Purchase Orders

In this article

    Knowing exactly when to order and how much is in large extend dependent on the incoming stock.

    The Inventory Management for WooCommerce extension allows you to create and manage purchase orders directly from the extension.

    This article will guide you through all steps required to create and manage purchase orders.

    Purchase Order Settings

    To create purchase orders, start with entering your companies profile and contact information in the Settings/PO Settings.

    Company Name, Address, Postal Code, City and Country are mandatory fields. Other fields can be be added and will appear on the PDF form.

    You can choose to autogenerate PO numbers, or enter them manually at each time.

    The PO Prefix is used as a free text entry.

    Set Up Suppliers

    To add a new supplier, move to the tab ‘Create New Supplier’.

    Here you can add all relevant information for your supplier. Some of the fields are mandatory and will show up on the order forms;

    • Supplier Name
    • Supplier Code – create a unique code for the supplier (free text, used for PO creation and tracking)
    • Currency – currency used for creating purchase order (use the 3 letter abbreviation for the currency)

    The Lead Time in Weeks (1) is an important value that helps to calculate the Order Proposals. The lead times can also be managed at a Product Level, but this is the default parameter for the lead time by supplier.

    You can read more about how to manage your suppliers in the chapter Suppliers.

    Cost Prices & Lead Times

    Once you have set up suppliers, you can add cost prices and lead times to your products.

    Cost Prices (Cost of Goods Sold)

    The easiest way to manage and update cost prices for your products is in the Product Management pages.

    Cost Prices are required for a product before you can create a purchase order.

    Lead Times

    Lead Times can be set up on different levels:

    1. Default (all products in the store)
    2. By Supplier (managed in the Supplier pages)
    3. By Product (manage in the Product Management pages, or single product pages.)

    Lead Time by Product takes precedent – if no value is entered, the calculation will fall back on the lead time value set by Supplier. If neither of these parameters are present, the default value for Lead Time is used.

    Default Lead Time

    After installation, all products in your store have a default Lead Time, which can be managed in the Settings / Forecast Settings:

    By default, the lead time is set to 2 weeks, but this is of course dependent on supplier, product and perhaps even category.

    Lead Time by Supplier

    The second level on which you can manage the lead time is on Supplier.

    In the Supplier settings, you can set a generic lead time for all products from this supplier;

    The Lead Time by Supplier takes precedent over the Default Lead Time.

    This means, if you have not set any lead time on a product level, this value will be applied for all products from this supplier. Also, if you have set a lead time by product for some of the supplier’s product, these products will use the product specific lead time. All other products assigned to this supplier will use the supplier’s lead time.

    Lead Time by Product

    The third level you can manage lead times on, is the Lead Time by Product.

    The easiest way to manage the Lead Time by Product is in the Product Management pages:

    Make sure you have selected the ‘Lead Time’ measure in the filter and simply update the value for Lead Time by Product.

    If you have already set a lead time by supplier, this value will be present in this table. In this case, you can simply update the value by product.

    WooCommerce Product Pages

    Alternatively, you can edit and manage the Lead Time directly on the product pages;

    Purchase Orders

    Once you have set all required parameters, you can create Purchase Orders directly from the ‘Replenishment’ pages.

    The Replenishment is divided into three tabs;

    1. Order Proposals
    2. Create Purchase Orders
    3. Order History

    In the next chapter, we’ll walk you through each of these pages.

    Order Proposals

    The first tab in the Replenishment page shows the Order Proposal. Here you can filter on Supplier and Category to look at the details of the proposals.

    The Order Proposal shows the products Ideal Stock, Back Orders, Incoming Stock and the Order Proposal (1).

    The Order Proposal is created live, based on your stores’ sales forecast, but a critical component in the calculation is the Incoming Stock (2).

    If you don’t use the integrated Purchase Order creation the extension offers, this is where you can change the incoming stock for individual products.

    Create Purchase Orders

    The second tab in the Replenishment page – Create PO – allows you to create a purchase orders for single items or multiple in one go.

    To start, select a supplier (1).

    You can filter the table using the top bar, or search for individual products in the same way as the Stock Detail reports.

    To select the products, simply tick the boxes on the left hand side. (2)

    You can change the quantity of the order (3) and the table will automatically recalculate the Order Value at Cost and Order Value at Retail price for the order.

    By pressing the ‘Create Purchase Order’ below the table, you will be able to set the estimated delivery time for the order:

    In the calendar picker (1), you can select the date for delivery. This date is pre-filled based on the lead time by product and the lead time by supplier.

    After creating the PO (2), you will be able to create a PDF file for the order. The information you have entered in the PO Settings will appear on final purchase order:

    The Incoming Stock is automatically updated in the Stock Report pages. Once the order has been received, you can change the status to completed.

    Changing status of the purchase order from On Order to Completed, Cancelled, On Hold will also update the order proposal calculation accordingly.