Supplier bills, captured once, correct forever

A purchase invoice — a bill — is the counterpart of a sale: it is what actually puts goods on your shelf and money on the supplier's account, in one save. Enter the supplier, scan or type the lines with their costs, and save as Received; stock rises, the payable opens, and the ledger posts the inventory and the liability together.

The common case gets the fastest path: goods arriving from a cash-and-carry or a rep with an invoice and no purchase order behind them. No procurement ceremony required — but when you do run POs, bills born from a delivery are locked to it, so the bill and the goods can never quietly disagree.

The cost you key on a bill line is what feeds inventory valuation and every margin figure in the product's life. The screen shows the supplier's history beneath the picker, so 'what do we normally pay?' is answered while the rep is still standing there quoting you something higher.

Batches and serials are captured at goods-in, where they physically exist: name the lot as it arrives and it becomes traceable; scan each serialized unit and it becomes sellable. A serial that was never received cannot be sold — the rule that keeps the serial file meaning something.

A bill saved as Pending is recorded but the goods have not arrived — nothing moves until you flip it to Received. That distinction keeps the stock file honest in the gap between the invoice landing in your inbox and the truck landing at your door.

Pay now, in part, or not at all: the payment panel takes cash, card, cheque or transfer at entry, and whatever remains unpaid shows in Payables and on the supplier's account, aged from the bill's own date.

Editing a saved bill re-works its stock movements along with its totals — change a quantity, a cost or a location and both sides of the books follow. Returns are raised from the bill itself, capped at what is still returnable, so a line cannot go back twice.

Enter the bill before you sell the goods: selling stock that was never purchased in is where negative stock comes from, and the fix is the missing paperwork, not an adjustment.