Purchase order lifecycle
A purchase order has four independent status axes. Keeping them apart is deliberate: the document can be confirmed, the goods half delivered, the invoice fully paid, and half the delivery still standing in the buffer.
Document status
Section titled “Document status”Draft → Sent → Confirmed → In Progress → Completed, plus Cancelled.
- Draft — a draft; lines can be changed.
- Sent — sent to the supplier.
- Confirmed — the supplier confirmed it.
- In Progress — something has arrived or been put away.
- Completed — received and shelved.
In Progress and Completed are set from receipts and put-aways.
Delivery status
Section titled “Delivery status”Open → Partially received → Received, plus Partially returned and Returned for returns, and Cancelled. It follows from the quantities received on the lines.
Payment status
Section titled “Payment status”Unpaid, Partially paid, Paid, Partially refunded, Refunded and Cancelled. Kept manually or derived from the invoices attached to the order.
Put-away status
Section titled “Put-away status”Not started → In progress → Done. Derived, not set: the module compares what was received against what is left in the receiving buffer.
That answers a question the delivery status does not cover: the goods arrived, but have they been shelved?
Sending to the supplier
Section titled “Sending to the supplier”From a draft the order is sent with the send button: the module generates a PDF, attaches it to the order and mails it to the supplier’s address. An additional message can be added.
Once the supplier replies, the order is marked confirmed; from that moment goods can be received.
An order created from an invoice import is created as confirmed straight away: the supplier’s document is evidence that the order exists.
Cancelling
Section titled “Cancelling”Cancelling stops an order but does not undo receipts that already happened. Goods that arrived and were shelved stay there; correcting stock is a matter for a return or a stocktake.