Purchase & Suppliers

The Purchase & Supplier Management addon is the purchase book of the centre. It records who you buy from, what you bought, what it cost and what you still owe for it. One purchase is one document: receiving it puts the goods into stock, and paying it reduces what you owe the supplier.

It is for the owner or store keeper who orders hearing aids, batteries and mould material from importers and distributors.

Switching it on

Purchase & Supplier Management is a premium addon, so it has to be in your licence first.

1. Buy it with Buy this addon on its card on Admin → Addons. When the order is confirmed, the key comes down by itself at the next licence check; Collect purchases now under License → Addon keys fetches it at once. The addon is normally switched on as it arrives.
2. A key you got some other way goes in the Addon key box under License → Addon keys. Paste it and press Add the key.
3. If its card on Admin → Addons still says Disabled, press Enable.

Where to find it

The sidebar heading Purchase & Supplier Management Addons holds Purchases (the purchase book), New Purchase, Suppliers and Settings.

The permissions, in the Purchasing group under Roles & Permissions, are View suppliers and purchases, Add / edit / delete suppliers, Record and edit purchases and Record payments to suppliers. A store keeper can record purchases without being able to pay them.

Suppliers

Suppliers → + Add a supplier.

Recording a purchase

New Purchase (or + New purchase on the purchase book).

The top of the form:

• Supplier: choose one, or leave it not recorded. Add a supplier under the box opens the supplier list.
• Date, Supplier's invoice no. and Payment due.
• Received at: the branch the goods went to, when you run more than one branch.
• Status: Received, Ordered, not yet here or Draft.

Under What was bought, each line has:

• Product: a product from your catalogue, or free text for something that is not stocked, such as courier charges or a tool. Choosing a product fills in its last cost.
• A box for Serial numbers, comma separated, which appears only for products that carry serial numbers.
• Description, Qty, Unit cost, Discount and the Line total.

+ Another line adds a row. Below the lines are a Note and the totals: Sub-total, Discount, Tax / VAT, Carriage and Total, which add up as you type.

Press Record the purchase. The purchase gets the next number, for example PUR-2026-00001.

Receiving the goods

With Treat a saved purchase as received on (the default), a purchase saved with the status Received goes straight into stock: the message reads saved and 3 line(s) taken into stock.

If you order first and the box arrives later, save the purchase as Ordered, not yet here. When the goods come, open the purchase and press Take into stock.

Taking a purchase into stock does three things, once only:

1. Every product line adds its quantity to stock at the branch it was received at. With Inventory & Stock on, each line appears under Movements as Purchased.
2. Every serial number typed on a line becomes a serial record in stock under Catalogue → Serial Numbers, ready to be sold, warranted and repaired by its own number.
3. With Update the product cost price from each purchase on, the product's cost price becomes this unit cost.

Free-text lines are recorded but do not move stock.

The purchase page

Opening a purchase shows it as a printable document with the supplier, their invoice number, the due date, the lines and the totals, with Paid and Outstanding at the bottom.

The buttons at the top are Print, and, until the goods are in stock, Edit, Take into stock and Cancel. Once the goods are in stock the purchase can no longer be edited or cancelled. To undo it, take the goods out with an adjustment on Inventory & Stock first.

Paying the supplier

The Payments card under the document takes a payment while anything is outstanding:

• Amount: it starts at the full amount due and cannot be more than that.
• Date.
• Method: Cash, Bank transfer, Cheque, bKash, Nagad, Rocket, Card or Other.
• Reference: the cheque or transaction number.

Press Record the payment. You can pay in as many parts as you like. A payment entered by mistake is removed with the cross beside it. With the Accounts addon on, supplier payments appear in the cash book as money going out.

The purchase book

Purchases lists every purchase with its number, date, supplier, total, paid, due and status (Received, Ordered, Draft or Cancelled). Above the list are the totals bought, paid and still owed.

Filter by supplier, status or dates, or tick Only unpaid.

While anything is owed, the dashboard shows an Owed to suppliers card. It opens the purchase book with only the unpaid purchases.

Settings

A typical month

1. The distributor's invoice arrives with the box. Open New Purchase, choose the supplier and type their invoice number.
2. Add each model with its quantity and cost, and type the serial numbers of the hearing aids.
3. Press Record the purchase. The stock and the serial numbers are ready to sell.
4. Pay part by bKash today: open the purchase and record the payment with the transaction number.
5. At the end of the month, tick Only unpaid on the purchase book to see what is still owed, supplier by supplier.

Tips

• Use Payment due on every credit purchase, so the unpaid list tells you what to pay first.
• Type serial numbers on the purchase rather than adding them by hand later. Then every unit can be traced from the supplier to the patient.