Please also read the Brightpearl Guide to Purchasing
There are two types of purchase invoice; one type for stock items, and one type for overheads such as rent. This is to allow Brightpearl to track the exact price that you are paying for your stock to provide accurate and fast profit reports.
Quick Invoice : Entering a Supplier Invoice for overheads or expenses
A purchase invoice for overheads should be entered using Accounts - Suppliers - Enter quick invoice.
If a purchase invoice for overheads contains more than one tax code you can enter extra rows by clicking the "add row" button.
You can set up a supplier to have a default tax code, which will be filled automatically into the tax code field when entering an invoice from that supplier. Open the supplier's contact details page and enter the default tax code in the financial info tab.
Note that the suppliers search box here will only find suppliers that are Primary Contacts.
Entering a Supplier Invoice (Purchase Invoice) for stock
A Supplier Invoice for stock must be allocated against a Purchase Order that already exists on the Brightpearl system.
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Find the Purchase Order that relates to the invoice you are entering; use the PO ref or the suppliers company name in the orders quick search box or use Purchases->View Purchase Orders.
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Open the Purchase Order and make sure that the list of items on the PO match the list of items on the Invoice.
This is the point at which you will see if you have been over-invoiced or have not received items that perhaps you should have done. -
If the PO needs amending to match the Invoice, amend it now.
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Remove lines if required by entering zero quantity then clicking Save, or by moving them to a new Purchase Order using the split to back order link.
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Once the PO matches the invoice for both tax, net, shipping, save the order.
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Click "receive invoice" at the top right of the screen.
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Enter the invoice number, due date and invoice date and submit.
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The invoice will now be showing on the suppliers aged report (Accounts->Suppliers->Supplier debt)
Note that if the invoice you receive from the supplier does not match the total you have on the Brightpearl system, there are two ways to make the correction. First, ensure that the quantities of items are the same on both the paper document and the Brightpearl Purchase Order, then save.
Method 1
You can amend the total and tax figures on the right hand side of the page and Brightpearl will allocate the difference since the last page save across all the products on the PO. If you do this, save the page before you change anything on the product listing section.
Method 2
Run through the products on the left hand side of the PO and make sure that each product price matches than on the Purchase Invoice received from your supplier. Brightpearl will automatically update the totals on the right hand side. If you are updating amounts in the products list, make sure that you save the order before amending any values on the right hand side.
Entering multi-code Purchase Invoices for stock
Some supplier invoices will contain items that you may want to allocate to different nominal codes; for example:
| Invoice 3445 | |
| £80.00 | Product type A (taxable) |
| £60.00 | Product type B (non taxable) |
| £5.00 | Shipping |
| £2.00 | Import Duty |
Since this invoice contains product (items that you are tracking the stock of), you must create a Purchase Order and then receive an invoice against the Purchase Order.
For the Import Duty line, you can add a "misc item" to the order, renaming it to "Duty" (or similar) and setting the nominal code to 5101 accordingly. In this way you can create an order that contains both products and non products.
This will post the total value of the invoice to the supplier account and split up the lines in the accounting database so that you can track spending more accurately.
Note that you have to have set "Allow multiple nominal codes in orders" to "yes" in your company settings screen.
Entering Supplier Invoices for Tax/VAT only
If you import goods from overseas, then you may well receive an invoice for Tax/VAT only, with no goods or services. Follow these steps:
- Click Accounts - Suppliers - Enter quick invoice from the main menu
- Choose the supplier
- Untick the "autocalculate" box
- Add the total VAT into the Tax box
- Add the total VAT into the Total box
- Choose a purchase code (not the VAT liability code)
- Submit the details.
Nominal code rules on Purchase orders
The Brightpearl system follows these rules when creating Sales and Purchase Orders:
- As items are added to the Purchase Order they will be assigned the default nominal code of the supplier (if it exists)
- If there is no supplier code, then the product nominal code is used. If the item is set to manage stock and you have Cost of Sales switched on, then the stock code (1000-1199 assets) will be used. If the item is not set to manage stock, or if you are not using Cost of Sales, then the product purchase code (5000-5999 purchases) is used.
- If Brightpearl can't find a code for the product, it will be assigned to your default purchases code which is normally 5000 (Purchases).
- If you save a nominal code per product once items have been added to the order, this setting will be kept.
An exception to this rule is drop-ship Purchase Orders, which upon saving force all product stock codes to their purchase code. If you've amended the Purchase code then this won't be overridden.
Stock value and stock control
Stock is valued at net cost price excluding tax. Stock purchases must be made through Brightpearl using a Purchase Order. When stock is received, the cost value from the Purchase Order is used to value the stock.Until the Supplier Invoice is received for the Purchase Order, this valuation is provisional.
When a Purchase Invoice is later received against the Purchase Order, the exact stock value is calculated and any items remaining in your database are updated. The cost value will also be saved into the database so that the next Purchase Order uses the most up to date cost values as the provisional amount.
For more information on stock control and Cost of Sales click here
Remember that Supplier Invoices for stock are entered against Purchase Orders, and Supplier Invoices for expenses (such as rent) are entered using Accounts->Suppliers->Enter quick invoice.
Month end stock take
Before you value your month end stock, you should make sure that the figures in Brightpearl reflect the quantities you actually have. Export the product database (Products->import/export) then make any corrections in the spreadsheet before re-importing the file.
Please read the documentation on Products to learn more about the product import/export process.
Click Accounts->Stock value from the main menu to see the current value of the product database. Click the "Record stock values" to keep a snapshot of the current database value at the end of the month to use later for entering opening and closing stock values.
Viewing and editing your stock values
To view the current levels of stock, and the price paid, click Products - Stock report from the main menu. You can search by warehouse, product name or SKU, and click "edit" to change the stock value.

