts when the invoice is settled — there is no period-end revaluation. The Forex applet documents it.
Can BigLedger raise purchase orders when stock runs low?
Yes — the Stock Replenishment applet turns each location’s minimum and maximum levels into purchase orders or stock transfers, on demand or on a calendar; generate them as Draft, because one it creates as FINAL starts none of its posting. The Stock Level Monitoring applet only e-mails the breach.
The supplier invoiced before delivering. Which document comes first?
Pay any deposit first, on a payment voucher, and key the invoice only once the goods have arrived and been received: a purchase invoice brings the stock in when it goes FINAL, so keyed early it tells every branch the goods are on the shelf. Invoice-First Workflow walks it, and a bill with nothing to receive at all goes straight on a purchase invoice.
Can I receive goods without a purchase order?
Yes — create the Purchase GRN with no source document, type the lines, write in its remarks who agreed the purchase, and bill it on a purchase invoice as usual. Nothing warns you or routes the receipt to anyone, so the invoice is the first time anybody checks the price. Receiving goods with no order walks it.
Which document moves the stock, and which books what you owe
Most of the questions above come down to one thing no purchase screen shows: each document type has a fixed effect on stock and on the ledger, set on the server rather than by a setting, and pressing FINAL hands the document to a posting job that runs a moment later. So FINAL is a status, and the journal and the stock movement are work done after it.
| Document | What its FINAL does |
|---|---|
| Purchase Order | Opens its lines for a receipt or invoice to knock off. No stock and no journal, except that a header Group Discount posts one (a known issue) |
| Purchase GRN | Records that the goods arrived and were counted. No stock and no journal; the quantity shows in Stock Availability as GRN quantity until it is invoiced |
| Purchase Invoice | Brings the stock in, posts Dr Purchase and Dr Input Tax against Cr the supplier, and writes the item’s last purchase cost |
| Purchase GRN Stock In | Brings the stock in on receipt and accrues it: Dr Inventory Not Invoiced / Cr Creditor Not Invoiced |
| Purchase Invoice No Stock In | Books only the money, and clears the accrual the GRN Stock In made |
| Consignment GRN | Brings the consignor’s units into your branch against Consignment Stock and Consignment Liability, with no purchase and no debt to the supplier |
| Payment Voucher | Dr the supplier / Cr the bank. With no invoice to contra it is a deposit, a debit waiting on the supplier’s account |
Pick one receiving pair per company — plain GRN with Purchase Invoice, or GRN Stock In with Purchase Invoice No Stock In — and stay in it. The per-document detail is on the Purchase Workflow page.
Where the purchase figures come from
- Stock after a delivery. The balance moves when the document that carries stock goes FINAL: the invoice on the standard pair, the receipt on the Stock In pair. Between a plain GRN and its invoice, Stock Availability — recomputed each time you load it — already counts the goods as available (when the company’s GRN-to-invoice knock-off row exists) while Stock Balance has not moved, so the two screens disagree by exactly the received quantity until the invoice is in.
- Last purchase cost. Written by the Purchase Invoice only. A placeholder price on a GRN travels into the invoice by knock-off and becomes the last purchase cost if nobody corrects it.
- The rate on a foreign-currency document. Copied once, when you pick the currency pair, from the newest rate recorded for it — whatever the document’s date — and never re-read. At FINAL a base-currency twin of the document carries the posting, and the realised gain or loss is written to the company’s forex gain and loss accounts when the invoice is settled (Forex applet).
- What you owe a supplier. The Creditor Report adds up each FINAL document’s open amount.
- A replenishment order quantity. For each item and location, how far the ledger quantity sits below the minimum or maximum level you set; nothing else feeds it (Stock Replenishment).
One delivery at GS-KV-01
On Monday you order 200 wireless earbuds at RM 128 for branch GS-KV-01; the order’s FINAL posts nothing and opens 200 for the receipt. On Wednesday 180 arrive and you receive them on a plain Purchase GRN knocked off from the order: the order still offers 20, Stock Availability shows 180 more available, and neither Stock Balance nor the ledger has moved. On Friday the wholesaler’s bill arrives at RM 130 a unit. Knocking the invoice off from the GRN copies RM 128, and nothing compares the two figures — you do, before FINAL. Once the price is agreed, set the invoice date back to the supplier’s date, because the knock-off stamps today’s date over it, and press FINAL: 180 earbuds go into stock at GS-KV-01, the purchase and the RM 23,040 you owe (before any tax the supplier charges) post, and the last purchase cost becomes RM 128.
Two ideas worth taking from that week. Before each close, the receipts still offered on a purchase invoice’s KO For tab are your list of goods received and not yet billed — on the standard pair they sit in nobody’s ledger until the invoice. And a supplier who wants a deposit is paid on a Payment Voucher, not billed early on an invoice: the voucher’s debit waits on the supplier’s account until you contra it against the real invoice (Invoice-First Workflow).
When a purchase looks wrong
| What you see | Why | Where it is fixed |
|---|---|---|
| Goods were received days ago and Stock Balance shows nothing | A plain GRN moves no stock; the purchase invoice does | Book the invoice against the GRN (Standard Procurement Workflow) |
| Stock is double what is on the shelf | A GRN Stock In was knocked off into a full Purchase Invoice, or a pro-forma was keyed as a purchase invoice and the real bill keyed again later | Standard Procurement Workflow, Common mistakes, Invoice-First Workflow |
| The GRN is FINAL and the invoice’s KO For tab does not list it | The company has no Knock Off Configuration row for that pair, so FINAL queued nothing for the invoice | Add the row; documents finalised before it existed are re-queued from Data Fix › Generic Documents › Missing Open Queue (Organisation applet) |
| The invoice is FINAL and the supplier’s balance did not move | The posting job failed after FINAL, usually on an unmapped company default GL code; Journal Txn is empty | Map the code, then follow that document’s own Troubleshooting row (Purchase Workflow) |
| A foreign-currency invoice will not go FINAL and asks for an exchange rate | The currency pair has no rate recorded, so the document carries a rate of zero | Add a dated rate to the pair and pick it again (Forex applet) |
| The bill and its input tax landed in the month you keyed it, not the month on the supplier’s invoice | The knock-off stamped today’s date over the date you entered | Set the supplier’s date after the knock-off and before FINAL |
| The consignor shows the full delivery owed on the day it arrived | It was received on an ordinary GRN or purchase invoice | Void it if nothing has knocked it off and re-key it on a Consignment GRN (Consignment Purchasing) |
| A replenishment run produced no order lines | An item in scope with no supplier pricing link stops the calculation, and so does an empty item or location filter; neither shows an error | Stock Replenishment, Troubleshooting |
What these paths leave to you
- Comparing the bill with the order or the receipt. Knock-off copies the source’s quantities and prices and FINAL checks no tolerance. The person who presses FINAL is the check.
- Approving a receipt or a bill. Purchase approval covers the Purchase Order and the Purchase Requisition; a GRN and a purchase invoice are controlled by who holds the FINAL permission. A GRN with no order behind it is routed to nobody and raises no warning, so the remarks on it are the whole audit trail.
- Knowing when a supplier falls due. A purchase invoice stores no due date; work it out from the invoice date and the supplier’s terms.
- Accruing goods on a plain GRN. Only the GRN Stock In posts a goods-received-not-invoiced accrual.
- Revaluing foreign-currency balances at period end. BigLedger posts realised gain or loss at settlement and runs no revaluation.
- Taking consigned units off the shelf when they go back. A Consignment Return reverses the value only; the units leave on a Consignment GIN or an adjustment.
- Acting on a stock alert. Stock Level Monitoring only e-mails the breach. Stock Replenishment raises the documents — generate them as Draft and finalise them in their own applet, because a document the run creates as FINAL has started none of its posting.
How you know it worked
Open the document’s Doc Link tab to see what it knocked off and what has knocked it off, then its Trace Document panel: Journal Txn has rows for any document that posts, and Inv Txn has rows for one that moves stock. A purchase invoice with an empty Journal Txn has not done its job, whatever its status says; a plain GRN or an order with both empty has done exactly its job. Then open Stock Availability for the item: once the invoice is in, the GRN quantity has dropped back and the units are on hand.
Where buying sits
- Must exist first: a Knock Off Configuration row for every pair of documents you use, the company default GL codes the posting job reads, each item linked to an inventory item, and a dated rate for each currency pair you buy in (before the first purchase posts).
- What becomes possible: the Payment Voucher settles what the invoices raised, the creditor reports read their open amounts, and the invoice’s or GRN Stock In’s value feeds the moving average cost.
- Siblings: a GRN with no source document when goods arrive that nobody ordered; a purchase invoice on service or account-code items when there is nothing to receive; the consignment chain for stock you do not own.
- Blast radius: the wrong receiving pair doubles or loses stock with no error, and a back-dated purchase invoice changes the cost on later sales lines, so earlier margins move.
- Used alongside: order, GRN, invoice and payment voucher; Stock Replenishment raising the orders; and, inside a group, the sister company’s sales invoice raising a draft purchase invoice in the buying company through its intercompany rule.