This is an introductory article about the basics of Receiving Notes in PurchasePlus.
What is a Receiving Note?
A Receiving Note is a companion document that is created against a Purchase Order and is used to mark a specific quantity of each line item on the Purchase Order as having been physically received. In this way, we can see when a Purchase Order has been fulfilled by the Supplier.
This is an important step for Organizations who wish to understand if items on a Purchase Order have been received in full, when comparing an Invoice to a Purchase Order, prior to Approving an Invoice for payment.
Viewing Receiving Notes
A Purchase Order can have multiple Receiving Notes created against it, as not all products on the Purchase Order may be physically delivered at the same time. There are a number of ways you can View the Receiving Notes that have been raised against your Purchase Orders:
- Navigate to [Purchase Orders] → [Receiving Notes],
- Navigate to a specific Purchase Order, and click the [Receiving Notes] tab, or
- Navigate to [Purchase Orders] → [View All], and click the value in the [GR Notes] column (or you can click the Truck icon to Create a New Receiving Note).
Creating Receiving Notes
In PurchasePlus, Receiving Notes must be created against Purchase Orders. There is no way to create a Receiving Note outside of a relationship to a Purchase Order.
Receiving Notes are only able to be generated against Purchase Orders that are in a SENT state. Once all of the goods on a Purchase Order have been Received and the Invoice has been matched to the Purchase Order, then the Purchase Order is able to be Closed.
See our Receive Goods from a Purchase Order article to learn more about creating a Goods Receiving Note.
Receiving Note States
A Receiving Note may be in:
- a ‘Draft’ State, meaning a Receiving Note has been created but the Goods have not been Marked as Received, or
- a ‘Received’ State, meaning that the user is happy to declare that the specified amount of goods have been physically received.
Depending on the number of physical shipments that a Supplier splits the PO into, it may take multiple Receiving Notes for a Purchase Order to be able to move from a ‘Sent’ state to a ‘Closed’ state.
Receiving Stock Items to Inventory
If your Organization uses PurchasePlus’s Inventory Module, then creating Receiving Notes becomes even more valuable, as you are able to match the goods Received to the specific Products that you hold in Inventory.
This will increment the Stock Items in the target Stock Location by the amount received, and they will be available in Transfers, Stocktakes and more. Please contact our friendly Customer Success Team for more information about our Inventory module.
Matching Purchase Orders and Receiving Notes to Invoices
When the Supplier sends the Purchaser an Invoice, it is good practice to make sure that the Invoice is Reconciled before approving it to be paid.
PurchasePlus helps our Purchasers to reconcile the Invoices in two ways, depending on how their Finance department likes to work.
- By matching a Purchase Order to an Invoice, to make sure that what the Supplier has Invoiced the Purchaser for actually matches what the Purchaser Ordered. This is sometimes referred to as ‘2-Way AP Matching’.
- By matching a Purchase Order and its Receiving Notes to an Invoice, to make sure that what the Supplier has Invoiced the Purchaser for actually matches what the Purchaser Ordered and received. This is sometimes referred to as ‘3-Way AP Matching’.
