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In addition to a simple purchase, DEAR Inventory offers a type of purchase with advanced features. Advanced purchases are designed to handle purchase orders where multiple invoices and stock deliveries are to be considered part of the same purchase. Any purchase order that is to be made in multiple deliveries should be made as an Advanced Purchase.


Advanced Purchases also allow multiple credit notes to be issued for a single purchase order.


A normal purchase can be converted into an advanced purchase, but the conversion cannot be reversed. It is also permitted to create a new advanced purchase.


This article assumes that the reader is familiar with the standard DEAR Inventory purchase process. See Processing a Purchase for more information.


NOTE: All purchases created via the Purchases module, which is accessible from Purchase → Search → Purchases, will be Advanced Purchases if the Default Load Advanced Purchase Order setting in Settings → General Settings is enabled. See General Settings for more information.


Prerequisites


Table of Contents


Purchase order permissions

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DEAR offers fine-grained control over user permissions. Grant users full or read-only permission to the different features of the purchases module, and create roles with pre-defined permissions to assign to users.


DEAR allows you to set the following permissions for the purchase module (Settings → Users and Roles):

  • Purchases List & Tasks: (Read-only) View the list of purchases and purchase status. View purchase tasks assigned to you. View order lines and document header. View manual journals, attachments and logs & Attributes tabs of purchases. (Full Access) Create and save new orders, cannot add items. Make changes to document header. Clone existing orders. Add attachments to orders. Mark purchase order as received.
  • Purchase Task – Order view: Purchases List & Tasks permission is required. (Read-only) View the Order tab. (Full Access) Add and edit purchase order lines of non-authorised orders. Print and email order documents (Purchase Order, Purchase Order Matrix). 
  • Purchase Task – Order authorisation: Authorise purchase orders. 
  • Purchase Task – Stock Received view: Purchases List & Tasks permission is required. (Read-only) View the Stock Received tab. (Full Access) Add and edit stock received lines if not yet authorised. Print and email stock documents (Receiving Note, Product Label). 
  • Purchase Task – Stock Received authorisation: Authorise stock received actions. 
  • Purchase Task – Invoice & Credit Note view: Purchases List & Tasks permission is required. (Read-only) View the Invoice tab and Credit Note tab. (Full Access) Add and edit invoice/credit note lines. Create credit note purchases. Print and email invoice/credit note documents (Purchase Invoice, Purchase Return). Add payments/refunds to authorised invoices/credit notes. 
  • Purchase Task – Invoice & Credit Note authorisation: Authorise invoices and credit notes. 
  • Purchase Task – Price and total info: View price, order line and total information on purchase tasks and purchase documents. 
  • Purchase Task – Undo: Undo purchase orders.
  • Purchase Task – Void: Void purchase orders.
  • Purchase Task – Order Approve/Reject/Review: Approve or reject POs.


Edit Authorised Documents

Allows editing of authorised documents. To use this permission, the user will need the purchase task view permission of the document they want to edit (order, stock received, invoice, credit note).


See Managing Users and Roles and User permissions explained.


Generate an Advanced Purchase

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Advanced Purchases can either be created as new or converted from an existing purchase. Although the supplier details and purchase order lines are displayed and filled in in the same way as the standard purchase process, the stock receipt, invoice and credit note functions are now displayed in a sidebar on the left.


Transactions, History, Attachments and Manual Journals can be viewed and edited in the same way as in the standard purchase process, but are also now located in the sidebar on the left.

Create a new Advanced Purchase

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To create a new advanced purchase, navigate to Purchase → New → Advanced Purchase


Alternatively, if the Default Load Advanced Purchase Order setting in Settings → General Settings is enabled, you can directly create a new Advanced Purchase under the Purchase module, which is accessible from Purchase → Search → Purchases.

When the Purchases module loads, click the button to load the New Advanced Purchase page. 

See General Settings for more information.


Convert an existing purchase

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You may not realise a purchase order is to be made in multiple deliveries or with multiple invoices until after the purchase order has been authorised. In this case, you can easily convert a simple purchase order to an advanced purchase order. 


To convert an existing Purchase:

  1. Navigate to Purchase → Purchases.
  2. Choose a purchase to convert.
  3. Click Convert.
  4. The change from Standard Purchase to Advanced Purchase is irreversible. Click Yes to confirm the conversion.

Conversion of an existing Purchase can be done at any point in the order.


If you try to receive a partial delivery using a Standard Purchase, you will receive an error message. You will have to convert the Purchase to an Advanced Purchase to continue.


Fill in the document header

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Select a supplier in the top left-hand corner to pre-fill supplier fields. If you are converting a simple purchase to an advanced purchase, the document header information from the simple purchase will be brought across to the new document. 


See Processing a Purchase - Fill in the document header for more detailed information about the document header fields. 


Add items to the order

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Adding items to the purchase order is done in the same way as for a simple purchase. Products can be added individually, imported from a CSV file, added to the order using a barcode scanner, or multiple product variants can be added by clicking +Family. You can also verify your order against current stock quantities. See Processing a Purchase - Add items to the purchase order for more information on any of these steps. 


Additional costs (non-inventory items or services such as shipping, insurance, gift-wrapping, etc.) are added in the lower section of the purchase order. Authorise the order when you are ready to continue. 

NOTE: You can compare the ordered item quantities with your inventory stock levels and view total carton quantity using the Verify an Order function. You will need to fill in the import dimensions of the product for this information to be calculated accurately. This information is for review purposes only. You may need to use the  Settings gear icon to make some columns available. 


Supplier deposits

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Once a purchase order has been authorised, you can optionally add a supplier deposit to use as a prepayment against the invoice. Click +Supplier Deposit and fill in the fields in the pop-up window that appears to add the prepayment. 


See Supplier Deposits for more information. This field is NOT for regular payments – regular payments are added when processing a supplier invoice. 


NOTE: If using Xero as your accounting system, ensure Xero payment settings are set to Synced both ways or Pushed to Xero. QuickBooks Online payments are set by default to sync both ways. Some users prefer to entirely manage their payments through their accounting system. If this is the case, you can leave this section blank; the prepayment details will be imported from your accounting system and applied to the order once a prepayment is made.



Invoicing

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With an Advanced Purchase, you can have one invoice to cover the entire purchase order or to cover one or more separate deliveries. Invoice is a document issued by the supplier that indicates product and/or service details provided (such as quantities, agreed pricing on goods and/or services provided) and may include other additional costs (such as freight charges, fees, etc.). Approval of an authorised purchase order is required before you can create an invoice.


Verifying an invoice allows importers to check the freight cost and see an estimate of freight cost per order line before authorising the invoice. Click Verify an Invoice to open the verify screen. You will need to fill in the import dimensions of the product for this information to be calculated accurately. This information is for review purposes only. You may need to use the  Settings gear icon to make some columns available. 


NOTE:  Advanced Purchases that have been converted from existing Purchase Orders will have the input method selected in the existing purchase order. New Advanced Purchases will take the order of whichever (stock received or invoice) is authorised first. This guide focuses on Invoice First orders; however, the process is almost identical for Stock First purchases. 


To process invoices for an Advanced Purchase:

  1. In the sidebar on the right, go to the Invoicing & Receiving section.
  2. Click +Invoicing & Receiving to generate an invoice. The total to invoice is shown at the top of this frame.
  3. Enter the Invoice Number and Invoice Date.
  4. Enter the Invoice lines. You can click Copy Remaining from Order to copy all items yet to be invoiced from the purchase order.
  5. Manually enter the order Total in the top right-hand corner and Authorise the invoice.
  6. The Invoicing & Receiving frame will now show the amount invoiced next to the invoice number, the remaining total to invoice at the top and the number of stock items to receive for this invoice next to +Add Stock Receiving.
  7. You can continue to the stock receipt or continue invoicing the rest of the order. To continue invoicing, simply repeat steps 2-5 until all items have been processed.


NOTE: You may also attach a manual journal to the invoice at this time. For more information, see Manual Journals.


Receiving

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Stock receipt is performed under the Invoicing & Receiving section for Advanced Purchases. It normally follows invoicing, but it can also be done even if an invoice has not been created yet.


Advanced purchases allow purchase orders to have multiple invoices and stock deliveries. Items that are not received at a certain date are shown as separate lines, and goods are allowed to be received on the same date more than once. This means that even if an order was received previously, DEAR allows new lines under stock receiving for the same order.


To receive stock:

  1. In the sidebar on the right, click + Add Stock Receiving.
  2. Add stock received lines. To copy the lines from the invoice, click Copy from Invoice
  3. Authorise the stock receipt.
  4. If there is still stock to receive, repeat steps 1-2 until all items have been received.


NOTE: The DEAR Warehouse Management System (WMS) mobile app allows receiving and assigning stock to locations and bins directly within your warehouses, making it particularly useful for your warehouse personnel. For more information, see DEAR Warehouse Management Solution.


Put Away

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Put Away is an optional feature and only available for Advanced Purchases, not Simple Purchases. When enabled, the stock receiving process is split into two tabs, Stock Received and Put Away


To enable Put Away, go to Settings → General Settings → Purchase process customisation and toggle Use Put Away to Yes


Once Stock Received has been authorised, stock can be put away via the Put Away tab.


To put away stock received:

  1. Click the Put Away tab.
  2. Check the Location where the stock will be received to. 
  3. Add the stock received lines. To copy the lines from the Stock Received tab, click Copy from Receiving.
  4. Click Authorise.


NOTE: The DEAR Warehouse Management System (WMS) mobile app has a Put Away feature that allows your warehouse personnel to put stock into bins/location after receiving. For more information, see DEAR Warehouse Management Solution.


Payments

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Once an invoice has been authorised, you can apply payments to the invoice.


NOTE: If using Xero as your accounting system, ensure Xero payment settings are set to Synced both ways or Pushed to Xero. QuickBooks Online payments are set by default to sync both ways. Some users prefer to entirely manage their payments through their accounting system. If this is the case, you can leave this section blank; the payment details will be imported from your accounting system and applied to the order once payment is made.


If you have an unused supplier deposit associated with this purchase, you will be asked if you want to allocate it to the invoice upon authorisation.


Next to each invoice number, the total invoice is shown on the left with the remaining balance to be paid on the right. Payments are shown below. 



Add more payments by clicking on an invoice number and clicking +Payment to add more payments or +Use Supplier Deposit to apply any unused supplier deposits associated with this supplier to the invoice. The payments section is found the bottom of the invoice. 


Credit notes

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One or more credit notes can be attached to each purchase. For more information on the different types of credit notes, see Purchase Credit Notes and Refunds


To assign one or more credit notes from a supplier:

  1. In the sidebar on the right, go to the Credit Notes section.

  2. Click + Credit Note.
  3. Enter the Credit Note Date.
  4. In the Credit Note for field, choose the invoice the Credit Note relates to. This automatically copies the items from that invoice to the credit note.
  5. Create the credit note as discussed in Purchase Credit Notes and Refunds
  6. The Unstock function will be automatically filled in from the credit note item details. Change the quantity to reflect the actual number of items unstocked if necessary.
  7. Authorise the credit note.
  8. For more credit notes associated with the same sale, click +Credit Note in the sidebar.


NOTE: Doing unstock will result in negative stock on hand. Thus, lines can only be unstocked if the products have not been used yet. If the stock has been transferred or some other transaction involving the stock has been performed, unstock may fail. In this case, the credit note can be authorised without unstock, and inventory adjustment can be processed to offset the stock level.


Refunds

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Refunds are applied to credit notes in the same way that payments are applied to invoices. Credit notes must be authorised before a refund can be issued.


NOTE: If using Xero as your accounting system, ensure Xero payment settings are set to Synced both ways or Pushed to Xero. QuickBooks Online payments are set by default to sync both ways. Some users prefer to entirely manage their payments/refunds through their accounting system. If this is the case, you can leave this section blank; the refund details will be imported from your accounting system and applied to the order.

Credit notes can be issued as a refund or as a supplier deposit to be used against future purchase orders with the selected supplier. 


To issue a credit note refund to a supplier deposit:

  1. Return some or all of the value of the credit note to the supplier deposit by clicking +Supplier Deposit.
  2. A pop-up window will open; fill in the fields and click Create to continue.
  3. The supplier deposit value will be added to the Refund section.


To issue a credit note refund as payment:

  1. Return some or all of the value of the credit note to your payment accounts by clicking +Refund.
  2. Enter the account details and date paid, then click Save to finish.


Attributes, Attachments & Logs

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Attachments, attributes and logs are accessed from the left of the screen.


Attachments can be manually attached by the user. Any documents created from DEAR in relation to the purchase order (invoice, shipping labels, etc.) are saved to this tab for easy reference. 


Additional attributes fields are also found in this section. Using additional attributes, you can add up to 10 custom fields to suppliers. If you have no additional attributes applied to a supplier, this section will not be visible. 


Click History to show all activity relating to this purchase order. All user activities from the creation of the new Purchase Order onwards are logged. Workflow History logs notifications and sent emails (if applicable) related to the purchase order. 



Click Transactions to see all transactions generated from the purchase process. 


Purchase order actions

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Most purchase order actions are accessed by clicking the PO number on the top right-hand corner of the screen. 



Save

Saves the purchase order. 


Undo

Returns the purchase order to Draft status. Order lines, invoice lines, payment information, etc. will remain in the document if it was previously entered and authorised. 


IMPORTANT for DEAR WMS users! If Undo is performed on a purchase order, ensure that the line items in the purchase order are deleted as well from within DEAR Inventory. Performing a Void operation (see below) may be a more viable option to use in this case. Otherwise, you may encounter issues with the Receiving and Put Away features in the DEAR WMS mobile app.


Void

Drops all current changes and deletes the inventory, invoice and payment records. The order status is changed to Voided, and the order can no longer be edited.


Clone

Makes a copy of the current purchase order. You can choose for the new purchase order to keep the same order number or assign a new order number. 


NOTE: Users with Xero integration can keep the order # as purchase orders are not synced from DEAR to Xero. For QBO, a duplicate purchase order # is not allowed; a new order must be assigned. 


Mark as Received

Removes the order from the pending orders list. This purchase action will only be available after the stock received tab has been authorised. 


The other purchase actions are Print and Email. These buttons are shown on the purchase order, invoice, credit note and stock received screens. 


Print

Allows printing the chosen document. The document is generated in PDF format for printing or saving to your device. 


Email

Allows emailing the chosen document to the supplier. Documents are attached to the email as PDFs. You will be prompted to enter a subject line. You may wish to set Email templates to use for the email body.

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