There are multiple ways to create purchase orders in Inventory Planner.

You can create a new purchase order directly from Replenishment.

Once you’ve reviewed your replenishment suggestions, select the variants you want to place on a purchase order, then click the “+ New purchase order for [x] variants” button at the bottom of the page.

If the selected items are sourced by different vendors, you can create multiple stock orders in one action.

Note that when creating a purchase order from Replenishment, Inventory Planner automatically chooses the vendors who supply the selected products at the lowest cost price.

You are able to create purchase orders directly from the Stock Orders screen, even without a replenishment recommendation.

Go to Stock Orders, then click “+ New purchase order” at the bottom of the screen.

You’ll be taken to a purchase order edit screen, where you can set the vendor, set the warehouse, and add products to be ordered.

It is possible to create purchase orders in bulk from Replenishment. For more information please see Batch stock orders.

Once you’ve created your purchase order, you may need to edit it to ensure its details are correct.

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 top right-hand corner of the purchase order to change or include the following information:

Confirm that the “Destination warehouse” field lists the destination of your ordered inventory.

If you started your purchase order from the Replenishment screen while viewing a combined warehouse, you will need to choose a destination warehouse for the inventory to be received into.

The destination warehouse can be different from the replenishment warehouse, which is used for calculating replenishment recommendations. Click “Settings” on the top right-hand side of the purchase order to review the “Destination” and “Replenishment” warehouses.

If you need to update the destination or replenishment warehouses, or the delivery or billing addresses on a purchase order, make sure you are editing the purchase order, then click "Settings" and scroll to the "Destination Warehouse" section.

There you can update the destination or replenishment warehouses themselves or update your billing and delivery addresses.

If all the variants on your purchase order are associated with the same vendor, then the “Vendor” field will automatically populate. If the variants are associated with several different vendors, you will need to select a specific vendor for this purchase order.

The data for your vendor is saved and filled automatically if available. You can view this by clicking on “Settings” in the top right-hand corner of the purchase order.

If you update the vendor on a purchase order but are finding its email or address details haven't changed, click "Reload vendor" in the Settings tab to pull the current vendor's details into the purchase order.

The expected date for your inventory's arrival is automatically set as the purchase order creation date plus the lead time of the inventory. 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.

If you need to add additional variants to your purchase order, you can do so in several different ways.

Add an existing variant by searching for it using its name, SKU, ASIN or any other identifying information.

If you want to add other variants from your vendor, you can add either all replenishable variants or just variants with non-zero replenishment amounts.

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

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

You can also 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.

You can edit the quantities you’re ordering on a purchase order manually or using vendor-associated parameters.

Manually change the quantity by editing the “Ordered” field. Once you’ve made a change, you will see an alert. Hover over it to see details 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.

This feature is used when you need to match a purchase order’s (currency) value to your set budget as closely as possible. Click “Actions” on the top right-hand side of the purchase order, then “Scale to budget” to access it.

You can then set a defined budget and Inventory Planner will scale the units to be ordered either up or down accordingly. Units to be ordered will change in proportion to the original amounts set on the PO.

For example, if there are currently 5 units of SKU A on the purchase order, then the budget is doubled, scaling to budget will change the number of units of SKU A to 10.

The scale to budget functionality calculates the amount to be adjusted by dividing the purchase budget you enter by the current subtotal on the order. It then multiplies the ordered quantity on each row by this value.

Note that the new order total may not meet the budget as the multiplier is rounded to two decimal places, and may be rounded down. The ordered quantity must also be rounded to a whole number. It's recommended to check the order after scaling and adjust quantities as needed.

Rows with an ordered quantity of zero will not be increased when using scale to budget, as multiplying anything by zero still gives a result of zero.

This feature scales units on your PO up or down to match the target number of units to order on the PO as closely as possible. 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 “Actions” while in edit mode of your purchase order.

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

After clicking “Set”, the ordered quantities of all variants on the purchase order will be set to that amount.

Once all your changes have been made, save the purchase order.

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 purchase order status, click into the purchase order, then click “Actions” and select the new status.

You can also update the status by clicking on “Settings” in the upper right corner. Learn more about updating statuses here.

If the purchase order is in a draft state, you’ll find an option to approve a purchase order to update its status from "DRAFT" to "OPEN" in the purchase order detail screen.

You can also approve purchase orders in bulk by selecting them in the Stock Orders list, then clicking “Bulk Actions” and “Approve Draft”.

Inventory Planner integrates with purchase order functionality in inventory management systems (e.g. QuickBooks Commerce, Ordoro, Vend, Skubana, Lightspeed, DEAR, LinnWorks, Cin7, Unleashed, Orderhive, LOCATE Inventory, and Zoho Inventory), or Amazon when available.

After creating a purchase order in Inventory Planner, you can optionally Save it to the inventory management system. Any further updates to the purchase order, including the receipt of items, should be done within the inventory management system. Inventory Planner will then download any updates regarding the purchase orders in the inventory management system.