Purchasing

Purchasing is the buy side of Stock. It turns what jobs, reorder levels and van kits are short of into supplier orders, books deliveries in against those orders, matches the supplier's invoice to what actually arrived, and hands the accountant a month-end pack. Everything it books lands on the same movement ledger as the rest of Stock.

Navigate to Inventory → Purchasing. The page has seven sub-tabs — To buy, Orders, Deliveries, Bills, Payments (see Paying suppliers), Suppliers and Month end — and every document opens as a full-screen sheet on top of them. The address bar carries the tab and the open sheet, so other pages link straight to a document: the item workspace, the Requests tab and the job's Stock tab all open an order this way.

A draft is a wish

Only an order that is Approved, Sent or Partially received counts as "on order" anywhere in CleverOps — in what is available to promise, on the reorder list, in the catalog's On order figure, on the Requests tab and on a job's Stock tab. A Draft, or an order Awaiting approval, counts for nothing until somebody approves or sends it, and no delivery can be received against it.

To buy — the buying desk

The buying desk is one worklist for the three places demand used to hide:

• Job shortfalls — what the Requests tab still cannot cover: parts on scheduled, in-progress and on-hold jobs with less free stock than the job needs, and parts the ledger already gave away and went negative on.
• Reorder breaches — items whose on hand plus on order is at or below their reorder level.
• Van-kit shortfalls — a vehicle or technician kit below its minimum that the warehouse cannot top up from the shelf.

Lines are grouped by the supplier CleverOps would buy from — the item's default supplier — with the group's line count, value, usual lead time and a no email on file warning in its header. Items with no default supplier sit in a No supplier yet group at the bottom; pick a supplier on such a line and it becomes the item's default, so it is grouped correctly next time without a trip to the catalog. The line above the groups sums it up: how many lines across how many suppliers, how many are for jobs, how many are already late to order, how many have no supplier, and roughly what it all costs excl VAT.

Each line shows the item, its SKU and the supplier's own code (theirs …), then why it is here, as chips:

• a chip per job — the job number, the quantity, the needed-by date, and owed in red where the ledger already gave the stock away;
• Below reorder level (with the level);
• Kit · location needs n for each van that is short.

Beside the reasons: On hand, Free (with n on order underneath when some is already coming), Buy — the quantity to order, pre-filled with the suggestion and editable — Unit cost (excl), also editable, and Order by: the date the order has to go out to arrive in time, worked back from the earliest needed-by date by the supplier's lead time, and marked late in red once it has passed. Pack sizes and minimum order quantities from the supplier's price list are shown under the item and already folded into the suggested quantity. For a reorder line the suggestion is enough to bring on hand plus on order back up to twice the reorder level; job and kit quantities are added on top of that.

Tick the lines to buy (a whole supplier at once from the group header), adjust quantities and prices, and use the sticky bar at the bottom:

• Deliver to — the default warehouse, or another warehouse.
• Add to a supplier's open draft (on by default) — lines for a supplier that already has a draft order are added to that draft instead of starting a new one.
• Create draft order / Create N draft orders — one draft per supplier. Job quantities become separate lines tagged with their job, so a delivery can be set aside for the right job the moment it lands. Ticked lines with no supplier go on an order with no supplier. One order opens straight away; several send you to the Orders tab.

The desk refreshes itself as jobs are scheduled and stock is used. When every job is covered, nothing is below its reorder level and the kits can be topped up from the shelf, it says Nothing to buy.

Orders

Every purchase order as a row you can open. Across the top: the scopes Open (everything not yet done, drafts included), Drafts, Awaiting approval, On its way, Overdue, Done and All, with a count on the four that need attention; a supplier filter; a search box (order number, supplier, item); and New order. Under the bar a line says how much is committed on orders on their way — approved, sent and partially received only — and how many are overdue, awaiting approval or still drafts.

Columns: Order (number, reference, the job number or N jobs), Supplier, Status (an order awaiting approval also shows where it is on its ladder — 1 of 2 · with Name, or · you when the open level is yours), Ordered, Due, Lines, Outstanding (only while the order is on its way) and Total. Due is the supplier's confirmed date when there is one, otherwise the expected date, spelled out as due in 3 days, due today, due tomorrow or 2 days overdue, with confirmed appended once the supplier has confirmed. Rows are ordered overdue first, then by due date, then newest, fifty at a time.

The order sheet

Opening an order shows the sheet: the number and its status pill, the supplier, bought by the billing entity, the reference, and chips for the expected or confirmed date (with the due wording above), what the approval rules will do with a draft (Needs approval · rule name, Needs a signature, or Will be sent back), Level 1 of 2 · Name while it is awaiting approval, Sent back on a returned draft, the supplier's reference (Their ref …) and the job. A strip underneath counts Ordered (and the number of lines), Received (and the number of receipts), Outstanding and Total incl VAT with the excl figure beside it.

Status	Meaning
Draft	Being composed. Lines can still change. Counts for nothing yet.
Awaiting approval	An approval rule matched it and it is working through that rule's levels — the sheet says which level is open and with whom. Lines can still change, but changing one restarts the ladder.
Approved	Signed off and now counted as on order; not yet sent to the supplier.
Sent	Emailed to the supplier, or marked as sent another way. Deliveries can be received against it.
Partially received	Some lines have arrived; the rest is still outstanding.
Received	Every line arrived in full — or the order was closed short after something had arrived: what was still outstanding is cancelled, and the order counts as received.
Closed short	Closed short when nothing had arrived — every line cancelled. An order with any stock received on it never ends here; it ends as Received.
Cancelled	Cancelled before anything arrived.

The Order card on the left holds the supplier (with Our account no. and Terms from the supplier record), the order and expected dates, the confirmed date once there is one, Deliver to (a stock location) and a delivery address when it is not the store's, Bought by, the reference, who it was sent to, and the notes to the supplier. While editing, the header fields are Supplier, Deliver to, Delivery address, Expected delivery, Reference and Notes to the supplier.

The Approval card under it is the ladder. On a draft it says what submitting will do — the rule that matches and its levels in order (signs first, after level 1), one signature from anyone who can approve purchase orders, sends it straight back with the reason, or approved the moment it is submitted. Once submitted it shows each level as a step: who it is with, Signed with the time, Sent back with the time, Your turn or Waiting, the note left on the step, and delegate · name or override · name when someone other than the named approver signed. The open level carries Approve and Send back for whoever may act on it. A rule name and n of N signed sit above the steps, and round 2 appears once an order has been sent back and resubmitted.

The Attachments card holds the supplier's quote or any other document on the order — Attach takes a PDF or photo; click a name to open it, × to remove it. A quote attached here is what an approval rule's Supplier quote attached criterion reads.

Four tabs on the right:

• Lines — item (picked from the catalog; the supplier's part number is filled in from the price list), Qty, Unit cost (excl), Line total, vs usual (this unit cost against what was usually paid for the item, or the supplier's price list — ▲ 12%, ▼ 5% or same, for whoever is signing), On hand (with the reorder level after the slash, red when below it), Received (with n cancelled after a close-short), For job (a link to the job, or stock for a plain replenishment) and Expected per line, plus an optional note to the supplier under each item. The unit cost defaults from the supplier's price for the item, then the catalog cost, then the average cost. Totals show Subtotal, VAT at the order's rate and Total. Only catalog items can be ordered — there is nothing for a free-text line to be received against.
• Deliveries — every receipt booked in against the order; click one to open the receipt sheet.
• Comments — questions and answers between whoever raised the order and whoever signs it, kept on the order; anyone who can see the order can post.
• Timeline — what happened, when and by whom: created, each level signed (approved level 1 of 2) or sent back with its note, approved (or approved automatically), sent (and to whom), confirmed, each receipt, comments, closed or cancelled with its reason.

Lines can be changed only while the order is a Draft or Awaiting approval — after that, close it short or raise another order. Changing a line while the order is awaiting approval restarts its ladder from level 1 (the timeline shows the new round); changing only the header does not. A line that has stock received against it cannot be removed. The header details (deliver to, address, expected date, reference, notes) stay editable until the order is received, closed or cancelled.

Actions on an order

Which buttons show depends on the status and on who is looking:

• PDF previews the order document; Download PDF saves it. The document is on the buying entity's letterhead and carries the footer from Settings → Purchasing.
• Edit (draft, awaiting approval) or Edit details (later statuses — header only).
• Approve or Submit for approval on a draft — which one depends on the approval rules. When no rule matches and the default is approve automatically, the button reads Approve and the order is approved at once. When a rule routes it, the button reads Submit for approval: the order moves to Awaiting approval with a banner naming the open level and who it is with, and the person at that level sees Send back (with a note on what needs to change) and Approve. When a rule sends it straight back, the sheet says so and there is no submit button until the order changes. A draft that was sent back carries a red banner with who returned it and why; fixing it and submitting again starts every level afresh.
• Approve (override) — an owner or company admin who is not the open level's approver (or who raised the order themselves) can still sign it; they are asked for a reason, which is recorded on the step and in the timeline. Someone who holds Approve purchase orders but is not named at the open level sees This level is with someone else.
• Send to supplier — opens the send dialog: To (pre-filled with the supplier's orders email, or their general email), Cc, and an optional Message above the order summary. The order goes out as a PDF on the buying entity's letterhead with you on reply-to and the control room's buyer email copied in, and it is stamped Sent the moment the email leaves. If the supplier record has no email address, type one — and add it to the supplier so it is filled in next time. Resend repeats it on a sent order.
• Mark as sent (no email) — under More, for an order that went out another way (phone, WhatsApp, a supplier portal); it records who it went to.
• Receive — books a delivery in (see Receiving a delivery). Shown while the order is approved, sent or partially received.
• Record supplier confirmation — under More on a sent or partially received order: their order or acknowledgement reference and the delivery date they confirmed. The confirmed date replaces the expected date wherever a due date is shown.
• Close short — cancels whatever is still outstanding and closes the order; stock already received stays. Asks why. The order ends as Received if anything had arrived on it, and as Closed short only if nothing had. Offered while the order is approved, sent or partially received.
• Cancel order — asks why, and is refused once any stock has been received (Stock has been received — close it short instead).
• Reopen — brings a closed or cancelled order back.
• Duplicate — drafts a new order with the same supplier and lines, referenced Copy of PO-….

The supplier's side of the order

The email sent with Send to supplier carries a link the supplier can open without a CleverOps account. It shows the order — the buyer, what to deliver where, each item with its quantity, the supplier's own code and the needed-by date, the total — and three short forms. The link works while the order is sent or partially received; resending the order issues a fresh link and the old one stops working.

1. Confirm the order — Your order / reference number, Delivery date you can commit to, and anything the buyer should know. Confirm order records it on your side exactly as Record supplier confirmation would: the order shows Confirmed with their reference, and the due date everywhere becomes the date they committed to. A supplier who confirms by phone is recorded by hand with Record supplier confirmation.
2. Send your invoice — the invoice number, total incl VAT, invoice date and the file (PDF or a clear photo, up to 10 MB). It lands on the Bills tab as a captured bill, SBL-…, against this order and supplier, with one line at the invoice total for you to match to the receipt, the file attached, and the sheet saying it was captured by The supplier (order link). The same invoice number sent twice is not captured twice — the new file is added to the bill that already exists, and the supplier is told so. The page lists what has already reached you through the link and where it stands (received, being approved, approved).
3. Your details — an accounts contact, phone and remittance email go onto the order as a supplier note for the buyer to act on (they are not written to the supplier). New bank details become a supplier change request asked by The supplier (order link): nothing on the supplier changes until someone here has phoned them on a number already on file and someone has signed. The supplier is told to expect that call, and that a change already waiting is not doubled up.

What the supplier sees of their own record is masked — the first letter of the email, the last four digits of the phone and of the account on file, and whether the account is verified — enough to say "is this still right?", never enough to copy.

Deliveries

The Deliveries tab answers the door.

On its way lists every approved, sent or partially received order under Overdue, Due today, This week, Later and No date yet: the order number (a link to the sheet), the supplier and reference, the due wording, how much is outstanding on how many lines (with n already in on a partial), the value, and a Receive button. Receive without an order books in a loose delivery that has no order behind it.

Booked in lists every receipt — GRN-00001… — with its supplier, the location it went into, when, the units (and any rejected), the value, and the paper that came with it (delivery-note number, invoice number, attached files). Search covers the GRN number, the order, the supplier and the delivery-note number. Click a receipt to open its sheet.

Returns to supplier lists what is out with a supplier awaiting credit — see below.

Receiving a delivery

Receive opens Receive PO-… from … (or Receive a delivery for a loose one), one goods-received note for the whole delivery:

• Receive into — pre-set to the order's deliver-to location, else the default warehouse. An in-transit location is never offered. For a loose delivery, a Supplier picker sits beside it.
• Delivery note number and Supplier invoice number (if the invoice came with the goods).
• A progress line — X of Y lines complete, with how many are short or over — and a Show only what is left tick, so a long order can be worked line by line.
• One card per outstanding line, showing what was ordered and what is still outstanding. Accepted is pre-filled with the outstanding quantity, so a storeman only has to type what went wrong; on a serial-tracked item it follows the serials scanned into the Serials (one per line — scan them in) box instead. Rejected with Why — Damaged, Wrong item, Short-shipped, Over-supplied, Faulty or Other. Unit cost (R excl), pre-filled from the order. Put away in — the bin at the receiving location, with the item's home bin pre-selected (home); shown only once the location has bins. Batch-tracked items ask for Batch / lot and Expiry. When less than the outstanding quantity is accepted, the tick That is all we will get — close this line short cancels the rest so the order does not keep expecting it. The tick only takes effect on a line that is receiving something on this delivery — at least one unit accepted or rejected. A line where nothing arrived is not part of the receipt at all, tick or no tick, so it stays outstanding; to give up on it, use the order-level Close short once the rest has been booked in.
• Something arrived that is not on the order adds a loose line, flagged not on the order.
• Freight on this delivery (R excl) is spread across the lines by value into their landed cost, which is what the ledger values the stock at. Notes — who signed, what was wrong, anything the supplier must hear.
• The paperwork — Add delivery note / invoice attaches photos or PDFs to the receipt.

Post goods received first spells out anything unusual — lines received over what was ordered, lines short (and which of those are being closed short), units rejected and kept out of stock — and asks you to confirm. A line received beyond the over-receipt tolerance is refused with More than was ordered; Receive anyway puts the extra into stock and records that the supplier sent more than was asked for.

Posting one delivery does all of this in one step:

• books a numbered receipt and the stock in at the location, with the bin, batch, expiry and serials on each line;
• advances the order's received quantities, moving it to Partially received or Received;
• keeps rejected units out of stock, with the reason on the receipt line;
• sets aside the quantity on every job-tagged line for that job, and sends the job's lead technician a push — Parts arrived for JOB-… — with what was received where; the job's parts read Set aside from then on;
• records the cost on the supplier's price for the item and in the item's price history (source: goods received), and updates the weighted-average valuation cost at the landed cost.

The dialog keeps one retry key for its whole life, so a post that times out can be retried without booking the truck in twice.

A receipt needs an approved or sent order

Receiving refuses an order that is still a Draft or Awaiting approval — those are the only two statuses it turns away. An Approved order that has not yet been sent to the supplier can be received; sending is not a precondition. The phone applies the same rule, though its refusal reads the buying desk has to send it before it can be received.

The receipt sheet

A receipt is a record: its number and state (Posted, Reversed, or a Reversal of another receipt), the supplier, the order it was against (or no order), the location it went into, when and by whom, and whether it is Billed or Partly billed. The strip counts Accepted, Rejected (kept out of stock) and Value excl VAT with the freight beside it. The Paperwork card holds the delivery-note and supplier-invoice numbers, Bought by, the attached documents (click to open — or No document photographed), and the notes. The lines show ordered, accepted (closed short where that was ticked), rejected with the reason, the unit cost with the landed cost under it, the bin it was put away in, and the batch, expiry and serials.

Four actions: Open order; Capture supplier invoice (while the receipt is not fully billed) — opens a bill with the lines pre-filled; Return rejected units (when anything was rejected) — see below; and Reverse. Reversing posts a new numbered reversal receipt: every unit leaves stock again, the order lines reopen, and stock set aside for jobs from this receipt is released. It asks why, and is refused when a serial from the receipt has since moved on, or once the receipt is billed.

Returns to supplier

Stock goes back to a supplier on a numbered return — RTS-00001… — with the credit you expect for it. Return to supplier on the Deliveries tab opens the form: Supplier, Leaving from (the location), a Reason, the lines (item, quantity, unit cost excl, a reason per line, and whether it is rejected at the door or from stock), Add an item from stock…, the credit expected, and Notes for the supplier. Return rejected units on a receipt sheet opens the same form with that receipt's rejected lines already on it.

Units rejected at the door never entered stock, so they leave on paper only. Units pulled from a shelf post an RMA-out movement the moment the return is raised. Open returns are listed with the credit expected and the total credit outstanding; when the supplier's credit note arrives, Credit note received records what they actually credited and their credit-note number, and the return closes.

Bills

The Bills tab is where the supplier's invoice is matched to what was ordered and what arrived — a bill is matched three ways: the order's price, the receipt's quantity, the invoice's amount. Scopes across the top: To match, Variances, Matched, Approved, In Xero, Not stock and All, plus a supplier filter, a search (invoice number, supplier, reference) and Capture a bill. The line under the bar also counts how many receipts are still waiting for an invoice.

Bills arrive two ways:

• Pulled by the accounting sync. Purchase invoices raised in your accounting package come down with their supplier, number, dates, totals, status and amount owed, marked with the provider they came from. From Xero they also bring their lines — copied once and never rewritten by a later pull, so a match somebody has made is never undone; a line whose Xero item code matches a SKU is linked to that catalog item. Bills from the other packages come with a header only, so they cannot be matched line by line — the sheet says so. The same bills stay visible read-only under Billing → Invoices → Supplier bills; their header is the accounting package's to change, not yours.
• Sent by the supplier through the order link in the order email — a captured bill against that order with the invoice attached and one line at the invoice total, waiting to be matched.
• Captured in CleverOps — Capture a bill on this tab, or Capture supplier invoice on a receipt sheet, which pre-fills the lines with what was accepted at the order price; change quantities and prices to what the invoice says, and the difference is the variance the match will show. The form takes the Supplier, Their invoice number, Bought by (the billing entity; defaults to the receipt's entity, else the default entity), Invoice date, Due (blank means the supplier's payment terms), Reference (the order number), the lines — description, quantity, unit cost excl, and for each either the Receipt line it explains or a Not stock tick — The invoice itself (photo or PDF) and Notes. A captured bill gets its own number, SBL-…, and can be edited until it is approved.

Each bill line carries a match state: unmatched, matched, variance (the quantity or price differs from what was ordered and received by more than the control room's matching tolerance) or not stock. The bill as a whole reads To match, Partly matched, Matched, Variance, Approved, In Xero or Not stock.

The bill sheet shows the number and match pill, the supplier and entity, where it came from (captured here as SBL-…, or from xero), the accounting status, the order it belongs to, and how many lines are in variance; the strip gives Excl VAT, VAT, Total (with what is still owed) and the Price variance against the order. A bill outside tolerance carries an Outside tolerance banner — approving it accepts the difference. The card on the left has the dates, reference, terms, who approved it and when, the notes and the attached invoice.

Matching happens in the lines table. For each line pick the Receipt line it explains — the candidates are this supplier's unbilled receipt lines from the last six months, shown as GRN-… · item · n unbilled @ price — or tick Not a stock line. Auto-match does the obvious ones; Save matches records your choices. Then the bill leaves matching the way an order leaves its draft: Approve or Submit for approval (see Bills on the ladder), after which it is locked, and Reopen unlocks an approved bill. Not a stock purchase (and its opposite, It is stock after all) takes a bill out of matching altogether. If a receipt was booked in without a supplier, open that receipt and set the supplier first — otherwise its lines never appear as candidates.

Bills on the ladder

The same approval rules that route orders route bills — a rule ticked for Supplier bills reads the bill's total, supplier, entity, currency, how many lines are in variance or still unmatched, whether it looks like a duplicate and whether it settles an order. What the rules will do shows on the sheet as a chip (Needs approval · rule, Needs a signature, Will be sent back) and in the Approval card, before anyone presses anything.

• Approve shows when no rule routes the bill and you hold Approve purchase orders: your signature is the approval, with a confirm if some lines are still unmatched (they are pushed to the purchases account as they are).
• Submit for approval shows when a rule routes it, or when you do not hold the permission — then the bill needs one signature from anyone who does. The bill moves to Awaiting approval (its own scope on the tab, with the level bar 1 of 2 · with Name), its matches are locked, and the people at the open level are told exactly as for an order. The person at the open level sees Approve and Send back (with a note); the last signature approves, with the same unmatched-lines confirm. A bill sent back returns to matching with a red banner saying who returned it and why; fix it and submit again, and every level signs afresh. Owners and admins can override, with a reason.
• A rule that sends the bill straight back leaves it in matching with the reason on it — and no submit button until something changes.

Submitting also names a possible duplicate: another bill from the same supplier with the same invoice number, or the same amount within three days. The sheet and the list flag it, and Looks like a duplicate is a rule fact — a Send it straight back rule on it stops a second copy being paid.

The Credit notes card on the sheet is where a supplier is asked for money back on the record — Request with the amount and why (a variance pre-fills both), then Received with their credit note number, or Write off / Cancel. Open requests show as credit due on the bill, in the row's Owed column and in the tab's summary line. A bill also has Comments, kept on the bill, for the capturer and the signer.

Approved bills go to Xero

With Push approved bills to Xero switched on in Billing → Config → Accounting sync, every bill captured in CleverOps and approved here is pushed to Xero on the next sync run as a purchase bill — as a Draft for the bookkeeper to approve, or already Approved, your choice. The supplier's invoice number is the bill number in Xero (it is what their statement will quote); SBL-… · PO-… rides in the reference. Each line posts to the purchases account — or, under the perpetual model, to the inventory asset account when it is matched to a receipt — the photographed invoice is attached, and from then on the bill's status and payments flow back down like any other pulled bill. The bill reads In Xero, with the pushed date on its sheet.

Only bills captured in CleverOps are pushed — a pulled bill is already in the books. Which books is decided by the entity rule: a bill is pushed only by the connection of the entity that bought the goods (Bought by), never guessed at. A bill with no entity, no supplier, no lines, a supplier that has no Xero contact, a currency the organisation is not set up for, or a line with no account code is held: the sync log says why, the sheet shows a Push failed chip with the reason, and it retries every run until it is fixed or reopened. A supplier becomes a Xero contact only when one of its bills is pushed, matched to an existing contact by name first. A bill that already reached Xero is never posted twice.

Purchase orders never go to your accounting package

An order is CleverOps' own document — the books only ever see the supplier's bill, and only ever money: no quantities, no stock, no purchase orders are written to Xero.

Suppliers

The supplier master — who you buy from, on what terms, and how they are doing. Search covers the name, contact, emails, account number and VAT number; Show inactive brings retired suppliers back; Add supplier adds one.

Column	What it shows
Supplier	The name (click it for the performance figures), the contact, phone and your account number with them
Orders go to	The orders email, else the general email — or no email — orders cannot be sent
Terms	Payment terms
Lead time	The usual lead time in days
Priced items	How many catalog items carry this supplier's price (price lists)
Open orders	Orders approved, sent or partially received, with their value — a link to the Orders tab filtered to this supplier
Bank	The bank and last four digits of the account a payment run pays to — unverified in red until a second person has confirmed it, none when there are no details, or change awaiting verification / signature (a link to the request) while one is open

The supplier form: Name (required, unique per control room), Our account number with them (printed on every order), Contact person, Phone, Orders email (where purchase orders are sent), General email, Payment terms (Cash on delivery, Pay before dispatch, 7 / 14 / 30 / 60 days, 30 days from statement, or not set), Usual lead time (days), VAT number, Address, Website, Status (Active — appears on the buying desk or Inactive — kept for history only), Bank details (read-only, with Request a change) and Notes (delivery days, who to phone about backorders, minimum order value). An item's default supplier is set on the catalog or by choosing one on the buying desk. This is the control room's one supplier list: the fleet's vehicle cost entries pick their supplier from it too.

Bank details through a request

Invoice redirection — someone "from the supplier" asking for the account to be changed before the next payment — is the fraud that costs real money, so a supplier's bank details cannot be typed onto the supplier by anyone, owners included. They go through a change request (SCR-00001):

1. Ask. On the supplier form, Request a change (or Add through a request when there are none yet; a brand-new supplier with bank details is raised the same way from the form's Add through a request). Enter the account holder, bank, account number, branch code and type, and where the details came from — their letter, the invoice, who said so. The request opens with a warning that a second person will call before anything applies. One open request per supplier at a time. A supplier can also propose their own details through the order link; that request arrives the same way, asked by The supplier (order link), and goes through exactly the same call and signature.
2. Verify. Someone other than the requester — nobody can verify their own request, super admins included — rings the supplier on a number already on file (the form shows the phone and email on file; never the number on the request) and presses Record verification call with who confirmed the account and on which number. Until that is done, Approve stays disabled and says verify first.
3. Sign. The request is on the approval ladder as Supplier changes, with facts What changed (bank details / new supplier) and Verified by phone. With no rule it still takes one signature from anyone holding Approve purchase orders who is not the requester — a supplier change never approves itself, whatever the control room's default. The last signature applies the details to the supplier and marks them verified by the person who made the call.

Send back returns it to the requester with a note; Resubmit with changed details starts verification over. Cancel request withdraws it. The request sheet shows what is on file beside what is proposed, the reason, the verification call, the ladder and comments, and every request — open or done — is listed per supplier. Requests appear on Inventory → Approvals marked Supplier change, flagged not yet verified until the call is recorded, and the people at the open level are told the same way as for an order.

How a supplier is doing

Click a supplier's name for its performance over the last 3, 6, 12 or 24 months, measured from receipts against orders rather than opinion: Orders placed and completed, Spend excl VAT, On time (delivered by the confirmed or expected date — flagged under 80%), Fill rate (received ÷ ordered on completed orders — flagged under 90%), Lead time from sent to first delivery, Price variance between bills and orders, Rejected units refused at the door, Credits owed on open returns, and the Last order date. A closing line compares the lead time on the supplier's record with what deliveries have actually taken.

Month end

The ledger's own answer to the accountant's questions for a month. Pick the Month (and the Entity, where the control room has more than one), and read three cards:

• Stock movement at cost — opening value, plus receipts (with the unit count), plus returns from jobs, plus or minus adjustments and stocktakes, plus opening loads, minus cost of goods used (issues, installs and counter sales, with the unit count), minus stock returned to suppliers, giving the closing value. The opening figure is derived from closing less the month's movement — the ledger keeps no daily valuation snapshots.
• Purchases — supplier bills for the month excl VAT (with the count), bills not explained by a receipt, what was received but not yet billed (the GRN accrual) and the price variance between bills and orders.
• What to journal — the entries a periodic book (bills coded to purchases: one entry moving stock from opening to closing against cost of sales) or a perpetual book (bills coded to the inventory asset: cost of sales against inventory, plus the GRN accrual, reversed as bills arrive) wants, with the month's figures filled in.

By item lists every item with units used, cost of goods used and receipts at cost. Download XLSX saves the summary and the by-item table as a spreadsheet.

Approvals

Inventory → Approvals is the buying desk's own shortlist of what is waiting for a signature — purchase orders, supplier bills, payment runs and supplier changes alike, each row marked Order, Bill, Payment run or Supplier change — and there is no company-wide decisions page; each department surfaces its own. The whole story — the rules, the ladder, who signs, the report — is on its own page: Approvals. The tab's red chip, and the number on Inventory in the sidebar, count only documents whose open level is yours to sign (named, delegated to you, or escalated to you); an owner's ever-possible override is offered but never counted.

Three lists:

• Yours to sign — each order as one row: number, supplier, total, a level bar (level 1 of 2), whether you sign as yourself, as delegate or escalated to you, the rule that routed it, who raised it, how many lines, comments and files it has, and how long the level has been waiting (with reminded or escalated once the clock has chased it). Approve signs the level; Send back asks what needs to change and returns the draft. Click the row to open the full order sheet.
• Waiting on others — the rest of what is awaiting approval and who it is with. An owner or company admin also sees Override and Send back here; an override asks for a reason and is recorded as one.
• Signed or sent back in the last fortnight — every level signed or returned, by whom (and as what), with the note.

The list moves when someone else signs — a submit, a signature, a send-back or a level moving on all show without a reload.

Being told

The moment a level opens, the people who can sign it are told: a push notification on the phone (the CleverAlert or CleverTech app, for a person linked to one) saying what is waiting, and an email on the control room's own sender identity with Approve and Send back buttons that open a confirmation page (the buttons never act by themselves — the link is personal, works once, and if someone else signs first the page says so). The push is the nudge; the decision is made on that page or on the Approvals tab. Who is told is whoever the level names and whoever is delegated for them today, or everyone holding Approve purchase orders for a level open to anyone; owners and admins only when nobody else can sign. Whoever raised the order is not told about their own order unless approvers may sign their own.

A level that sits unanswered is chased: a reminder after the control room's reminder hours, then an escalation after the escalation hours — to the next level's approver, the absent approver's delegate, or the owners and admins, per Settings → Approval rules. The escalation is recorded on the step, the person it went to may sign that level (the record says escalated), and nothing is ever approved by the clock.

Settings and permissions

The purchasing policy lives on two cards at Settings → Sales & CRM → Quotes, beside Let stock go negative. Approval rules decides which orders stop for a signature and whose — an ordered list of rules on the order's total, supplier, category, entity, job, destination and attached quote, each routing through up to ten levels, approving automatically or sending the order straight back, with delegations for approvers who are away. Purchasing holds the rest: the over-receipt tolerance (how far a delivery may exceed the order before Receive anyway is needed), the bill quantity and price tolerances that decide whether an invoice line matches a receipt by itself or lands under Variances, the weekly automatic replenishment switch (drafts only), the buyer email copied on every order sent, and the footer printed on every purchase order. The limits are enforced on the server, so they apply to orders and receipts from the CleverTech app too.

Two permissions divide the work:

• Manage stock & warehouse — the Stock controller role — does everything on the page: the buying desk, raising and sending orders, receiving, returns, capturing and matching bills, and the supplier list. Company owners have it automatically.
• Approve purchase orders — held by Technical coordinators and Managers by default, and always by owners — signs the levels that say Anyone with Approve purchase orders, can be named on a level by person, sends orders back, and approves bills. A stock controller raises, sends and receives without it; an order a rule routes simply waits for its signatures. Owners and company admins can sign any level as an override, with a reason.
• Pay suppliers — held by Billing and Managers by default, and always by owners — builds payment runs from approved bills, exports the bank batch and marks them paid (see Paying suppliers). Signing a run off stays with the ladder.

Reaching the page follows the rest of Inventory: either Manage stock & warehouse or Manage service jobs opens it, so a technical coordinator can read every tab and approve what is waiting, while the buying and receiving buttons appear only for a stock controller.

On the phone

An approver signs from the phone's browser: Inventory → Approvals at phone width stacks each row — the document, how long it has waited, then two thumb-sized buttons, Send back and Approve — and the email's Approve / Send back links open the same confirmation page sized for a phone. A supplier change that is not yet verified still refuses the tap and says so; open the request to record the call. Rules, delegations and the bank batch stay on the desktop.

A Stock controller has the same door in the CleverTech app: the Inventory section's Deliveries view lists what is on its way under the same overdue / today / this week headings, and a tap opens Receive already pointed at that order — scan what came off the truck, tap a line for shortages, rejects and batches, photograph the delivery note, and post. Freight cannot be captured on the phone: a delivery received there lands at the unit cost alone, so a delivery with a freight charge to spread into landed cost is received on the desktop. See The CleverTech App → Inventory. Technicians see the result on their jobs: each part on the Items tab wears a chip — On order · due …, Set aside at …, Ready to collect, On its way, With you, Not yet in stock — and Parts arrived lands in their Inbox.

Next steps

• Requests — what open jobs are waiting for; job shortfalls feed the buying desk, and Order N items raises an order from there.
• Stock — the ledger a receipt books into, reservations, handovers and bins.
• Products & Services — reorder levels, default suppliers and the item's on-order figure.
• Pricing & price lists — supplier prices, pack sizes and lead times that price the buying desk.
• Accounting sync — where pulled bills come from, and where approved bills go.
• Settings → Quotes → Purchasing — the approval threshold, tolerance, buyer email and footer.