Acquiring products for a retail store involve them being brought in for stock or for a customer backorder. LightSpeed allows you to compile both stock and Customer Orders together onto a common Purchase Order, based on where the items are being purchased.
Orders may be thought of as requests for Product. They can begin life as a blank Order, to be populated from scratch, or they may originate as a backorder from an Invoice, Quote, or SRO. They have two functions:
Ultimately, Orders are to be converted to an Invoice that sells the reserved Product to the Customer.
Stock Order vs. Customer Order
Choosing the New Stock Order option from the File menu allows you to request Product for your Inventory. A new Order will appear with your company information populated as the Customer. Stock Orders cannot have inventory reserved for them, but their status in the Browser will change to reflect their evolution. To create a blank Customer Order, click the Order button in the Toolbar. A Customer Order looks identical to a Stock Order, except that you choose the Customer in the Customer section.
If you create a Purchase Order directly to order your store's inventory (rather than beginning with a Stock Order), you can drag subsequent Customer Order Requests to the existing, unreceived PO to link them. In this case, LightSpeed will present you with a choice - to "fold in" the new Order Request into the existing quantity on the PO, or to add to the quantity. Then, when you receive your stock, you will know which Customers are waiting for the items you'd received.
Next, choose the Product you want, taking note of the quantities in the Inventory Status bar that appears on each line. You can cycle through these statuses by clicking the arrow icon. The choices are:
If there is Product available to sell, the status bar will appear green. If there is stock in inventory, but unavailable (reserved or in warehouses), the bar will appear orange. If there is no stock in inventory, but is ordered on a Purchase Order, it will appear gold. If there is no stock in inventory, and none ordered, the bar will appear grey.
If the bar appears red, the inventory total is negative. This can happen if available inventory for a Product was zero but inventory was sold because Product was physically available, either due to a miscount or because it was reserved on an Order or stored in a Warehouse but was not released/transferred. This can be corrected with Adjust Inventory in the case of the miscount or by releasing/transferring inventory using the Order or Transfer Inventory respectively in the second case.
Once a Product is assigned to an Order, a second status bar, the Product reservation bar, will appear beside it. If there is inventory available for the Order, you may reserve it. To do this, save the Order, click the arrow icon in the Product reservation bar, and choose the appropriate option. You may reserve available inventory for the line item or the whole Order, release reserved inventory or cancel the request altogether. You also have the option of marking the line or the entire order as Invoiced. Normally, this happens automatically when a related document, such as a Quote, invoices the Product. However, in cases where a sales document refers to a particular Order but is not necessarily “related” to it, you can manually indicate that the Product or Order have been Invoiced.
When you save the Order, you will be asked if you want all available inventory reserved for the Order automatically.
Reserving inventory takes it out of the available pool until it is released, and changes the inventory status bar to a green color, with a Received status. Releasing the Product will re-submit an Order Request for the stock. Canceling the Request will change the status bar to red and cancel the request permanently.
You can disable inventory reservations in the Company setup panel.
Once you have finished reserving available stock for your Order, click Save. If you decide to create a Purchase Order solely from this Order, click the PO button and choose your Supplier from the Suppliers you have created. In the case that you would like to sort and aggregate your Orders into POs according to default Supplier, Product, or date requested, see Purchasing (below). You can also use the Invoice button to invoice any reserved Product on an Order. Once an Invoice created from an Order is saved, the Inventory Status bar changes to “Invoiced” status, becoming navy blue in color.
Product can also be ordered directly from sales documents (ie. Quotes, SRO’s, and Invoices) using the Order button. On Quotes and SRO’s, the Order button will transfer all Products to an unsaved Order. Once a sales document has been converted to an Order, the Product may then be reserved or requested as above.
Statuses
The status of an Order reflects its progress in the advancement of the process. Once you have determined whether or not there is Product to be reserved, it will change to Processed. When only some of the Product is reserved for an Order, the status will change to Partially Received. Once all Product on the Order has been reserved, the stat us changes to Received. Creating and saving an Invoice from the Order will result in the status showing as Invoiced. Cancelling an Order will show the status as Cancelled.
Backorders
On an Invoice, the Order button is used when there are Products being backordered, and only those Products with quantities in the Backorder column will be placed on an unsaved Order when the Order button is used. Any Products on an Invoice that are not in stock can automatically be transferred to the backorder column, but you still have to click the Order button to transfer them to an Order. The Tracker may be configured to track all open backorders, including those that are outstanding, received, and reserved.
Orders can be re-requested even when they have been Invoiced or Cancelled.
Order Requests vs. Action
In the Order Requests tab of the Browser, you are able to view Product requests from Orders on a line-item basis, sorted by date created. Each line item will include a color-coded Inventory Status bar you can cycle through by clicking the arrow icon, as well as a pointer icon that links you to the original Order. If Product is available, you can click this pointer icon to be taken to the Order to reserve it. When the Order Requests list is refreshed, you will notice that this Order has now dropped off the list of Requests for that Product. Purchase Orders can be generated by selecting one or several line items and clicking the Generate PO button at the bottom of the browser. The Actions tab takes these same outstanding Order Requests and categorizes them according to their Default Supplier.
Generate POs by Default Supplier
In Actions, Product requests are sorted by default Supplier, reorder points, Drop Shipment POs, and GSX POs.
Every Product requested that has in its profile a default Supplier indicated will be found under this heading, sorted by Supplier. By clicking Generate PO beside a Supplier in the Actions tab, an unsaved Purchase Order will be created comprised of all the outstanding Order Requests with that Supplier listed as the default. The Supplier Code and Cost on the PO will be those that have been mapped to the Supplier Costs grid of the Product card relative to that Supplier. An arrow icon will appear beside each line item; clicking it will drop down a list of the Orders that had requested this Product, as well as any Quotes associated with that Order, along with the Customer information. Clicking the pointer icon on any Order listed will link you to that Order.
You may remove requests from your unsaved PO by selecting the line and clicking Delete. You will then be asked if you want to cancel the Order request completely, or re-request it for later approval. Click Save on the PO to assign it an ID number. This is the number you will give your Supplier as your PO number.
You can also drag and drop Order Requests from the Browser to any open Purchase Order.
Reordering PO by Default Supplier
In the Inventory tab of each Product profile, you are able to set reorder quantities when your stock reduces to a certain point. When this point is reached, this Product will appear as a request for a Reordering PO, displayed in the Actions tab. As with regular POs by default Supplier, generating a PO will aggregate reorder requests, but it will place them directly into an unsaved Purchase Order, bypassing Orders. To aggregate Customer Orders with “Re-order” Purchase Orders, create the re-order Purchase Order, and then drag the Order Requests from the Order Requests tab that are purchased at that Supplier to the PO.
Drop Shipment POs
Clicking Generate PO for a Drop Shipment PO request will create an unsaved Purchase Order that includes both the Supplier information and the Customer information in the Drop Shipment tab. When you place this PO with your Supplier, the document will indicate to them that it’s a drop shipment. Drop-shipped POs can be tracked using a Smart Find in the Browser.
GSX POs
GSX POs are for Orders originating on SROs. The Customer information will appear in the GSX tab of the Purchase Order. Individual GSX POs are created for every SRO Order submitted, and are processed like other Orders, with Apple as the Supplier.
Options , Costing, and ETA Information
Once the PO is created and the Supplier is chosen, the Supplier Code and Cost for each Product will auto-populate, provided that the Supplier on the PO has been mapped to each Product’s Supplier Cost grid. If not, these fields will remain blank, but can be edited by clicking into the appropriate field. If you wish to update the costing information you’re entering in the PO right to the Product card, click the Options tab and check the Update Costs of Products on this PO checkbox. Without this option enabled, you may enter information into the Supplier Code and Cost fields, but it will not update the Product card.
Also found in the Options tab is the ability to modify what is included on the printed document: Discounts, Customer info, and Serial Numbers.
To include ETA information, click the detail arrow at the right of the PO, and enter the ETA in the ETA Note field. Any information entered here will be visible in the corresponding Orders, making it possible for sales representatives to quickly see the ETA info entered by the purchaser for each Product.
If the Product you’re receiving does not have a UPC code in its profile, a grey “U” will appear. Clicking it will prompt a request for you to enter it, which saves it to the Product profile. If a red “U” appears, the UPC code is already in the profile, and can be modified by clicking the icon, if required.
Receiving
Once the PO is processed, it is ready to have the Product marked as Received when it arrives from the Supplier. To receive Product, go to the original PO’s Receiving tab and enter what you have received of the total order. If a Product is serialized, it is necessary to click the Product line to scan or enter the serial number of the Product. If you do not receive the total quantity of a Product that was initially ordered, just enter the amount you did receive. Click Save.
If only some of the Product is received for a Purchase Order, its status will be set to Partially Received. If you receive more Product from the Supplier on a particular Purchase Order, go to the original Purchase Order and click the Receiving tab. In the Qty Rcvd column, ADD the quantity you received that day to the quantity that had previously been received. For example, if you had ordered ten iPod Nano 2gb Black, and two had been received on Monday according to the procedure outlined above, there should be a quantity of two in the Qty Rcvd column. Then, when four more arrive on Wednesday, the number you will enter in the Qty Rcvd column will be six. If the Product is serialized, you will have to enter the six serial numbers. Click Save to enter any modifications.
Returns to Supplier
If you must return any Products that you having in stock back to the Supplier from whom you bought it, you would create a Purchase Order with negative quantities for the inventory you're returning. For example, if I need to send 2 scarves back to McMahon-Barry, I would create a PO as I normally would, then enter "-2" in the Qty column. However, after saving the PO, I would also need to "receive" the stock with negative quantities to remove it from my inventory.
The stock has now been removed from your inventory, which can be verified in the Product card. Please ensure that the "Cost" in the return PO reflects the actual credit you have arranged with your Supplier.
Supplier Invoices
Once you receive an invoice from your Supplier for a shipment on a PO, you can create a Supplier Invoice reflecting this billing by using the Invoice button on your Purchase Order. This generates a document that will eventually be exported to your accounting software as a payable. The Supplier Invoice should be created each time you receive Product from your Supplier, and will include only the Product you received. That is, if five Nanos were ordered on a PO, and on Monday two were received, and a Supplier Invoice is created, a quantity of two will appear on the Supplier Invoice. Then, if another three were received on Thursday, a quantity of three will appear on the next Supplier Invoice you create from this PO.
Statuses
As your Purchase Order advances through its various stages, its status is reflected at the bottom of the window. Once saved, the PO is Processed. Partially Received indicates that some, but not all, of the Products on the PO have been received. Once they are all received, the status changes to Received. The Cancelled status is set manually, in the event that the PO has been cancelled with the Supplier, and Invoiced, which indicates that all Product has been received and all Supplier Invoices have been created for this PO, is set automatically when the last Supplier Invoice has been created for the Products on the PO.
Inventory shipped via a drop shipment must still be received into inventory and invoiced on an Invoice.
Once a Supplier Invoice is saved, the status will change from None to Invoiced. When you pay your Supplier for a particular Invoice, you must change the status to Paid manually.
To use the Trackers to track your outstanding POs and Supplier Invoices, choose All POs (various statuses) and All Supplier Invoices (various statuses) and install them on your Trackers.
You can create a Supplier Invoice each time you receive Product, or you may choose to wait until you receive an actual invoice from your Supplier before creating it so that your Supplier Invoice exactly reflects the billing of your Supplier. When your Supplier Invoice is Posted, a green “P” will appear at the bottom left of the window. When it is exported, that will change to a blue “E”. Posted Supplier Invoices cannot be changed. (see chapter on Accounting Exports)
Drop Shipments
If the Product on an Order or a PO is being sent or delivered directly to the Customer, and involves movement outside the regular channels of inventory, you are able to flag the Order or PO in the Options tab using the Drop Shipment checkbox, and by indicating the Shipping Method using the pull-down menu just below. Drop Shipment Customer information is then attached to your sales document.
Action Menus
The Action menus for both Orders and Purchase Orders, found at the bottom of the document, allow you access to many more features in the ordering and purchasing workflow.
Order
Purchase Order
