Purchase

The document flow

Purchase mirrors Sales from the buying side:

Purchase Order → Receiving → Purchase Invoice → Payment

• Purchase Orders — sent to a supplier, with the same line/order-level discounts and editable unit price that Sales has.
• Receiving — goods receipt against a PO posts a real stock transaction into your warehouse balances (through the same engine Inventory & Warehouse uses) and a real GL entry — not a status flag flipped on the order. Partial receipts are supported, and status transitions are locked down so a PO can’t be received twice or received out of its expected sequence.
• Purchase Invoices — a real, separate record from the PO, valued net of any discount. Created automatically when a PO is marked invoiced.
• Purchase Returns — sending goods back to a supplier, reversing the stock and GL impact of the original receipt.
• Supplier Advances — payments made ahead of invoicing, tracked separately.

GRNI (Goods Received, Not Invoiced)

Receiving a PO before its invoice arrives posts a GRNI liability — you’ve recognized the stock and the obligation to pay, without yet having the supplier’s invoice. The matching Purchase Invoice clears it. This is standard accrual accounting, handled automatically rather than left to a manual journal entry.

Partial payments

Same model as Sales Invoices: a Purchase Invoice tracks its real outstanding balance, so Accounts Payable aging reflects what you actually still owe a supplier, not just whether any payment has landed.

Approvals

Purchase Orders route through the same generic approval workflow as Sales Orders — useful for enforcing a manager-sign-off threshold before a PO goes out.

See also: Accounting for how GRNI and payables post to the ledger, and Inventory & Warehouse for what happens to stock on receipt.