This article goes over the general workflow you should follow when exporting your vendor invoices. Click on either heading to jump to that specific section.
General Workflow
1. Create your purchase order and submit the purchase order to your vendor.
2. Receive all or part of that inventory. If you receive part of the inventory, you can decide whether or not you are still expecting to receive the remaining inventory.
3. Your vendor will send you an invoice by mail or email. Depending on your vendor, the invoice might be included with the shipment.
4. Enter the vendor invoice into Artisan, reconciling the cost and quantity of each item until the totals match (“Current Total” and “Invoice Total“). Remember to include an “Invoice Number” as well, located at the top right of the vendor invoice screen. Artisan will not let you save the invoice without one.
To access vendor invoices, from the “Main Menu,” click on “Receiving,” then “Vendor Invoices,” and “Add a New Record.”
Select the purchase order from the list.
If you need to edit the standard cost of an item during this process, it is best to edit the “Case Cost” on the vendor invoice itself. This will simultaneously update the Purchase Order and give you the option to update the item record if this is going to be your new standard cost.
Before editing:
After editing:
5. The standard cost is the cost of the item the next time you put the item on a Purchase Order. The standard cost does not represent the cost of the items you already have in inventory. The standard cost will also be used as the cost of an item when you receive without a purchase order or make other adjustments.
In this example, the next time we created a purchase order that included this item, it used the updated case cost of $5.00:
The standard cost is also changed in the item’s record.
Changing the standard cost does not affect your inventory value unless you have items with zero cost that you have already received (and possibly sold) and you change the standard cost to a non-zero value. Artisan will update your receiving cost, Cost of Goods Sold (COGS), and the Standard Cost in the item record when you transition from zero to a non-zero value.
This is under the assumption that you didn’t know the cost at the time of receiving, but you needed to proceed.
Once you know the actual cost, update the vendor invoice to match up with your cost, even if you have made multiple sales. Therefore, it is always best to leave the cost at zero if you don’t know it. Guessing and making a bogus $1.00 cost, for example, will defeat Artisan’s correction behavior and leave your cost at $1.00.
If you need to update the receiving cost, you will need to do that from the receiving log. From the “Main Menu,” click on “Receiving” and “Receiving Log.”
Updating the receiving log will also update the COGS for any sales you made from that group of receiving. Using the zero-cost trick is a time-saving feature.
6. It is not necessary that the invoice include all the items on the PO. But, in general, it should match the items received. If the items don’t match, then consult with your vendor to find out why you were being invoiced for items you didn’t receive.
7. You can have multiple invoices for a single PO, usually due to the availability of the items when you placed your order.
8. You wouldn’t normally receive one invoice for multiple purchase orders. But, if you do, you will need to split them out. The invoice number might be 1234-A and 1234-B, for example. At this time, you cannot add items from multiple purchase orders onto the same invoice. This does not seem to happen much in practice.
Adjusting Quantity
You cannot un-receive inventory in Artisan. Instead, you may return to vendor. You may return to vendor for multiple reasons, but the most common is if your vendor sent you too much of an item and you need to send it back. Learn more about returning items to your vendor here.
But what if you want to keep those items? What if you want to increase the quantity of the item(s) you are receiving? For example, your vendor sent you five items when you ordered four, and you want to keep that additional item.
To do so, edit the purchase order. Increase the quantity. Artisan will note that the PO is now modified. Save the PO.
Go back to your receiving screen. The new amount should be reflected here.
Same Item, Different Price
You may include the same items from your vendor at different prices. Do this by using separate line items on the purchase order.
An example is your vendor sending you three items at their regular price and two items for free (or discounted). Use one line item with the regular price. Then, use a second line item with the other price.
