📝 Overview
Recording your purchases in the system is key to tracking inventory, maintaining accurate pricing, and generating reliable reports. Any physical items that are purchased and need to be tracked should be entered into your account. This allows you to manage inventory effectively and ensures that item prices automatically adjust as business costs change. When using percentage-based markup pricing, at least one purchase entry is required for an item to generate a base price.
💡For more information about ordering and receiving using the MWI, Patterson or Victor Medical integrations; please click the button below.
💡 To learn more on our Vetcove integration, please click the button below.
📦 How to Record a Purchase at the Inventory Item Level
This section explains how to record an individual purchase at the item level. Use this method when you’ve received a single item and need to add it to your inventory. For multiple items, see the Receipts section below to learn how to enter them quickly and efficiently.
Click the arrow to learn how to record a purchase at the inventory level
Click the arrow to learn how to record a purchase at the inventory level
Navigate to the applicable inventory item
Click on Purchases and select New Purchase
Complete the form that appears. The Supplier field is require (added through the Contacts module as a New Company).
Click Save
To see detailed information about important fields on purchases, please see below.
Lot No: - If a lot number is entered, this will automatically be pulled into the medical record and can be tracked under the purchases tab of the item.
Expires: - We highly recommend entering in the expiration date in this field. The expiration date will appear on any prescription label. Note: An expirated item cannot be sold. The system will not show any expired items when searching for an item in a new record. You will have to manually make an adjustment for the expired item, and drop the balance to 0 with a reason of "Expired".
Quantity: (VERY IMPORTANT) - This is the total amount of the item purchased, based on the UOM (Unit of Measure). To the left of the quantity field, it will show you the UOM that has been set on the item. This is how you dispense (sell) the item. For the example below, the item is sold by the individual tablet.
Example: If you receive 3 bottles of a medication, and each bottle has 100 tablets, totaling 300 tablets; you will enter in 300 as the quantity. This will put 300 tablets in your inventory, so as the tablets are sold, the balance will be accounted for properly.
Shipping and Tax - This is for the tax and shipping the business paid on the purchase and is an optional field. The shipping and tax costs can be worked into the items price if you wish to do so. This is managed form the configuration "Cost Plus Pricing". It can be found in Settings > View Configurations > Cost Plus Pricing. There will be 4 options to choose from:
💊 How to Set Items to Automatically be Pulled
Learn about the Inventory Shelf Management configuration, which lets you set how inventory items are automatically pulled.
Click the arrow to learn how to set items to automatically be pulled.
Click the arrow to learn how to set items to automatically be pulled.
Navigate to the Settings module
Find the Inventory Shelf Management configuration and click the paper and pencil icon to edit.
Select preferred option between Soonest Expiring or FIFO (First In First Out)
Soonest Expiring will look at the expiration dates of purchases to determine the lot that an item is pulled from by default. If there is no expiration date on a purchase(s) then the system will default to FIFO after all entries with an expiration are used up.
FIFO or First In First Out will always utilize the purchase date to determine the order items are pulled.
Click the save icon
🧾 Adding Purchases via a Receipt
Save time, and enter recently received orders through one receipt.
Click the arrow to learn how to add purchases through a receipt
Click the arrow to learn how to add purchases through a receipt
Purchases can also be added to an inventory item via a New Receipt within the Inventory Dashboard (main inventory page). If the clinic has multiple purchases to add to their inventory, they can do a New Receipt from a supplier and the purchases will be added to the applicable inventory item from the receipt.
Using the receipt feature is recommended when entering an entire order, which will save you time as the individual purchases are created under each item once the receipt is posted.
💡Click the button to learn more about receipts.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Find answers to common questions or additional details that may not be covered in the main instructions.
Click the arrow to learn about the frequently asked questions
Click the arrow to learn about the frequently asked questions
What happens if I forget to enter a purchase for an item using percentage-based pricing?
Click the arrow to see the answer
Click the arrow to see the answer
A purchase entry is required to generate a base cost. Without it, the system cannot calculate the correct markup or sale price.
Can I edit or delete a purchase after saving it?
Click the arrow to see the answer
Click the arrow to see the answer
Yes, users with the appropriate permissions can edit or delete a purchase from the item’s Purchases tab. Be sure to verify adjustments to avoid discrepancies in inventory balances.
How do I track expired inventory items?
Click the arrow to see the answer
Click the arrow to see the answer
Expired items are automatically hidden from new records. To remove them from inventory, manually adjust the item balance to 0 with a reason of Expired.