Purchase order vs receiving: what's the difference?

Purchase orders and receiving are closely connected, but they are not the same thing.

A purchase order records what you intend to buy. Receiving records what actually arrived. Understanding the difference prevents a lot of inventory and supplier headaches.

What is a purchase order?

A purchase order, or PO, is what a buyer sends a supplier to request goods. For example, 50 blue shirts at $10 each.

It usually carries a PO number, supplier, date, product, SKU, quantity, unit price and total. In StockSimple, POs are numbered automatically and stay editable while they are still a draft.

What is receiving?

Receiving is checking and recording the goods that actually arrive. That matters because the delivery may not match the order.

Purchase order: 50 units. Delivery: 47 units. Your inventory should record 47, not 50.

Why the difference matters

If you add the ordered quantity to stock automatically, you show inventory that has not arrived.

You have 100 units and order another 50. Those 50 are on order — your available stock is still 100. Once 47 arrive, stock becomes 147 and three units stay outstanding.

StockSimple works exactly this way: creating a purchase order never changes stock. Confirming a receipt is the only thing that does, and each received line is written to your stock history at the destination location.

A simple purchasing flow

Need identified, purchase order, supplier, delivery, receiving, inventory.

• Purchase order: what did we ask the supplier to send?
• Receiving: what did the supplier actually send?
• Inventory: what do we physically have afterwards?

What to check when stock arrives

Supplier, purchase order, product, SKU, quantity, condition, variations, damaged goods and incorrect products. Do not assume a delivery is correct because a note says it is.

You can capture a receipt line by line in StockSimple, or upload the supplier's delivery file as a CSV or Excel sheet and let it match lines by SKU before you confirm.

What if the delivery is incomplete?

Your PO has 50 of Product A and 30 of Product B. The supplier sends 50 and 20. You received 70 units, not 80, and 10 remain outstanding — which you can receive later against the same purchase order.

What if the supplier sends too much?

You ordered 50 and 55 arrive. Do not simply add 55 without checking. You may need to contact the supplier, return the extras, accept them or record the difference. The right answer depends on your supplier agreement.

StockSimple will not let you receive more than the outstanding quantity on a purchase order, so an over-delivery has to be dealt with deliberately rather than by accident.

Damaged products

Receiving is also where damage gets caught. If 20 arrive and two are damaged, those two should not sit in available stock. Record what happened and handle them according to your process.

Why purchase orders are useful

They matter most when you use several suppliers, staff place orders, you buy often, orders are large, deliveries arrive split, or you need a record of what was bought. They give you a reference point when something goes wrong.

Final thoughts

Think of a purchase order as the plan and receiving as the reality check. The PO says what you ordered. Receiving says what turned up. Keeping the two separate is what keeps your stock honest.