Purchasing

Having enough stock to process orders quickly starts with good purchasing. Knowing what you have ordered, which deliveries are expected and what you have already received — per supplier and per product.

This guide is about how you approach purchasing and how Picqer helps you with this. For receiving a purchase order there is a separate guide: Receiving purchases.

What is purchasing?

Purchasing means that you order products from a supplier and process the delivery once it arrives. This process consists of two parts:

• Purchase orders: What you are going to purchase or have purchased from a supplier. An order shows you what products you are expecting and in what quantities.
• Receipts: What has actually arrived in your warehouse. You register a receipt as soon as the delivery arrives.

By linking purchase orders to accompanying receipts, you maintain insight into what is in transit, what has already been delivered and what is still outstanding.

Why work with purchasing?

By registering purchases in Picqer you can see the connection: how many backorders are waiting for a particular product, when will the delivery arrive, and does that match what you agreed? Picqer combines your purchase orders, receipts and backorders, so you can see at a glance where things go wrong — and when you need to restock.

How do you approach purchasing?

A smooth workflow that works for most warehouses:

1. Determine what you need to order

You can keep track yourself of which stock is running low, but it's easier to let Picqer do that for you. Set a stock strategy per product: at what stock level do you want to reorder, and up to what quantity do you want to replenish? Based on that, Picqer automatically calculates a purchase advice per supplier — taking into account your current stock, outstanding backorders and optionally your sales history.

2. Create a purchase order per supplier

From the purchase advice you can convert the advised products into a purchase order with a single click. Prefer to work from your own list? Then you create the purchase order manually and fill in the products and quantities yourself.

Add to the order what you expect to receive: products, quantities, price and an expected delivery date.

3. Send the purchase order to your supplier

Once the order is correct, you send it to your supplier. Picqer can automatically send the purchase order by email with a custom template, so the supplier immediately sees what you need and when.

Prefer to order by phone or via a supplier portal? Then the purchase order in Picqer serves as your own administration of what you have ordered.

4. Receive the delivery

When the delivery arrives, you register a receipt on the associated purchase order. This way you know per product line what has come in and what is still outstanding. If an order has been fully received, Picqer closes it automatically. Not expecting the remaining part anymore? Then you close the order yourself after the last receipt, so your outstanding purchases remain accurate.

How to best process receipts in your warehouse — oldest delivery first, checking at the packing table, receiving via containers — is covered in the guide Receiving purchases.

What do you need in Picqer?

To be able to purchase you use these parts of Picqer:

• Purchase orders: The central component where you record what you have ordered from which supplier.
• Suppliers: Per product you indicate which supplier you purchase it from. This is necessary to be able to calculate the purchase advice per supplier.

Useful additions:

• Stock strategy per product: Order level and replenishment level, so the purchase advice knows when and how much you want to purchase.
• Email templates for purchase orders: To send orders directly from Picqer to your supplier.

What does Picqer handle automatically?

Once you work with purchase orders, Picqer handles this:

• The purchase advice stays up to date: Based on your stock, backorders and sales, Picqer continuously calculates what you should order.
• Expected stock becomes visible: On the product page you can see how many units of a product are in transit and when they are expected.