Process

You can begin the purchasing process in SAP Business One by requesting quotations for items or services from your vendors using the purchase quotation document. Once you have compared the vendors' quotes and found the best offer, you proceed to ordering the goods. To order the items or services, you create a purchase order document.

The next stage is the goods receipt PO. It is the stage when the inventory is received into the company. The goods receipt is followed by an A/P invoice, which is the request for payment. It is the only mandatory document in the purchasing process. It is possible to create the A/P invoice without first creating a goods receipt PO or a purchase order.

In SAP Business One, you can create an A/P reserve invoice. This document is similar to a purchase order but includes a request for payment. The A/P reserve invoice is used when a vendor is concerned about the credit worthiness of his customers. In the purchasing process of SAP Business One, it is possible to return goods to the vendor if, for example, the goods you received were faulty. You can use a goods return if you based the return on a goods receipt PO or an A/P credit memo if the return is based an A/P invoice.

You can create a new document based on one or more of the existing ones. When you create a new document with reference to an existing document, only the documents that are still open are displayed. All documents for which you have not created a follow-on document have an open status. Open documents remain open until you transfer all items completely to the follow-on document, or until you manually close or reverse them.

Each document affects inventory quantities and some affect the general ledger. The purchase order affects the available inventory quantity. The goods receipt PO increases the actual inventory quantity. If you create an A/P invoice without reference to the goods receipt PO, it will also increase the quantity in stock.

As far as accounting is concerned, the A/P invoice always creates an accounting transaction. It records freight and tax and updates the vendor account with the new outstanding balance.

The A/P reserve invoice only affects the available inventory quantity and creates an accounting transaction.

The goods return reduces the actual inventory levels. The A/P credit memo reduces the actual inventory levels and also creates an accounting transaction by applying negative amounts to the previously invoiced accounts.