Purchase orders are how new stock lands on your shelf. When you mark a PO as Received, its line items become receive movements — quantity on hand goes up, and the weighted average cost rolls forward.
The lifecycle
A purchase order walks through statuses (Draft → Ordered → Received → Billed). Inventory only cares about Received — that's when the parts physically arrived and stock should reflect it.
See Purchase order statuses for the full status map.
What happens when you receive
- Purchases → open the PO → Receive.
- Confirm the parts arrived — this is all-or-nothing: the whole PO is received in one action. There's no partial-received-with-a-remainder split today.
- Every line item posts a receive movement into inventory:
- Quantity on hand goes up by the line item's quantity.
- The line item's cost is folded into the part's weighted average cost (see below).
- The movement links back to the PO — you can see it in the part's movement history.
Weighted average cost — worked example
Weighted average cost is the running "what did this part cost me on average" figure. Every receive updates it.
- You had 4 capacitors on hand at $12 each. Book value: $48.
- You receive a PO with 10 capacitors at $10 each. New shipment cost: $100.
- After receive: 14 capacitors on hand, book value $148, weighted average cost = $148 / 14 ≈ $10.57.
The next receive rolls the formula forward. Manual adjustments don't change the average cost; only receives do — see Making a manual stock adjustment.
What if the line item isn't a tracked part?
- Only pricebook items of type Part with Track inventory on show up in inventory.
- A PO line item pointing at a non-tracked item still records the purchase but doesn't touch inventory. Useful for services (subcontractor labor) or one-off items you don't stock.
What if you receive the wrong quantity?
Because receives are all-or-nothing on the PO, if the delivery came short:
- Receive the PO as-is (records the "on paper" quantities).
- Immediately do a manual adjustment on the affected parts to correct the actual on-hand count. Reason = Miscount or Other with a note like "PO 4501 short-shipped 3 capacitors". See Making a manual stock adjustment.
This keeps the paper trail clean — the PO shows what was ordered, the adjustment shows what actually landed.
Where to see the receive movement
- Inventory page — quantity on hand and total value update.
- Part detail drawer → movement history — the receive shows with the PO number and the unit cost.
- PO detail — status now Received.
