---
title: Purchases — buy from suppliers, the easy way
description: A friendly starter guide to TSync Purchases — keep a supplier list, send purchase orders, receive goods straight into stock, record supplier invoices and pay them. No technical background needed.
product: TSync Intelligence 11.3.6
language: en
canonical: https://docs.tsync.pro/modules/tsync-purchases/
source: https://docs.tsync.pro/llms.txt
---

# Purchases 🛒

Every business buys things — raw materials, stock to resell, supplies. **TSync Purchases keeps all of that buying in one tidy place.** You write down who your suppliers are, send them orders, tick off the goods as they arrive, and keep track of what you owe and what you've paid.

The best part: when goods arrive, TSync can **add them straight into your stock for you** — no double entry, no guesswork. And you always have a clear answer to "what did we order, what showed up, and what does the invoice say?"

> 💡 Purchases works hand in hand with your **[Warehouse](../tsync-warehouse/)**. Receiving an order can update your stock automatically — so it's worth having Warehouse switched on too.

## What would you like to do?

### 🏷️ Keep a list of my suppliers

Your suppliers live in their own list, kept separate from your customers — so money you owe never gets muddled with money you're owed.

For each supplier you can store their company details, tax number, bank account, currency and payment terms.

**Add a supplier:**

1. Open the **Purchases** menu and go to your suppliers list.
2. Click to add a new one.
3. (Romania) Type the supplier's **VAT number** and click the lookup button next to it — TSync fetches the official company name, address, registration number and VAT status for you, so you don't have to type them. (This handy lookup uses the **[Romania — ANAF](../ro-anaf/)** add-on.)
4. Fill in the rest by hand: phone, email, bank account, payment terms.
5. Save.

### 📝 Send a purchase order

A **purchase order** (PO) is simply your written request to a supplier: *please send us these items, at these prices*. It's also your record of what you agreed.

**Create one:**

1. Start a new purchase order.
2. Pick the **supplier** (start typing the name to find it).
3. Choose which **warehouse** the goods should arrive at.
4. Set the **currency**, the order date, and when you expect delivery.
5. Add a line for each item — the item, how many, the price, and the tax rate (a sensible default is filled in for you).
6. The total, including tax, updates as you go.
7. **Save it as a draft** while you're still working on it.
8. When it's ready, click **Send to supplier**. The order is now on its way, and TSync marks it as sent.

As things progress, the order moves through clear stages so you always know where it stands: **draft → sent → confirmed → partly received → received** (or cancelled if it falls through).

### 📦 Receive the goods (and update stock automatically)

When the delivery turns up, you "receive" the order against it. You can receive everything at once, or **only part of it** — handy when a supplier sends 80 of the 100 you ordered and the rest follows next week.

**Receive a delivery:**

1. Open the purchase order and click **Receive**.
2. For each line you'll see how many were ordered, how many already arrived, and how many are still outstanding.
3. Type **how many arrived this time** (it suggests the remaining amount).
4. Note down the supplier's own **delivery or invoice number** and its date — this keeps your paper trail clean for later checks.
5. Add a note if you like, and confirm.

Behind the scenes, TSync now does the tidy-up for you:

- It creates a **goods-receipt note** in your warehouse with its own number.
- It adds the received quantities into stock at the order's prices.
- Your **stock levels update on their own**, and the average cost of each item is recalculated.
- The order is marked **received**, or **partly received** if some is still to come.

> 💡 You can receive against the same order as many times as you need — one delivery at a time.

### 🧾 Record a supplier's invoice

When the supplier's bill arrives, record it so you know exactly what you owe. This is usually done after you've received the goods.

1. Open the supplier invoices area under **Purchases**.
2. Create a new invoice. TSync gives it its own reference, and you also enter the **supplier's own invoice number** exactly as it appears on their document.
3. Optionally link it back to the purchase order it relates to.
4. Add the lines — quantity, price and tax.
5. Save.

The invoice keeps its own status — **unpaid → partly paid → paid** — and TSync works that out for you from how much you've paid so far.

**If the invoice is in another currency**, the conversion into your base currency appears under the total,
with the rate used and the day it comes from. If no rate is loaded for that day TSync tells you so — it does
not invent one, and it does not show you the unconverted amount as though it had been converted.

### 💳 Pay a supplier invoice

1. Open the invoice.
2. In the actions area, choose **record a payment**.
3. The outstanding balance is filled in for you — adjust it if you're paying only part.
4. Confirm the payment.

The amount paid goes up, the balance comes down, and once it's fully settled the invoice is marked **paid**.

**The payment reaches your accounts too** — what you owe the supplier goes down, and the money leaves the
place you actually paid it from. What you type in the **Method** field decides that:

| what you type | where the money leaves from |
|---|---|
| `cash`, `numerar`, `casa` | the **cash till** |
| `bank`, `bank transfer`, `transfer`, `virament`, `banca` | the **bank** |
| `card` · `pos` | the **card**, and the **POS terminal** respectively |
| anything else (or left empty) | the **bank**, as before |

Type the plain word. "Bank transfer BCR" is not recognised as a transfer — TSync does not guess from
fragments of text, because a wrong guess would take real money out of an account nobody chose. If you want a
different account for cash, card or POS, set it in **Accounting → GL mapping**.

Deleting a payment, or a supplier invoice, is now withdrawn from your accounts as well.

### ✅ Make sure the order, delivery and invoice all match

This is the everyday peace-of-mind check: *did we get what we ordered, and does the bill match?* TSync keeps the three together — the **purchase order**, the **goods receipt** and the **supplier invoice** — and runs an automatic **3-way match**. Each invoice shows a match status; if a quantity or price is off by more than your allowed **tolerance**, it's flagged. With **strict mode** on, an invoice that fails the match can't be paid until someone with the *override* right approves it. You can also **re-check the match** by hand after a correction. Set the tolerances (quantity % and price %) and strict mode in **Settings**.

## The full buying flow (optional steps before a PO)

For bigger or controlled purchasing, TSync gives you the steps that come *before* a purchase order. Use as many or as few as you need:

- **Purchase requests** (`Purchases → Purchase requests`) — an internal "we need to buy this" raised by a team member, before any supplier is chosen. Once approved it can be turned into a PO (or an RFQ) in one click.
- **RFQs — requests for quotation** (`Purchases → RFQs`) — send the same request to several suppliers and ask for their price.
- **Quotations** (`Purchases → Quotations`) — each supplier's offer. Open **Compare quotations** to put the responses side by side and pick the best one, then turn the winner into a purchase order.
- **FAF requests** (`Purchases → FAF requests`) — a funding/approval request for high-value or fixed-asset purchases, routed for sign-off before committing.

So the longest chain is: **request → RFQ → quotations → compare → purchase order → receive → invoice → pay**. A simple buy can skip straight to the purchase order.

## Does a supplier invoice raise my stock? 📦

**Only if you tell it to** — and the invoice now says, in plain words, which of the three it is.

Entering an invoice records what you OWE. Goods arriving in the warehouse is a separate event, and
keeping the two separate is what lets an invoice arrive a week after the delivery, or cover goods you
already received against a purchase order. So the invoice does not silently move stock — it offers to.

**On every supplier invoice there is a panel called "Effect on stock".** It shows one of three things:

| What it says | What it means |
|---|---|
| **Received into stock** | The goods are in. There is a link straight to the receipt. |
| **Nothing to receive** | No line is tied to an article — services, transport, fees. Nothing is wrong. |
| **Not received yet** | The invoice HAS article lines and the stock has not moved. Here is the button. |

### How to receive the goods

1. On each line, use the **Article** field to find the product. Type two letters and pick it from the
   list — the same search the purchase order uses.
2. Save the invoice.
3. In the **Effect on stock** panel, choose the **warehouse** and press **Receive into stock**.

That creates a goods receipt from the invoice's article lines and posts it, so the stock rises and the
cost enters your average cost. A link to the receipt stays on the invoice.

**Pressing it twice does not receive twice.** The invoice remembers the receipt it produced and will tell
you it is already done, rather than adding the goods a second time.

**Lines without an article stay as they are** — a service or an expense has nothing to put in a warehouse,
and the invoice will say exactly that instead of warning you about it.

> **What changed.** Before this, a supplier invoice never moved stock and never mentioned it. If you were
> entering invoices and wondering why the stock stayed at zero, that was why — and the answer was never on
> the screen. Old invoices are untouched: to bring their goods in, open one, tie the lines to articles and
> press receive.

## The supplier profile — everything about one supplier in one place

Click a supplier's name to open its **profile** (`Purchases → Suppliers → a supplier`). It gathers everything about that supplier under tabs:

- **Profile** — company details, tax number, currency, payment terms.
- **Contacts** — the people at that supplier (name, role, e-mail, phone, a primary contact). Manage them here or from the standalone **Supplier contacts** list under Purchases.
- **Items / Prices** — the supplier's **catalogue**: their code for an item, your matching internal item, the price + currency, lead time, minimum order quantity and a price-valid-until date. Handy for filling orders quickly at the agreed price.
- **Notes** — free-text notes about the supplier.
- **Activity** — a timeline of everything that happened (edits, contacts, notes), so you have the history at a glance.
- **Orders / Invoices / Payments / Quotations / Returns / Debit notes / Contracts** — quick links to that supplier's documents.

## More supplier documents

- **Supplier contracts** (`Purchases → Contracts`) — record framework agreements with a supplier (value, period, terms) and link purchases to them.
- **Debit notes** (`Purchases → Debit notes`) — when a supplier owes you money back (a return, an overcharge), raise a debit note and **apply** it against what you owe them.
- **Return orders** (`Purchases → Return orders`) — document goods you send back to a supplier.
- **Recurring invoices** (`Purchases → Recurring invoices`) — for a regular bill (rent, a subscription), set it up once with a cycle (monthly, etc.) and TSync raises each supplier invoice automatically on schedule.
- **Payment history** (`Purchases → Payment history`) — a single read-only ledger of every payment you've made to suppliers.

## Approvals

If you require sign-off before an order or a high-value request goes ahead, the people responsible see them in **My approvals** (`Purchases → My approvals`), where they **approve**, **reject** or **request changes**. FAF requests are approved the same way. Turn approval on (and set the value threshold) in **Settings**.

## Let suppliers help themselves — the Vendor Portal

You can give a supplier a **self-service login** so they can do their bit without e-mailing you:

- Manage their portal users in **Purchases → Vendor portal — accounts** (invite, resend the invite, enable/disable).
- A supplier logs in to a separate portal where they can **see the orders you sent them**, view their **invoices**, and approve or download documents you've shared for review.
- You review what they submit in **Purchases → Vendor invoices**.

Turning a contact's *portal access* on never creates a password for them — it marks them for a secure invite/reset, so a migrated supplier never carries an old password across.

## Organising suppliers and items

- **Vendor categories** (`Purchases → Vendor categories`) — classify your suppliers (e.g. *Raw materials*, *Services*).
- **Commodity groups** (`Purchases → Commodity groups`) — group the things you buy.
- **Vendor allocations** (`Purchases → Vendor allocations`) — say which supplier is your preferred source for an item or category.

## Setting things up your way

A few simple options let you tailor Purchases to how you work:

There's a basic **Settings** page and an advanced **Settings v3** for the procurement features.

| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| **Order number style** | Choose the prefix your purchase order numbers start with. |
| **Invoice number style** | Choose the prefix your own supplier-invoice references start with. |
| **Request / PO number reset** | Restart the numbering each year or month. |
| **Default tax rate** | The tax rate that pre-fills new order lines, so you type less. |
| **Add to stock on receipt** | Keep this on so receiving a delivery creates the goods-receipt note (NIR) and updates your stock automatically. |
| **3-way match tolerance** | How much a quantity or price may differ (in %) before the order/receipt/invoice match is flagged. |
| **Strict match mode** | When on, an invoice that fails the match can't be paid without an override. |
| **Require approval (+ threshold)** | Require manager sign-off, optionally only above a value. |
| **Recurring invoices** | Enable automatic generation of recurring supplier invoices. |
| **Supplier prices include VAT** | Adds a tick-box to purchase orders and supplier invoices. When ticked on a document, the price you type is read as the gross the supplier printed — the net and the VAT are extracted from it, instead of the VAT being added on top. |

### When your supplier quotes prices with VAT already in them

A local supplier invoice in Moldova or Romania usually prints the **gross** price. If you type 100 and
TSync adds 21 % on top, the total no longer matches the paper — and you have to work the net out by hand
(100 gross = 82.64 net + 17.36 VAT), on every line.

Switch on *"Allow 'supplier prices include VAT'"* once, in **Settings**, then tick *"Supplier prices
include VAT"* on each order or invoice that arrives that way.

With the box ticked you type exactly the figure on the supplier's invoice. TSync extracts the net and the
VAT from it, and **the subtotal plus the VAT come to exactly what you typed** — your invoice matches the
paper, line by line.

The **line preview on screen follows the same rule**, so the figure you are looking at while you type is
the figure the document saves. Ticking or clearing the box redraws the whole document straight away — the
tick changes what every price on the screen means.

> Documents saved before this are untouched, and if you never switch the option on you see no new tick-box.


## What the delivery really cost you — freight, customs, handling

A delivery is rarely just the price on the supplier's invoice. There is the transport, the handling at both
ends, port services, the customs broker, the duty itself, sometimes insurance. Until now those sat somewhere
else in your books and never touched what the goods cost — so the margin you were looking at was measured
against a price you knew was too low.

Now they go into the cost, where they belong.

### How you enter them

On the **receipt screen of a purchase order**, and on a **supplier invoice that receives goods into stock**,
there is a section called **Additional costs**. Add a row for each one:

- **Type** — freight, handling, port services, customs broker, customs duty, insurance, or other.
- **Description** — free text, for whatever the type does not say.
- **Supplier** — who you owe it to. This is usually the **carrier**, not the supplier of the goods.
- **Amount** and **currency**.
- **Spread by** — this is the choice that matters. See below.

Underneath, TSync shows you what each line will cost **after** the spread: the goods, the additional part, and
the resulting unit cost. It updates as you type, including when you change how much you are receiving.

### Choosing how the cost is spread

| Spread by | Use it when |
|---|---|
| **Value of the line** | The usual choice. An expensive item carries more of the freight than a cheap one. |
| **Quantity** | Everything in the delivery is roughly the same size, so what matters is how many. |
| **Manually, per line** | You know exactly how much belongs where — a customs duty that only applies to one article, for instance. |

With **Manually**, you type an amount against each line, and the total has to match the cost **exactly**. If it
is a penny out, TSync says so and names both numbers rather than absorbing the difference somewhere.

> **Why weight is not offered.** It would be the natural third choice, and it is missing on purpose: nothing in
> TSync stores a weight per article, so picking it would quietly spread the cost by something else. When
> articles carry a weight, the option comes back.

### What happens afterwards

The cost joins the goods at the moment of receipt, so the item's **average cost goes up by exactly what was
spread onto it**. Every price and margin you calculate from that point uses the real cost of the delivery.

In the books, the goods and the freight are credited **separately** — the carrier's bill is not something the
supplier of the goods is owed. Both go to the same account by default, so nothing changes on an installation
that changes nothing; if you want them apart, map them separately under **Accounting → GL mapping**.

### Two things it will refuse to do

- **A cost in a currency with no published rate for that date.** It will not convert at 1.0 and put the error
  into your stock cost. Load the rate, then receive.
- **A spread with nothing to spread over** — a receipt whose lines are all worth zero, allocated by value.
  There is no defensible answer, so it asks rather than splitting it equally.

In both cases **nothing is received**. The receipt is not created half-done, because goods sitting in stock at
the wrong value are harder to notice than a receipt you have to enter again.

> **The cost has to be entered with the receipt.** If the carrier's invoice arrives a week later, this version
> cannot go back and add it to goods that are already valued.


## Buying from abroad — import and reverse charge

A purchase from another country is not taxed the way a local one is, and until now TSync had no way to say so.
An import was entered as an ordinary purchase in a foreign currency, which meant the VAT you actually paid at
customs did not exist anywhere in your books — and the supplier appeared to owe you VAT they never charged.

On a supplier invoice there is now a **Tax regime**:

| Regime | When you pick it |
|---|---|
| **Standard** | The supplier charges VAT, as a local one does. Nothing changes. |
| **Reverse charge** | An intra-EU purchase, or a service from a supplier abroad. They charge no VAT — you account for it yourself. |
| **Import** | Goods from outside the customs union. They charge no VAT either, and the VAT is paid at customs. |

### What changes when you pick one

On **both** non-standard regimes, what you owe the supplier is the **net**. That is the number on the invoice
total, and it is the number you pay — carrying the gross there would show a debt that does not exist.

On **reverse charge**, the VAT is recorded on both sides at once: deductible and collected, for the same
amount. It nets to zero, and both sides are written, because a VAT return is built from the two halves and not
from the difference between them.

On **import**, a **Customs declaration** block appears:

- **Declaration number** and **date**.
- **Customs value** — what the customs office computed the VAT on. It includes freight and insurance, so it is
  normally *higher* than the invoice. That is why the VAT is not a percentage of your invoice.
- **VAT paid at customs**, in your accounting currency.

That VAT is booked as **its own entry**, on the **declaration's date** — not the invoice's. The right to
deduct arises when the goods clear customs, and those are routinely different months.

### What it will refuse to do

- **Claim VAT with no declaration number.** The declaration is the document that entitles the deduction; a VAT
  figure with nothing behind it is a claim you cannot support.
- **Accept customs data on a document that is not an import.** It would sit in the record and never reach your
  books — a number that looks entered and does nothing.
- **Accept VAT larger than the customs value it is supposed to have been computed on.**

In each case **nothing is saved**, and the message says which of the three it was.

### Customs duty

Enter it as an **additional cost** of type *Customs duty* on the receipt (see the previous section). It goes
into the **cost of the goods**, like the freight — that is what a duty does. What differs is who you owe it
to: the duty is owed to the **state**, not to the carrier, so it is recorded against the customs authority
rather than against the freight account.


## Who can do what

You can decide which of your team members get to do each part, so the right people handle the right jobs:

- **View** — anyone who needs to see purchases.
- **Create** — the people who raise orders and record invoices.
- **Receive** — your warehouse staff, who confirm the physical deliveries.
- **Manage** — a manager who can cancel, delete and change the settings.

## Getting started

Turn the module on from **Setup → Modules → TSync Purchases → Install**. Because receiving updates your stock, switch on the **[Warehouse](../tsync-warehouse/)** module too.

## Where to go next

- 📦 See your stock and where it lives → [Warehouse guide](../tsync-warehouse/)
- 🏭 Turn what you buy into finished products → [Production guide](../tsync-production/)
- 🧾 (Romania) Automatic supplier lookups by VAT number → [Romania — ANAF](../ro-anaf/)
- 🏠 Lost? Head back to [Getting started with TSync](../index.md)