Inventory Planner allows you to create Purchase Orders for your suppliers/vendors based on Replenishment suggestions. If you use an Inventory Management System (like Skubana, QuickBooks Commerce, Linnworks, etc.), Inventory Planner also synchronizes Purchase Orders with those platforms. 

A typical Purchase Order workflow includes the following actions:

All changes in purchase order update on order quantities and replenishment suggestions for corresponding variants.

If you use a system that does not provide full-featured Purchase Orders (for example, Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento), you can optionally increase stock after receiving items in Inventory Planner. 

Inventory Planner closely integrates with purchase order functionality in inventory management systems (Skubana, QuickBooks Commerce, and Vend) when available. After creating a purchase order in Inventory Planner, you can optionally Save it in the inventory management system by selecting the button at the bottom. 

Any further updates to the purchase order (including receiving items) should be done in the inventory management system. Purchase order information in Inventory Planner will update to reflect changes in the IMS following the next sync.

FAQ: I know the Inventory Management System(IMS) integration is set up to push and pull PO info but, when does it occur?

When you create a new PO in Inventory Planner, an option appears immediately to push it to the IMS. ("Save to IMS") That action should more or less be instant, and from that point, it is managed entirely in the IMS. Separately on a nightly basis Inventory Planner sync updates/changes from the IMS on POs(along with product/stock changes, and new sales orders) - or after a full sync if triggered manually before an automatic nightly sync.

Here you can view your Stock Orders (Purchase Orders and Transfers), filter by status or product name and create a new one from scratch. (Purchase Orders can also be created from the Replenishment screen.) You can view Stock Order details by clicking on purchase order title number/title.

To customize information showing on the dashboard, click the gear icon in the upper right corner to enable or disable columns.

To review the Source for your Stock order, please click in the gear icon and add the Source Metric as a column to understand if it was due to an Automation, Manually Created or Synced from your Platform.

Go to Account (lower left corner) > Settings > Purchase Orders to change the following settings:

These settings will then apply to all Purchase Orders in your system (the counter will be sequential and continue with each new PO).

Click here to read more about how to customize PO PDF for each vendor.

Use the manage template option to add/remove details from the Purchase Order PDF export.

To set the billing and shipping address for each warehouse, go to Account (lower right corner) > Settings > Warehouses. There click on Settings for one warehouse. 

There you can enter billing and shipping addresses.

Once you enter this information, it is stored in Inventory Planner so you will not need to enter that each time you create a Purchase Order.

You can create a new Purchase Order directly from Replenishment. Once you have reviewed Inventory Planner replenishment suggestions, filter or select several variants in Replenishment view. 

 and create a new Purchase Order for them. 

If the selected items are sourced by different vendors, you can create Multiple Stock Orders simultaneously.

Select all Variants desired to create a Multiple Stock Order. Proceed selecting + Multiple Stock Orders to "X Location" for "Tot Number of Variants".

You will then see new options where you can Create Multiple Stock Orders, for multiple vendors and even multiple locations, if desired. To configure all settings please follow our Guideline for Batch Stock Orders.

* If you chose to set the PO's to 'Draft' status, which does not impact the 'On Order' quantity in Replenishment. Once these Purchase Orders are shifted to 'Open' status they will be considered 'On Order'.

Enable metrics and fields

To customize fields for individual Purchase Orders, click on the gear icon to enable and rearrange columns.

Click here to learn more about changing columns.

Click on Settings in the upper right corner of the Purchase Order to change or include the following information:

Warehouses

Confirm that the ‘To Warehouse’ field is correctly set to match the destination of your ordered inventory.

If you started your Purchase Order from the Replenishment screen viewing a combined warehouse, you will need to choose a destination warehouse where the inventory will arrive. 

This can be different than the ‘Replenishment warehouse’ which is used for calculating replenishment recommendations. Click ‘Settings’ to review the ‘To Warehouse’ and ‘Replenishment from’ warehouse. 

Vendor 

If all variants on your Purchase Order are associated to the same vendor, then the ‘From Vendor’ field will automatically populate. Otherwise you will need to select a vendor.

The data for your vendor is saved and filled automatically if available. You can view this by clicking on ‘Settings’ in the upper right corner of the purchase order.

The expected date for your inventory arrival is automatically set as the PO creation date + the lead time. You can update this date as needed. Maintaining an accurate expected date improves the accuracy of Replenishment recommendations. For example, using the ‘sells out in first’ metric in Replenishment can alert you to a forecasted stockout that might occur before your next inventory shipment arrives. 

Adding Line Items

If you need to add additional variants to your Purchase Order, there are several options to do so.

Add existing variants by searching using the name, SKU, ASIN or other identifying information. 

Add either all replenishable variants or variants with non-zero replenishment amounts.

To add all replenishable variants, be sure that all vendor - variant associations are set correctly. 

Variants with non-zero replenishment will include any associated variants with at least “1” indicated on the Replenish column viewed on the Replenishment page.

Add a non-existing variant when a variant does not already exist in Inventory Planner. 

Note that adding a non-existing variant will not create a variant on your connected platform. It is best to create the variant on your connected platform, then run a ‘Variant Sync’ in Inventory Planner to populate the new information. Also note that if you add a non-existing variant then later create a variant on your connected platform, the two will not sync information in Inventory Planner. 

Change quantities to order

Editing quantities to order on the Purchase Order can be done manually or using vendor-associated parameters.

Manually change the quantity by editing the Ordered field. After a change, you will see an alert and detail (using hover) about the update. 

Parameters such as Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) and Units of Measure (UOM) can be used to update ordered quantities to align with ordering constraints from your supplier. Click here to learn more about setting up MOQ and UOM.

Scale to Budget 

This feature is used when you need to match a Purchase Order (currency) value as closely as possible to your set budget. 

This will scale the units to be ordered either up or down to be as close as possible to the defined budget. Units to be ordered will change in proportion to the original amounts set on the PO. For example, if SKU A originally needed 5 units ordered, then the budget on the PO is doubled, SKU A will now show 10 units to order.

Scale to Total Quantity 

This feature scales units on your PO up or down to match as closely as possible to the target number of units to order on the PO. The result may not match the target exactly because units will be scaled in proportion to the original amounts entered on the PO.

To update information like product name, cost, vendor reference or other fields, click 'Reload variants' under 'Action's while in edit mode of your purchase order.

If you need to set the quantity for all items on your Purchase Order to the same quantity, use this function to override default ordered quantities. Enter the quantity to order for each vendor 

Then all variants' ordered quantities will be set to that amount. 

Send a Purchase Order to Vendor

You can email a PO directly from Inventory Planner, or you can download it to send directly from your email inbox.

To email a PO directly from Inventory Planner, click ‘Email’ when viewing the saved PO detail. 

From there you can chose the PO format to send to the vendor (CSV or PDF), customize the email subject line, include a message, use a message template, or attach other documents. 

Vendor email(s) will populate based on information saved in the Vendor section of Inventory Planner. 

Download your saved PO by clicking ‘More’ and choosing the format needed.

Receiving Inventory on a Purchase Order

Upon receiving a shipment from your vendor, you will need to receive the items on the purchase order. 

If you are connected to an IMS, orders can be pushed from Inventory Planner to your IMS - allowing you to receive orders directly through there. Your IMS will adjust your stock, and Inventory Planner will update the stock quantity upon the next sync.

For sales platform integrations, you must receive items and close Purchase Orders so that variants listed will no longer be considered on order. The same methods for receiving Purchase Orders described here also apply to warehouse transfers.

See Details on Receiving a Purchase Order

Edit PO Status

The status of your PO will automatically change from Open to Closed or Partially Received when you receive inventory. If you need to make other changes to the PO status, first view the PO detail. Then click on ‘More’ and select the new status. 

While in PO Edit mode, update the status by clicking on Settings in the upper right corner. 

There's an option to Approve a PO so it changes status from "DRAFT" to "OPEN". Select the DRAFT in Stock Orders, then select Bulk Actions and Approve Draft.

Bulk Actions to Update Purchase Orders  

If you need to update several POs at a time, you can use Bulk Actions to save time. On the Purchase Order screen, select POs that you want to update using checkboxes on the left side. Then click Bulk Actions at the bottom of the screen.

Here you can export POs either with summary information or with line item detail, reopen a closed purchase order, change the type and source of a PO or transfer, or delete POs.

When reopening a closed PO, note that any unreceived items will be considered on order (in a PO) or transferring (in a transfer). 

To change a PO to a transfer or vice versa, update the vendor of a PO, or select a different source warehouse for a transfer, select the 'Set Source' option in Bulk Actions.

When deleting a PO using Bulk Actions, note that the PO or transfer will not be automatically deleted in your connected platform. 

If you delete a PO in error, you can view these using Filters at the top of the page > Removed. 

Print Product Labels

Labeling products sent to Amazon is required so that your products can be tracked throughout the receiving and fulfillment process.

As part of Amazon’s shipment creation process, you can save time and money by creating and printing labels directly from Inventory Planner.

Here’s how:

In order to print or customize your labels, click Labels at the top of the purchase order detail screen.

You can print labels for either individual products or cartons.

From there, you can specify how many labels you'd like printed for each SKU or carton manually by changing the value in the ‘# Labels’ field.

You can also populate values in this field by selecting ‘Set label quantities’ from ordered, received, or clear all values. 

Learn more about customizing your labels here.
 

To import a purchase order or transfer from a spreadsheet:

2. Go to the Purchase Order section from the left side menu.

3. At the bottom of the screen, click Import > Purchase Orders.

4. Attach your saved spreadsheet by clicking the option to select your file or dragging the desired File to the import area.
We also offer a CSV Template download, if you require to create a Purchase Order import file.

5. Inventory Planner will match columns with your column names when possible. For other columns of information, you will need to select the correct column title to match the information type for import.

If you are importing a transfer, select the 'Orders Type' field to indicate that the import is a transfer rather than a PO.

When you select 'Transfer' there will be additional fields to select either a Source Warehouse or to indicate a Source Warehouse column on your import spreadsheet. You only need to use one of these two source warehouse fields on the import dialog.

6. When all column names have been matched to their information field, click Upload at the bottom of the screen.

By default, all vendors are enabled in Inventory Planner. This means that Replenishment information is available for these suppliers on the Purchase Order Calendar. To see the calendar, go the Purchase Order section and click 'Calendar' at the bottom of the screen. 

Dates on the Purchase Order Calendar are based on the last order date from the vendor + the vendor's "Days of stock" period for specified warehouse. Note that dates on the PO Calendar are not based on the 'Replenish Date' seen on the Replenishment page. 

If you do not plan to order from a supplier and therefore do not want to see reorder reminders on the PO Calendar, you can disable the vendor in the Vendor section of Inventory Planner. Do to this, select the Vendor using the left checkboxes, then click Bulk Actions > Disable. 

To Print a Stock Order go to the Desired Stock Order you want to print, click the three dots and choose your desired Export Format. Once the file is uploaded in your computer you can proceed the document as a normal document.

Always remember that when your Export a CSV Stock order it always follow the current metrics and columns disposition. To personalise it please go to the gear icon and you will see Visible Columns, drag Columns to re-order according to your preferences and use the trash can icon to delete the ones you don't need. Always remember to Save your changes.