Pearl requires you to create a Purchase Order for any stock you wish to buy, so that the quantities can be tracked into the system and their cost value can be allocated against an invoice later. The best time to create the Purchase Order is before you place the order with the supplier. You can use Pearl to email the Purchase Order automatically to the supplier if they have an email address.

The purchasing flow is as follows

1. Create Purchase Order
2. Send Purchase Order to supplier
3. Receive stock into warehouse
4. Receive Purchase Invoice and allocate to Purchase Order
5. Pay supplier to clear invoice

All items you wish to add to a Purchase Order need to have already been created as products in Pearl.

You can exit a Purchase Order at any time to create a new product and then return to the order to add it. You can also create lists of products in Pearl from a spreadsheet using the Products - Setup - Import/Export tool (see the Products information help section).

Alert and re-order levels Pearl 

The alert level is effectively the minimum stock level that you wish to keep of that item. Whenever stock falls below this level, you can automate the re-order process using the batch process screen.

The reorder level is the minimum quantity that you wish to re-order at any one time. For example you may want to have least 10 of an item in stock (the alert level) but when it runs out you want to order in batches of 15 (the reorder level).

Delivery date

When in a Purchase Order, you will see that under the Delivery info tab you can enter the date that the delivery will be due in store. This will show on the company calendar and can help shop staff match a delivery to a Purchase Order, and will help you see what deliveries are due at any time.

Purchasing from multiple supplier offices

If your supplier has multiple sites, create a secondary contact for each of the sites from which you purchase. Each of these secondary contacts will have the same primary and billing address, and when the invoice is received against the Purchase Order it will be allocated to the primary contact's financial account.

Drop ship Purchase Orders

There are a number of situations where you may wish that stock goes straight from the supplier to the customer. This is called a drop-ship Purchase Order, and no stock needs to be received into the warehouse. Stock on drop-ship Purchase Orders is not included in the "on order" fields when searching for products, or in stock reports.