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Bookalyze

Purchase orders and deliveries

Draft an order to your supplier, send it, and record each delivery as it arrives. Fill one in from an Alibaba.com receipt, and type the cost of one, the line total or the order total.

Make an order

Where in the app: Inventory → Purchase orders → New purchase order

  • Supplier (one of your vendors), currency, order date, expected date, their reference and notes.
  • Lines of product × quantity × cost. Type the cost of one or the line total, and the other is worked out; or type the order total and it's spread over the lines.
  • Orders are numbered PO-0001, PO-0002 and so on.

Tip: Fill in from an Alibaba receipt: drop in the receipt PDF from the order's page on Alibaba.com. It's read in your browser and never uploaded; it fills the supplier, currency, date, lines and costs, and lists what to check. Nothing is saved until Save draft.

The life of an order

StatusWhat you can do
DraftEdit, delete, Mark as sent
OrderedRecord a delivery, Cancel order, record payments
Partly receivedRecord the rest
ReceivedSettle the difference (when purchases are in the books)
CancelledNothing; the number stays accounted for

Deliveries

Record a delivery fills in everything still to come; lower a number for a partial delivery. A delivery in another currency asks for the exchange rate. Each delivery has its own landed cost page, where freight and duty are added and a wrong arrival date can be changed.

What you should see

What you should see

  • Products shows N on order for sent orders
  • A partial delivery leaves the order Partly received
  • The order's lines add up to the supplier's total to the cent
  • Paying suppliers, and purchases in your books

    Record what you pay against each order, with an optional payment plan. Switch on purchases in the books and payments wait on Supplier deposits until the stock arrives.

    Read the guide
  • Landed cost and FIFO stock lots

    What a unit really cost you: the supplier's price plus its share of freight, duty, brokerage and prep. Each delivery becomes stock lots, and sales use the oldest first.

    Read the guide
  • From an Alibaba order to FBA sales and cost of goods sold

    The whole path of a batch of stock: the purchase order from the Alibaba receipt, the freight paid to a forwarder, the delivery's landed cost, and the cost of the units that sold.

    Read the guide
  • Reorder: when to order and how many

    For each product: how many it sells a day, when it runs out, the last day to order, and how many to order, with Order now and Order soon.

    Read the guide