Direct GRN: Key and Finalise

Direct GRN: type the lines, record why there was no order, and finalise

Steps 2 to 4 of the direct GRN workflow: type the lines of a receipt that has no purchase order, write down why there was no order, and finalise it — and, if a month-end falls before the bill, what the accountant does about it. It follows Step 1, where you created the Purchase GRN with no source document.

The running example: on Thursday 26 November a wireless-audio distributor delivers 20 pairs of wireless earbuds to branch GS-KV-01, agreed by the branch manager by phone at RM 150.00 a pair, with no purchase order. Before the delivery, GS-KV-01 holds 40 pairs at a moving average of RM 140.00.

Before FINAL, check the Knock Off Configuration row in Before you start: without a Purchase GRN → Purchase Invoice row, FINAL creates nothing for the invoice to find; if the row generates the invoice automatically, the invoice copies the GRN’s price and may already be FINAL, so ask for the flow to create DRAFT invoices before you finalise.

Step 2: enter the lines by hand.
Step 3: write down why this receipt has no order.
Step 4: finalise.
If a month-end falls before the bill.

Step 2: Enter the lines by hand

Purchasing > Purchase GRN (Internal) > (your draft) > Lines

Add each item and the quantity you counted: 20 pairs of earbuds.

You will also need a price. On a normal receipt the price comes across from the order; here the pricing scheme linked to your branch offers one, and you type over the net or transaction price with the figure the branch manager was quoted — RM 150.00. The standard price stays read-only unless the applet’s ENABLE_EDITING_UNIT_PRICE_STD setting is on.

Understand what that price is for. It values nothing on its own. The GRN moves no stock, so the RM 150.00 never touches the moving average, the last purchase cost or the ledger. It is a proposal: the purchase invoice copies it when it knocks this receipt off, and only what the invoice says when it is finalised counts. So it is worth getting close — a wrong figure here is a wrong figure the invoice clerk has to notice — but it is not the place the price is decided.

If the item is serialised or batch-tracked, capture the serials and batches on the line exactly as you would on a normal receipt. The count must equal the line quantity.

Step 3: Write down why this receipt has no order

Purchasing > Purchase GRN (Internal) > (your draft) > Main Details (remarks), Attachments

This is the step that makes a direct GRN acceptable rather than merely possible.

In the remarks, write a sentence a stranger could read in six months: “Top-up for weekend promotion. Agreed by phone with the distributor by the GS-KV-01 branch manager, 25 November, RM 150.00 a pair. No PO raised.” Name the arrangement, the date, the agreed price and the role — not a person’s name, a role. The agreed price matters most: it is what the invoice clerk compares the bill with in Step 5, and on this receipt nothing else records it.

Attach the delivery note, and anything else that evidences the arrangement: an e-mail, a quotation, a photograph of the faulty stock being replaced.

If your tenant uses custom statuses, tag this one so direct receipts can be pulled out as a group later. That is how you find out whether one branch is doing this every week.

Step 4: Finalise

Purchasing > Purchase GRN (Internal) > (your draft) > SAVE, then FINAL

Save, read the lines back against your count, then click FINAL.

FINAL validates the serials, bins and fiscal period, locks the document, and creates the open-queue rows for whichever downstream documents the company’s Knock Off Configuration names — normally the purchase invoice. It writes no inventory transaction and no journal entry.

What GS-KV-01 shows on 26 November, after FINAL:

Where you look	It shows	Why
Stock balance for the earbuds	40	Only finalised stock documents move it, and the GRN is not one
Stock Availability	Stock Balance 40, the 20 in Adj Qty, Available 60	Uninvoiced receipts are counted as incoming, so the branch can promise them
Moving average	RM 140.00	Unchanged — the GRN is not a document type that values stock
The ledger, and what you owe the distributor	Nothing	The GRN has no journal

If the configuration row generates the invoice for you, all of that changes at once. The invoice is a copy of the GRN — its lines, its RM 150.00 and its 26 November date — and unless the row says DRAFT it is created already FINAL. On a direct receipt that means the price the receiving clerk typed from a phone call becomes the bill: RM 3,000.00 owed, 60 pairs in stock at an average of RM 143.33, with nobody having looked at the supplier’s invoice. If your company receives direct with an automatic flow, ask for the flow to create DRAFT invoices, so a person checks the price before it posts. Look in the Purchase Invoice listing before you type one.

If a month-end falls before the bill

On 30 November the 20 pairs are on the shelf at GS-KV-01, and they are in neither the stock ledger nor the payables. The receipt at RM 150.00 is RM 3,000.00 of stock and RM 3,000.00 of liability that November’s balance sheet does not show, and nothing in BigLedger posts it for you on this pair: there is no goods-received/invoice-received account in the standard flow (why).

That makes month-end cut-off a person’s job:

The branch lists its finalised GRNs with no invoice on the last day — Stock Availability’s Adj Qty shows the quantities, and each GRN carries the price it was received at.
The accountant decides, for each, whether the invoice can be keyed and dated in the month, or whether to accrue it by manual journal at the GRN’s value and reverse the journal when the invoice arrives. On a direct receipt, the GRN’s price is the only estimate there is — which is one more reason Step 2 asks you to get close.
They know it is right when the accrual equals the value of the open receipts on that list, and the year-end count does not show the earbuds as a surplus.

Stock at month-end walks through the whole cut-off. If your receipts routinely straddle a month-end, the stock-in pair posts the accrual for you.

Next: Step 5: Bill it.

What success looks like for this part

The GRN is FINAL, with the distributor’s delivery note number in its reference and remarks that name the arrangement, the date, the role that agreed it and the agreed price. Stock Availability for the earbuds at GS-KV-01 shows Stock Balance 40 with the 20 in Adj Qty, and the moving average still reads RM 140.00 — unless your configuration generated the invoice, in which case open it in Step 5 and check it against the supplier’s. If a month-end has passed, each open receipt was either invoiced and dated in the month or accrued, and the accrual equals the value of the open receipts on the branch’s list. When the receipt is billed, run its success check.

Common mistakes in this part

Leaving the remarks blank. A GRN with no order and no explanation is indistinguishable from an error or a theft. Nobody can reconstruct it later, including you.

Waiting for the stock balance to move on FINAL of the GRN. It will not. The invoice does that. Direct or not, a standard GRN is (0,0). Stock Availability’s Available figure does include the receipt, which is why a branch can promise what the stock report says it does not have.

Entering a placeholder price “to be corrected on the invoice”. The GRN’s price is what the knock-off carries into the invoice, and what an automatic flow posts as the bill without anyone correcting it. A placeholder means someone has to notice and fix it under time pressure — and if they do not, it becomes the item’s last purchase cost and part of its moving average.

Using a direct GRN to bypass a draft purchase order is on the front page.