Table of Contents
Purpose
When purchasing for landscaping jobs, backorders can occur for several reasons which include seasonal demand fluctuations, limited availability of materials, weather conditions, or product supply disruptions.
While you hope that your vendors give you everything you need when you need it, that isn't always the case. In this article, we show how to create a Backorder in Aspire by receiving partial quantities.
Backorders are important to help your team manage inventory, and they help keep your customers satisfied rather than having to cancel or delay their entire job! One of the most important things to know about Backorders is that they can help you communicate your demand to your suppliers better!
By keeping track of your Backorders, you can help vendors plan their production to make sure you get your inventory in a timely manner!
📑To learn more about the Purchasing module, click here to watch our overview!
Requirements
✅To view the Purchasing module and all Purchasing tabs, you will need View Purchasing added to your user role.
✅To create Purchase Receipts, you’ll need Add Receipt added to your user role.
✅To receive and partially receive Purchase Receipts, you’ll need the permission Receive Receipt added to your user role.
Receiving a Purchase Receipt and Creating a Backorder
Let’s say that you are working with a vendor to purchase pine needles for a plant install at Camille’s Oasis. There was a supplier disruption, so your purchase of 400 pounds of pine needles needed to be backordered 100 pounds!
The purchase receipt was already created, so we need to receive the materials, but only partially since we are still waiting for the rest to be delivered.
To do this, start by navigating to the Purchasing module.
Click on the Purchase Receipts tab.
Search for the needed purchase receipt you need to backorder from. Click into the purchase receipt.
Click on the three dot menu and select Receive Partial.
Confirm that you’d like to partially receive the purchase receipt:
The Receive Partial window will pop-up:
Select the date when the partial amount was received.
Add the quantity that you physically received from the vendor in the Item Quantity box.
Click Save.
Another pop-up will ask if you want to create a Backorder. Click Yes to continue.
If you choose No, you can still partially receive the Purchase Receipt, and a backorder will not be created.
Learn more about this here.
The original purchase receipt screen reappears and the Purchase Receipt status will be updated from New to Received.
In the Purchase Items section of the receipt, the Quantity and the Recorded Quantity boxes display the partial receipt difference.
Locating Backordered Purchase Receipts
On the Purchase Receipts List
For the Backorder Quantity that hasn’t yet been received, a second Purchase Receipt will be created with the original receipt number plus a sub number.
A good example of this is for Camille’s Oasis and Vendor Jawa’s Nursery and Bulk Material, the original Purchase Receipt number was 612.
The new Purchase Receipt number would be located by the Revision Number of 612-1:
Within a Purchase Receipt
In the original or sub purchase receipt, click in the three dot menu in the upper right and select View Backorders.
This will display all the Backorders related to the original Purchase Receipt.
Receiving in a Backorder
When your Backorder items are fulfilled, you can update your Purchase Receipts.
In our example, the rest of the pine needle order for Camille’s Oasis arrived from Jawa’s Nursery and Bulk Material! Now, we can receive the backordered Purchase Receipt.
Select the Purchase Receipt for the backorder either from the Purchase Receipts list or from the Backorders list in a Purchase Receipt:
Once the Purchase Receipt is open, then you can select the three dot menu and can receive the Backorder like you would a regular purchase receipt.
📌 Note: If the vendor gives you another partial delivery, you can create another Backorder from the sub purchase receipt by using the three dot menu and selecting Receive Partial.
⚠️ Something to know about backorders is that if you needed to edit one and you had additional backorders after the one that needs to be edited, you would have to delete the ones made afterwards and redo them!
Here’s an example of this:
If you had six Backorders, and you needed to make edits to Backorder two, you would need to delete Backorders three through six before you would be able to make changes to Backorder number two!
You then would have to redo all of the partially received purchase receipts for Backorders three through six as well!
Because of all of the legwork required to fix or edit a Purchase Receipt, it might be best to create individual Purchase Receipts for the products you have received.
Partially Receiving a Purchase Receipt Without Creating a Backorder
When you partially receive a purchase receipt, you have the option to select No to avoid creating a Backorder. There are a few scenarios that might reflect why you would choose not to create a Backorder.
Let’s say you order material and partially receive the purchase receipt. But then, you realize that you don’t need all the material. In this case, you wouldn’t need to create a backorder, because you actually need less and don't need to receive the rest of the original material on the Purchase Receipt.
Another example of when you wouldn’t need to use a Backorder would be if you order material, and the vendor isn't getting more of the material after sending you a portion of what they could sell.
You would need to order the rest of the remaining material from a different supplier. The backorder would not be necessary because you would be ordering from another supplier.
🧠In these scenarios, you could also adjust the quantity and then receive the PR and fully receive the edited Purchase Receipt!