Backorder for purchases

Overview

You can partially receive a Purchase Order and create a backorder. You can then fully receive the original order.

Partially receive an order

First you will need to receive the items that you have been sent.

From the Purchase Order page, find the transaction to be partially received.
Select the Order Reference to edit the transaction.
For each line item, select the Qty Received column and enter the quantity you have received.
Select Save to confirm the changes.

Create a backorder

By creating a backorder, the items that were not received will be split into a separate - but related - Purchase Orders.

Find the order, hover over the cog icon, then select Admin.
Select Actions then choose Select Items to Back Order.
In the window that appears, enter the quantity of items you would like to back order. Alternatively, Select All to automatically populate the cells with all outstanding items.
Once complete, select Back Order selected Products.
The window that opens will be a new Purchase Order that contains only the outstanding items
Select Approve Back to List to confirm the order.

The new Purchase Order that is created will have the same reference as the original, but with a letter appended to it i.e. a Purchase Order with reference ABC1-234 will become ABC1-234A.

Fully receive the original order

Finally, all that remains is to return to the original order and complete it.

From the Purchase Order List page, find the original order
Select the Order Reference to edit the order
Note that the Back Ordered items have now been removed from this order.
Enter a Fully Received Date, Invoice Date, and Supplier Invoice Number
Select Save Back to List

The order status will have changed from Open to Received. To find the order from the Purchase Order List page, make sure to filter by Received purchases.

Backorders and reporting

From a reporting perspective any stock that has been partially received in on a Purchase Order will be given a received date based on the date the stock quantity was entered, this date will be updated to match the fully received date of the purchase order once that has been set and the order completed.

If you wish to retain the original received date of the stock, you will need to follow the back order steps listed above so that the received stock can have a fixed date set, and the outstanding stock moved to an open Purchase order.

Distribute payments and additional (landing) costs

You must manually distribute payments to backorders. For example, if you purchased 100 units at $1 each and created a backorder for 20 of those units, you would add a payment of $80 to the original purchase order and a payment of $20 to the backorder.

You must manually distribute additional (landing) costs too. For example, if you paid a customs fee that applies to both the original purchase order and its backorder, you must split that cost proportionally between the two transactions. However, additional (landing) costs typically relate to individual shipments, so they don’t usually need to be distributed.

FAQs

I only received part of my order, but the other items have been cancelled - what should I do?

For a full explanation of a number of different receiving scenarios, take a look at Create a Purchase Order.

I have many line items - do I have to receive each line individually?

If you have multiple line items in an order, it may be quicker to Fully Receive the order first, and then edit those line items that have only been partially received, instead of the other way around.