Receive goods, and return them

Who this is for: Storekeeper, Manager, Owner — the screen requires inventory.receipt.write. Where: Inventory → Receiving · returns are raised from Inventory → Purchase Orders

Receiving is the moment stock becomes real. Until a delivery is received, an order is a promise; after it, the store holds goods, they have a cost, and the movement ledger has a row saying where the value came from.

The screen lists only the orders you can receive against — approved, sent and partial. A draft or a pending-approval order is not here, and that is the approval gate doing its job.

Receive a delivery#

1. Find the order the goods arrived against.
2. Select Receive.
3. Read the outstanding quantity on each line — Arabica coffee beans · outstanding 10 of 10.
4. Type what actually arrived, in purchase units, against each line.
5. Select Receive.

Outstanding, not ordered — the figure counts down as deliveries arrive. What you type is what turned up today, in bags and cartons.

Leave a line blank and nothing is received against it. That is how a delivery covering two of four ordered items is recorded.

Three things happen in one step, and either all of them happen or none does:

• Stock goes up, converted to base units: 10 bags of a 1 bag = 1000 g item become 10,000 g.
• The weighted-average cost is recalculated for that store × item, from the value received.
• The movement ledger gets a receipt row, which is what the valuation report reconciles against.

The order then re-badges itself: partial if anything is still owed, closed once every line is complete.

Receive part of a delivery#

Type the quantity that arrived and nothing more. The order goes partial and stays on this screen with the remainder outstanding — receive against it again when the rest turns up, as many times as it takes.

Each receipt is its own record with its own quantities and cost, so a line delivered in three visits carries three costs into the average rather than one guess.

The same order after the first delivery. The coffee line is finished and its box is disabled; only the five cartons still owed can be received.

警告

You cannot receive more than was ordered. Entering a quantity above the outstanding figure is refused with cannot receive more than the outstanding ordered quantity, and the whole receipt fails — including the lines that were fine. If a supplier genuinely over-delivers, receive what was ordered and raise a second order for the excess, so the paperwork says what the invoice will say.

Return goods to the supplier#

Some deliveries should not have been accepted — short-dated stock, damage in transit, the wrong item entirely. A return to vendor sends them back and takes the value out of the store.

1. Open Inventory → Purchase Orders and find the order the goods came in on.
2. Select Return.
3. Enter the quantity to return against each line.
4. Post the return.

Stock comes down and the movement ledger records it, so the valuation follows immediately.

Two rules bound it, and both come from the same principle — you can only send back what actually arrived:

• A line shows "N already returned", and the total returned can never exceed what was received.
• An order with nothing received against it refuses the return outright: nothing has been received against this order yet.

重要

A return is not an undo. It is a physical event: goods left the building and the supplier owes a credit. Use it when stock genuinely went back. A receipt keyed at the wrong quantity is a different problem with a different fix — see below — and recording it as a return would tell the supplier they owe you for goods you still have.

The credit side of the return is settled against the supplier's invoice or as a credit on the account.

What the goods are booked at#

At the price on the purchase-order line. The receiving screen takes quantities only; there is no price field on it.

That matters for the step after this one. If the supplier's invoice comes in at a different price from the order, the difference does not surface here — the stock is already valued at the order price. It surfaces at invoice matching, as a variance you have to accept before the bill can be raised.

The received price is also written back to the supplier's price list, so the next order for that item defaults to what you last paid.

What receiving does not do#

• It does not post to the accounting ledger. Value enters Inventory's own books at receipt; the accounting entry happens when the invoice is matched and the bill it raises is approved.
• There is no reverse-receipt. A receipt entered at the wrong quantity is corrected the way every other stock discrepancy is: by counting the store and posting the variance, which leaves both the mistake and the correction on the record. A return is for goods that physically went back, not for a typing error.
• It does not record who signed for the delivery beyond the account that pressed the button, and there is no note field on the form.

What's next#

• Match a supplier invoice — where the invoice is checked against what you just received
• Raise a purchase order — where a return is raised from
• Stock valuation — the stock you just booked, at what it is now worth
• Stock counts — how a receiving mistake gets corrected