Accurate inventory counts and inventory values are controlled with two basic functions. Sell all items by scanning them at the register. Receive purchase orders for all merchandise you bring into your store. Let's take a quick tour of the Spirits 2000 purchase order module

There are three ways to receive goods into the computer. You will most likely use all three methods at one time or another.

	Create and receive manual purchase orders.
	Print a Suggested Order List and let the computer create purchase orders for you.
	Use a hand-held inventory scanner to scan new goods into a purchase order.

If your store has never had a computer before, you will probably start out by creating and receiving manual purchase orders. That's because the computer really can't tell you what to order until you've been scanning long enough to create some sales history. So, you'll probably rely on manual purchase orders for the first four to six weeks. Let's look at a sample purchase order and talk about the steps involved in processing the order.

click on image for enlarged view

Take a look at the highlighted item. Read across the highlighted row. Even though we are creating a manual purchase order, we are seeing how the program uses sales history to help us decide what to order and how much to order. NEED is in red and is a positive number. This means we need to order four bottles according to how we've sold this item in the past. You'll notice the item above this one show NEED in blue and a negative number. According to sales history, we actually have one case and five bottles too much!

As you select the items you want to order, they display on the bottom grid. When you first get the computer system, you'll probably phone in your orders as you've done in the past. You'll create and receive the purchase order after the merchandise arrives. At that time, you'll have the vendor's invoice to work with. That invoice contains the vendor's SKU number for each product. You will be able to lookup the item using the vendor's number. So adding items to a purchase order can be quick and easy!

When you are finished adding items to the purchase order, your next step is to post it to inventory.