Confirming Purchase Order Costs in The Business Edge
When the inventory costs you receive from vendors change frequently, it is important that your Purchase Order costs are confirmed before receiving them into The Business Edge. Vendor cost changes that go unconfirmed can affect your inventory valuation, gross margin calculations, and ultimately the accuracy of your financial statements – so confirming costs upfront helps avoid costly corrections down the line.
The Business Edge has the ability to reverse a Purchase Order receipt, but the process can get very complicated once the received item has been shipped on an Order or used in a process. Reversing a receipt after the item has moved further downstream may require additional corrective entries across inventory, sales, and costing, and can affect reports or documents that have already been generated for that item. The best practice is to confirm costs with your vendor before receiving Purchase Orders, rather than relying on a reversal to correct the cost after the fact.
Marking a Purchase Order as Confirmed
On the final screen of a Purchase Order, there is a button under Options – Change Confirmed Status. Selecting this will mark the Purchase Order as confirmed, along with the User, date, and time it was confirmed – creating a clear audit trail of who verified the order and when. If you click on it a second time, it will offer to clear the confirmed status, which is useful if a change is later identified and the order needs to go back into an unconfirmed state for review.
Multiple Ways to Mark a PO as Confirmed
When you receive confirmation from a vendor, there are several places within The Business Edge where a Purchase Order can be marked as confirmed, giving you flexibility depending on where you're already working:
• Open P.O.'s Not Confirmed report – From within the report, you can mark a PO as confirmed directly under Options. You can also click on the PO from this report to open and view it directly, without needing to navigate there separately.
Purchase Order System
Purchase Order Reports
Open P.O. Reports
Open P.O. Not Confirmed List
• Enter & Edit PO's – If you enter a Vendor Sales Order Number on the Purchase Order, the system will prompt you and ask if you'd like to mark it as confirmed. You can also mark it confirmed on the final screen, as described above.
• Purchase Order Quick Edit – This feature also includes a Mark Confirmed button under Options, allowing you to confirm a PO at the same time you're making other quick updates to quantities, costs, or promise dates.
Purchase Order System
P.O. Receipt Routines
Purchase Order Quick Edit
Having multiple entry points for this means confirmation doesn't have to interrupt whatever task you're already doing – whether you're actively editing the PO, reviewing the unconfirmed report, or making bulk changes through Quick Edit, you can mark the order as confirmed right from that same screen.
Handling Vendor Confirmations and Changes
As confirmations are received from vendors, any changes indicated (whether to cost, quantity, or promise date) should be made to the Purchase Order and marked as confirmed. Keeping this process current helps ensure that what's reflected in the system matches what the vendor has actually committed to, reducing the likelihood of discrepancies once the order is received.
If there are many changes on a particular Purchase Order, the Purchase Order Quick Edit feature would be the fastest way to update quantities, costs, and promise dates. Rather than opening and editing each line individually, Quick Edit allows multiple fields across multiple lines to be updated in a single, streamlined pass – which is especially useful for larger orders with numerous line items affected by a vendor's cost update.
Tracking Unconfirmed Purchase Orders
At any time, the Open P.O. Not Confirmed report can be viewed to show all open Purchase Orders that have not been confirmed. This report is a valuable tool for proactively following up with vendors before receiving, rather than discovering cost discrepancies after the fact.
This report is interactive – you can drill into the Purchase Order detail as well as mark the Purchase Order as confirmed directly from within the report itself, without needing to separately open each order. As Purchase Orders are marked as Confirmed, they will disappear from the report, giving you a clear, real-time view of what still needs vendor follow-up.
Because this report reflects only currently open and unconfirmed orders, it's a good practice to review it regularly (for example, as part of a daily or weekly purchasing routine) so that confirmations don't fall behind and receiving isn't delayed while waiting on vendor responses.
Purchase Order System
Purchase Order Reports
Open P.O. Reports
Open P.O. Not Confirmed List