Back-to-back (or just-in-time) ordering allows inventory levels to be kept to a minimum by only placing orders with suppliers when there is a customer waiting for the item. Brightpearl streamlines the whole process, from placing the purchase order with the supplier to allocating the goods directly to the sales when they arrive into stock.
The stock status of the sales is updated ensuring they automatically fall into the fulfilment and shipping workflow.
Creating back-to-back purchase orders
Back-to-back purchase orders can be created for a single sales order, or for a batch of sales orders. The first thing to do is clone the sale(s) to a purchase order.
How to clone a single sale to a purchase order
- Enter the sale you wish to clone to a purchase order. Click the arrow next to 'Save Changes', then click 'Clone to PO'
Or select the items you wish to create a purchase order for, and click 'Clone to purchase order':
- On the next screen, make sure 'Purchase order' is selected, and pick the vendor you are creating a purchase order for:
- Fill out the rest of the fields:
Section Field Description Original Add comments? If 'Yes', a note will be added to the 'Notes and payment history' tab on the original sales order, stating the sale was cloned to a purchase order. Set status to Choose the order status to set the original order to after cloning. This defaults to the sale's current order status. Delete original? This setting can only be set to 'Yes' if the original order is unpaid, uninvoiced and unfulfilled.
If set to 'Yes', it will delete the original order.
New Add comments? If 'Yes', a note will be added to the 'Notes and payment history' tab on the new purchase order, stating the purchase was cloned from a previous order. Set status to Choose the order status to set the new purchase order to. This defaults to the first status in the purchase order statuses list. Link to original? If 'Yes', a link will be added to the header of the purchase order linking back to the original sale.
Deliver to Choose which warehouse to deliver the inventory into.
This determines the warehouse set on the purchase order.
- Click 'Clone now' to be taken to the new purchase order.
How to clone batches of sales to purchase orders
- Go to Sales > Recent sales, and search for the relevant sales orders.
- Select them using the checkboxes on the right hand side and click More actions > Batch purchase orders.
- This will bring up a modal window with several options:
The options are as follows:Order all items on the selected sales regardless of fulfillment: This option will order the same quantity of each item as seen on the sales, even if some have already been allocated from stock, or have been fulfilled or shipped, including fulfilled to drop-ship purchase orders.
Order items need to fulfill selected sales: This option will only add the quantity remaining to complete the order. Any items which are already allocated, fulfilled or shipped (including drop-shipped items) will be subtracted from the quantity.
Exclude items already on hand/in stock: This option will subtract either the current on hand or the in stock quantity to prevent ordering more of items which are already available.
Exclude items on purchase orders not yet received: Check this box to prevent items being ordered for which deliveries are already expected.
Vendor (supplier) to use: Specify how the vendor should be chosen for the purchase orders that will be created. Products will need vendors assigned to use the primary or cheapest options.
Update sales to status: If required, select the status that should be assigned to the selected sales orders.
- Click 'Create purchase order'. You will receive a notification stating how many purchase orders have been created and which products they contain:
The sales orders and the purchase orders will also contain a summary of which items were used to create the purchase orders on the 'Notes and payment history' tab:
Receiving stock for back-to-back orders
When goods are received for back-to-back orders, the inventory can be automatically allocated to the sales orders. This is a choice made at the point of receiving the goods into stock on the purchase order.
Received goods will be allocated to the oldest orders first and details of which orders have been updated will be recorded in the notes on both the purchase and sales orders.
To ensure inventory is automatically allocated every time, set default at Settings > Purchases > Purchase settings.
Automation
Using the Brightpearl automation app, you can create purchase orders automatically for sales based on a number of conditions.