Goods Received Notes
Receive a delivery against a purchase order, so the stock, its cost and the order's progress are all updated.
You do this in the Web admin, under Inventory > GRN (from PO). A goods received note (GRN) always belongs to a purchase order. For goods bought without a purchase order, use a direct receipt instead.
Before you start
The purchase order must be Approved or PartiallyReceived. A Draft or Submitted order has no Create GRN button. See Purchases for how orders are approved.
Create a GRN
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Open the form
Either open the purchase order and click Create GRN, or go to Inventory > GRN (from PO), open the Pending Receipts tab and click Create GRN next to the order.
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Fill in GRN Information
Supplier and Warehouse come from the purchase order and cannot be changed. Received Date starts as today. The GRN Number is generated when you save.
The other fields are optional: Reference Number (the supplier's invoice or receipt number), Delivery Note, Vehicle Number, Received By and Notes.
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Check each line under Items from Purchase Order
Every line of the order is listed, with ORDERED, PREV. RECV. (received on earlier GRNs) and REMAINING. For each line:
- RECEIVED: the quantity that arrived. It starts as the remaining quantity.
- REJECTED: any part you refused. ACCEPTED is Received minus Rejected, and only the accepted quantity goes into stock.
- UNIT PRICE: starts as the price on the order. Change it if the invoice price is different. TOTAL is Accepted times Unit Price.
The unit is the one on the purchase order line, shown under the product name. It cannot be changed here.
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Save
Click Receive & Post. The stock is added straight away and the GRN shows as Posted. If GRNs need approval in your account, the button reads Save as Draft instead (see below).
Save and New saves this GRN and opens a new GRN form for the same order.
- Every line must have a Received quantity above zero. A line cannot be removed from the form.
- On one GRN, Received plus Rejected cannot be more than the ordered quantity of the line.
- The form has no field for a batch number or expiry date, so the BATCH/EXPIRY column on the saved GRN stays empty.
- There are no payment fields. Money is handled on a supplier bill after posting (see below).
Fill the quantities from the supplier's invoice
Click Scan Invoice above the items list and upload a PDF or photo of the invoice (PDF, JPEG, PNG or TIFF, up to 10 MB). If invoice reading is switched on for your account, the lines that match products on the order are shown, and Apply to Form copies their quantities and prices into the lines and puts the invoice number in Reference Number. Check the lines before you save. See Supplier Bills for more about scanning invoices.
Partial deliveries
If less arrives than you ordered, type the smaller quantity in RECEIVED and save. The order becomes PartiallyReceived, the RECEIVED column on the order shows the progress of each line, and Create GRN stays available. When the rest arrives, create another GRN: PREV. RECV. and REMAINING show what is still open. The order becomes FullyReceived when every line has arrived in full.
Because every line needs a Received quantity above zero, a GRN can only be saved while each line of the order still has something to receive. If one product did not arrive at all, or was already received in full on an earlier GRN, the GRN cannot be saved (see Troubleshooting).
What posting does
| Area | Effect |
|---|---|
| Stock | The accepted quantity of each line is added to the order's warehouse. If the line was ordered in a purchase unit such as a box, the quantity is converted to the product's base unit. A stock movement is recorded for each line. |
| Cost | Depends on Cost Update Method in Settings > Inventory > Costing. With Manual, product costs do not change. With Last Purchase, the product cost becomes the unit price on this GRN. With Weighted Average, the cost is averaged with the stock you already hold. The price is converted to a price per base unit first. |
| Purchase order | The received quantity of each order line goes up by the accepted quantity, and the order becomes PartiallyReceived or FullyReceived. Rejected quantities do not count as received. |
| Supplier bill | Nothing is created on its own. You raise the bill from the posted GRN with Create Bill (see below). |
Once a GRN is Posted you cannot edit, cancel or delete it. Check quantities and prices before you post. To send goods back afterwards, use Supplier Returns.
Raise the supplier bill
A posted GRN shows a Create Bill button at the top if you have permission to create supplier bills. It opens a new supplier bill with the lines, quantities and prices copied from the GRN. Once the bill exists, the GRN shows View Bill with the bill number instead. Each GRN can have one bill. Paying happens on the bill. See Supplier Bills.
If GRNs need approval
When Goods receipt notes require approval is on in Settings > Inventory > Procurement Workflow, the save button reads Save as Draft and nothing happens to stock until the GRN is posted. Open the GRN from the My GRNs tab and move it through these steps:
| Status | Meaning | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | GRN created | Submit, Cancel, Delete. A draft GRN cannot be edited: if it is wrong, delete it and create a new one. |
| Submitted | Awaiting approval | Approve, Reject (you must give a reason, which is added to the Notes), Cancel |
| Approved | Ready to post | Post GRN, Cancel |
| Posted | Inventory updated | View, print, create or view the bill |
| Rejected | Needs correction | Cancel. Create a new GRN with the corrections. |
| Canceled | GRN cancelled | Nothing further |
The buttons depend only on the status. Everyone who can open the GRN screen sees them.
Print a GRN
Open the GRN, click the ... button and choose Print. Whether prices appear on the printout is controlled by Show price details on GRN print in Settings > Inventory.
Troubleshooting
"Please select a Purchase Order to create a GRN. For purchases without a PO, use Direct Receipt."
You clicked Create GRN without choosing an order. Use the Pending Receipts tab, or the Create GRN button on the order itself.
"Purchase order ... has nothing left to receive."
The order is not Approved or PartiallyReceived. A Draft order must be submitted and approved first; a FullyReceived or Canceled order cannot be received.
"All items must have received quantity greater than zero"
A line has 0 in RECEIVED. Every line on the form needs a quantity above zero, and the form has no way to leave a line out. If a product did not arrive at all, or has already been received in full on an earlier GRN, the GRN cannot be saved. To get the goods that did arrive into stock, receive them with a direct receipt; the purchase order's received quantities are then not updated.
"Total received and rejected quantity cannot exceed ordered quantity"
On one line, RECEIVED plus REJECTED is more than ORDERED. Rejected is part of what you received, so enter the full quantity that arrived in Received and only the refused part in Rejected, and keep the sum within the ordered quantity. When this happens the app can leave a Draft GRN behind in My GRNs: delete it before you try again.
"Received date cannot be in the future"
Set Received Date to today or earlier.
"GRN created but failed to post to inventory: ..."
The GRN was saved and approved, but the stock was not added. The rest of the message says why. Fix the cause, open the GRN from My GRNs and click Post GRN. Do not fill in the form again, or you will create a second GRN. Common causes:
- "These are produced in-house and cannot be received by purchase": the order contains a product you make yourself. Record a production order for it instead, or turn off Restrict purchase of produced goods in Settings > Inventory > Production if you do buy it ready-made.
- "GRN has no items with accepted quantities to post": every line was fully rejected, so there is nothing to add to stock. Cancel the GRN.