Purchase Orders

How Purchase Orders Work in Helm

A purchase order is your record of what you have asked a supplier to send you, what it should cost, and when it is due. It sits under Purchasing > Purchase Orders, and it drives two things: the stock Helm expects to arrive, and the money you owe.

Every purchase order moves through four statuses:

• Draft: still being built. You can change anything, and the supplier has not seen it.

• Sent: issued to the supplier. Helm now expects the stock.

• Received: everything on the order has either arrived or been cancelled.

• Cancelled: the order will not be fulfilled. This cannot be undone.

Alongside the status, two other fields tell you where an order actually stands. Delivery Status shows how much has physically arrived: None, Partial or Full. Payment Status shows how much you have settled: Pending, Partially Paid or Paid. An order can be fully received and still unpaid, so read all three together.

Purchase orders also carry a Type, which records how the order came about:

• Manual Creation: you built it yourself.

• Inventory Demand: Helm suggested it from your stock levels and reorder settings.

• Open Order Demand: Helm suggested it because customer orders need stock you do not have.

Example scenario: a supplier confirms 80 of the 100 units you ordered and tells you the rest is discontinued. You receive the 80 into stock, cancel the outstanding 20, and the order moves to Received with a Delivery Status of Partial. Nothing is left hanging in your expected stock figures.

Before You Start

• The supplier must exist in Helm first. You choose a supplier when you create the order, so set them up under Purchasing > Suppliers beforehand.

• Supplier codes and unit costs are worth setting on the product. Helm fills Supplier Code and Unit Cost from the product's supplier record, so getting those right once saves correcting every order.

• Check the supplier's order rules. Order Multiple and minimum order quantity are set per supplier. Helm warns you when a quantity breaks them, but it will not stop you.

• You need purchasing permissions. If Purchase Orders is missing from your Purchasing menu, ask whoever administers Helm for your business to check your permission group.

How to Create a Purchase Order in Helm

1. Go to Purchasing > Purchase Orders and choose Create.

2. Choose the supplier. Helm shows how many items are short of stock for each supplier under Insufficient Stock Items, which is a quick way to spot who you should be ordering from. If a supplier has nothing in demand you will see No Items Required.

3. Set the expected delivery date. If you change it later, Helm asks Update All Lines? so you can either push the new date to every line with Update All or leave the individual lines alone with Don't Update.

4. Add your items. Choose Add Item, search by product name or code, then set the Qty, Item Price and any Item Discount.

5. Add vendor references if you have them. Vendor Details holds the Vendor Invoice Number and Vendor Shipment Number, which makes matching paperwork later much easier.

6. Publish your changes. If you navigate away without publishing, Helm warns you that your changes will not be reflected in inventory and stock. It means it: unpublished changes do not count.

Adding & Editing Items

The Purchase Order Items panel is where the detail lives. Each line shows Item Name, Supplier Code, Order Multiple, Qty, Expected Delivery Date, Received, Cancelled, Tax (%), Unit Cost, Discount and Line Cost.

Helm raises a warning, but still lets you continue, when a quantity looks wrong:

• Order Multiple Warning: the quantity is not a multiple of the supplier's case or pack size.

• Below Minimum Order Qty: the quantity is under the minimum this supplier accepts.

• Above Maximum Level: receiving this quantity would take you over the maximum stock level set on the product.

Per line you can also Add Note, Cancel Order Quantity for units the supplier will not send, and View Calculation Logs to see how Helm arrived at a suggested quantity on a demand-generated order.

Totals sit at the foot of the panel: Subtotal, Tax, Discount, Order Discount and Total, in the Order Currency.

Sending the Order to Your Supplier

1. From the purchase order, or from the list view, choose Send to Supplier. Helm emails the order using your purchase order email template and moves the status to Sent.

2. To issue several at once, select them in the list and use Send to Supplier as a bulk action.

3. To record an order as issued without emailing the supplier, for example when you have phoned it through, send it without the email step rather than leaving it in Draft. An order left in Draft is not counted as expected stock.

A Sent order is locked for editing. If you need to change it, choose Convert to Draft, make your changes, then send it again. Use Duplicate when you order the same thing regularly.

Receiving Stock Against a Purchase Order

Stock does not arrive on the purchase order itself. It arrives on a delivery, which is the receiving record your warehouse team books goods in against.

1. Open the purchase order and select the lines that have arrived.

2. Choose Create Delivery, then Go to Delivery to open the new record.

3. Book the goods in on the delivery, recording the quantity actually received. Deliveries track their own status: Due In, Partially Received and Received.

4. The purchase order's Received column and Delivery Status update as deliveries are booked in. If more arrives than you ordered, Helm flags the line as excess received rather than silently absorbing it.

When a supplier is not going to send the rest, use Mark as "Received" to close the order off. Read the dialog before confirming: Helm cancels the outstanding expected quantities on the items it lists. That is usually what you want, because it stops phantom stock sitting in your expected figures, but it is not reversible.

Recording Payments & Refunds

Helm tracks what you owe on each order separately from the stock.

1. On the purchase order, choose Register Payment.

2. Fill in the Invoice number, Payment reference and Paid amount, plus an Additional note if it needs explaining.

3. Part-pay by entering less than the total. The order moves to Partially Paid and shows what is left.

4. If money comes back from the supplier, use Register Refund instead.

5. Payment History and Refund History list every transaction with who recorded it.

When an order passes its supplier payment terms Helm shows a Payment Due warning on it, so overdue invoices surface where the buyer is already working rather than only in your finance system.

Example: A Part-Delivered Order

1. You raise a purchase order for 100 units of a product and send it to the supplier. Status is Sent, Delivery Status is None.

2. Sixty units arrive. You select the line, choose Create Delivery, and book in 60. Delivery Status becomes Partial.

3. You register a payment for the 60 units received. Payment Status becomes Partially Paid.

4. The supplier confirms the remaining 40 are discontinued. You use Cancel Order Quantity on the line for those 40.

5. With nothing outstanding, you choose Mark as "Received". The order closes as Received, and your expected stock figures no longer include the 40 that will never arrive.

Best Practices & Notes

Keep Supplier Costs on the Product

Unit Cost pulls from the product's supplier record. Maintaining it there means every future order is priced correctly without anyone retyping it, and your stock valuation stays honest.

Cancel Rather Than Delete

If a supplier short-ships, cancel the outstanding quantity rather than deleting the line. Cancelling keeps the history of what you originally ordered, which matters when you are reviewing supplier performance later.

Close Orders Off Promptly

An order left Sent with quantities that will never arrive keeps inflating your expected stock, which in turn skews reordering suggestions. Closing orders off is what keeps demand-generated purchase orders trustworthy.

Use Duplicate for Repeat Buying

Duplicate copies the supplier and the lines, so recurring orders take seconds and avoid transcription mistakes.

Read the Timeline When Something Looks Wrong

Every change is recorded against the order, and the timeline can be filtered to Status Changes or Payment & Price Changes. It will tell you who changed a price or a quantity and when.

FAQ

Can I edit a purchase order after sending it?

Not directly. Choose Convert to Draft, make your changes, then send it to the supplier again.

What is the difference between cancelling a quantity and cancelling the order?

Cancel Order Quantity removes outstanding units from one line and leaves the rest of the order live. Cancel Purchase Order voids the whole order and cannot be undone.

Why can't I delete an item from my purchase order?

The item is on an active delivery. Resolve or remove it from that delivery first, then delete the line.

What happens if the supplier sends more than I ordered?

Book in what actually arrived. Helm records the difference as excess received against the line rather than hiding it, so the discrepancy is visible when you reconcile with the supplier.

Do I have to create a delivery to receive stock?

Yes. Deliveries are the record your warehouse books goods in against, and they are what update stock. The purchase order tracks what was expected and what it costs.

Where do suggested purchase orders come from?

From the reorder settings on your products, which is why an order's Type may show Inventory Demand or Open Order Demand. Use View Calculation Logs on a line to see how a suggested quantity was worked out.

If a purchase order is not showing the stock or the balance you expect, check its Delivery Status and Payment Status before its main status, then read the order timeline. If you are still stuck, contact support with the Purchase Order Number to hand.