Purchasing and Receiving

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MainBoss has detailed facilities for reporting which inventory items need to be restocked, for creating purchase orders, and for tracking shipments received.

Many organizations that have other purchasing/receiving software still use MainBoss's purchasing/receiving facilities to manage purchasing requests. People in the maintenance department use MainBoss purchase orders to keep track of what they want to buy. These purchase "requests" are then used as the basis for actual purchasing orders made with your normal purchasing software.

This descriptions below outline the usual sequence of events for purchasing and receiving. For more information, see Purchase Orders.

• You begin by creating a restocking report which lists items that are currently below their minimum stock level. If you want, you can restrict the report to list items you have previously purchased from a specific supplier.
• You prepare a purchase order for a specific supplier. During the process, you state the items and quantity you want to buy, and where the items will be stored once they're received. You can also specify payment and shipment details.
• Once you have created an appropriate purchase order, you issue it and print off the order. The printed purchase order may be submitted to management for approval or may be sent directly to the supplier. (You can use purchase order assignees to specify the people who should be involved in the purchasing process.)
• As goods are received, receipts can be compared to the purchase order and checked off against it. MainBoss updates your inventory records to reflect the items that have been received. It also keeps track of items on back order so that you know which items you should be receiving in future.
• When all the goods associated with a purchase order have been received, you close the purchase order.

At any point, you can make corrections. For example, you might prepare a draft version of a purchase order and submit it to your management for approval. If some items are not approved, you can remove those items from the purchase order before you issue it and send it to your supplier.

If your supplier tells you that some prices have been changed or that there will be extra charges (e.g. for faster delivery), you can add those charges to the purchase order. Finally, if some of the requested items cannot be supplied (or if you cancel your order and buy from someone else), you can make appropriate adjustments to MainBoss's records.

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