Overview
This guide shows you the complete journey of buying goods from a supplier and getting them onto your shelves in ninoPOS. It ties together five smaller guides into one clear path, from start to finish.
The important thing to understand: your stock count does NOT go up when you create a purchase order. It only goes up at the very end, when the goods actually arrive and you receive them. This keeps your stock numbers honest and matching what is really in your store.
Creating, approving, and receiving purchase orders are manager-level actions. If you are a cashier or a basic staff member, ninoPOS will refuse the action and show a permission error. Ask a manager, admin, or the business owner to do these steps, or ask them to raise your role.
Step-by-Step Journey
Before you can order anything, ninoPOS needs to know who you are buying from. A supplier is the company or person who sells goods to you (your wholesaler, distributor, or manufacturer).
Go to Clients & Contacts → Suppliers in the sidebar and add the supplier's name and contact details. You only do this once per supplier — after that, they appear in a list you can pick from every time you order.
Add all your regular suppliers at the start. Then creating orders later is quick — you just choose their name from the list.
A purchase order is your official request to a supplier: "please send me these items, in these amounts, at these prices." It is a plan, not a stock change — nothing is added to your inventory yet.
Go to Inventory → Purchase Orders and click the "New PO" button. Choose the supplier, choose which store the goods are for, and add each product with the quantity and the cost price you agreed.
A new PO starts as a Draft (or "Pending" approval). It must be approved before you can receive any goods against it. This gives the business one last check on cost and quantity before money is committed.
Open the purchase order and click the green "Approve" button. Its status then changes to Sent, which means it is ready to receive once the goods turn up.
BEFORE AFTER ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ │ Draft / │ click │ │ │ Pending │ ──"Approve"─▶│ Sent │ │ │ │ (ready to │ │ (cannot │ │ receive) │ │ receive yet) │ │ │ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘
If you try to receive goods on a PO that is still a Draft, ninoPOS will stop you with the message "Purchase order must be approved before receiving items." Always approve first.
This is the most important step. When the delivery arrives, you check what actually came in and record it. This is the only moment your stock count increases.
Open the approved purchase order and click "Receive Items". A panel opens where you type in the quantity received for each product. Then click the green "Confirm Receipt" button.
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ RECEIVE ITEMS │
│ │
│ Product Ordered Already Receive Now │
│ ───────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ Cooking Oil 5L 20 0 [ 20 ] │
│ Sugar 1kg 50 0 [ 48 ] ← short! │
│ │
│ [ Cancel ] [ Confirm Receipt ] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼ after Confirm Receipt
✅ Stock updated: Cooking Oil +20, Sugar +48
You do not have to receive everything at once. If only part of the order arrives, enter what you got. The PO status becomes Partial, and you can receive the rest later when it comes in. When everything is received, it becomes Received (the order's own page shows this as Fulfilled, and a part-received order as Partial Receipt).
Enter the real amount that arrived, not the amount you ordered. If you ordered 50 bags of sugar but only 48 came, type 48. Your stock should always match what is physically in your store.
Once you have the goods, you record the money you owe and the payments you make. This keeps your accounts accurate and shows you exactly how much you still owe each supplier.
You can record a full payment, or several part-payments over time, until the bill is fully settled.
Purchase Order Statuses Explained
As a purchase order moves through the journey, its status label changes. Here is what each one means:
| Status | What it means | Can you receive? |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Just created, not yet approved | ❌ No |
| Pending | Waiting for a manager to approve | ❌ No |
| Sent | Approved and ready — order is with the supplier | ✅ Yes |
| Partial | Some items received, some still to come | ✅ Yes (the rest) |
| Received | All items have arrived and been counted in | ✅ Done |
| Cancelled | Order was cancelled and will not be received | ❌ No |
On the Purchase Orders list, each order shows a small progress bar (for example "1/2", meaning one of two product lines has been received) so you can quickly see how much of an order has come in.
Quick Recap
- Add supplier — Clients & Contacts → Suppliers (do once)
- Create PO — Inventory → Purchase Orders → "New PO"
- Approve — open the PO, click "Approve" (manager only)
- Receive — click "Receive Items", count, "Confirm Receipt" (stock goes up)
- Pay — record what you pay the supplier