Receiving purchases

When a supplier delivers something to your warehouse, you process that delivery: you check the products, give them a place and add them to your stock. In Picqer we call this receipts.

This guide is about how you handle receipts in your warehouse and how Picqer helps you with this.

What are receipts?

A receipt is what you register at the moment a delivery arrives. You check what has been delivered, give the products a place in your warehouse and add them to stock. Usually you have created a purchase order in advance — this shows what you expect. When receiving, you record what has actually arrived.

One receipt belongs to one delivery. As soon as you register a receipt, Picqer knows the products are there. If an order arrives in multiple parts, you register a separate receipt per delivery on the same purchase order.

Why work with receipts?

When you receive a delivery, you want to know if you are getting what you ordered. Is the quantity correct? Is anything missing? By linking a receipt to your purchase order you can immediately see per product what has come in and what is still outstanding, without having to track this yourself.

Manually adding stock is also possible, but using receipts is faster and keeps your administration more accurate for later.

How do you handle a receipt?

1. Start with the oldest delivery

Are multiple deliveries arriving at the same time? Start with the oldest. The longer a delivery sits, the greater the chance that boxes get lost, customers wait too long or discrepancies can no longer be traced back to the correct delivery.

2. Find the associated purchase order

Do you know which purchase order the delivery belongs to? Look it up and add a new receipt to that order. You can then immediately see which products are expected and in what quantities. This way you can easily check whether everything is correct while unpacking.

Do you work with suppliers who deliver multiple orders at once, or do you not know in advance what is coming? Then create a receipt for a particular supplier. You scan each product that comes in and Picqer looks up the associated purchase order — the oldest first, so older orders are automatically completed.

3. Receive at one fixed location

Receive all orders at the same place, for example at a packing table with a scanner and a computer. There you unpack the delivery, check each product and scan the barcode.

One fixed location prevents products from becoming scattered and ensures that everyone works in the same way.

4. Put products away immediately or use a container

When receiving you choose where the product goes. There are two approaches:

Directly to a location. You immediately place the product in its final spot in the warehouse. Convenient in a small warehouse, or when you receive a large quantity of one product — for example a full pallet with products going to the same location.

Via a container. At the packing table, you register the product on a container. A container can be anything you use to move stock, for example a bin, trolley or pallet. The stock is then already in Picqer, but is not yet at a fixed location and is not yet pickable. The container then goes into the warehouse, moving the products to their final locations. A colleague can do this while you continue checking the rest of the delivery.

For most warehouses a container works better. You can use containers in different ways:

one container per product type, for example with roller conveyer;
multiple products in the same container, until it is full.

5. Save receipts during the process, not at the end

As soon as you receive the scanned products, the stock is in Picqer. That is why it works well to report in small steps:

After several items. Scan the product, choose a location or container and pick up the next product. Once you've scanned a good amount of products, press receive.
Per box. Does the delivery consist of multiple boxes? Open one box, scan or register all products in it and press receive before opening the next box.

This way a colleague can already put away what has been received while you continue with the rest. If you first unpack the entire delivery and report everything in one go, you may lose track and discrepancies are harder to trace back to the correct product.

6. Close the purchase order

As soon as you have received all ordered products, Picqer automatically closes the associated purchase order. Has a supplier not delivered everything and is the remaining part not expected to arrive later on? Then manually close the purchase order. This keeps your outstanding purchases accurate.

What do you need in Picqer?

To be able to receive purchases you use these elements of Picqer:

Purchase orders: This shows what you have ordered and what you expect.
Locations: When receiving a product you indicate on what location it will be put away. This way it can be picked effortlessly later on. If you work with multiple warehouses, you receive per warehouse.

Useful additions:

Containers: Convenient for unpacking quickly without immediately putting things away on a final locations.
Barcodes on your products: Without a barcode you enter quantities manually. Scanning is faster and prevents errors.
A scanner or the mobile app: This allows you to receive anywhere in the warehouse, not just at the packing table.

What does Picqer handle automatically?

As soon as you receive products, Picqer handles this:

Stock goes up at the chosen location and in the correct warehouse. Every change can be seen in the stock history of the product.
Backorders are prepared. Do you have outstanding backorders for this product, then Picqer updates their availability for the next picklist.
The purchase order is updated. You can see per productline how much you have received and what is still outstanding.