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How to Automatically Update Unit Costs on Purchase Orders (PO)
How to Automatically Update Unit Costs on Purchase Orders (PO)

Lean how to save time by making your unit costs automatically fill in your POs.

Aladdin avatar
Written by Aladdin
Updated this week

In this article, we will explore how to get your unit costs to automatically update on a PO. While this is the focus, there are a couple of other steps and caveats we need to discuss first.

The main point to discuss is that there is a difference between the Shopify unit costs you set in Shopify and the unit costs Genie offers in the product settings. The former is used for calculations of your insights and inventory value numbers, while the latter is primarily used for POs.

Currently, if you want to use your Shopify unit costs as the PO’s unit cost, that value is already automatically updated regardless of settings or supplier association.

But, if you want to use Genie-based unit costs, you will have to ensure a couple of things are set up before you attempt to auto-fill these costs in an order.

  1. The product(s) in question must have a supplier attached to them. If you are unsure how to do that, we have a full walkthrough guide here.

  2. The unit costs have to be set from the detailed product view. Here is another guide to help you out with that.

Now, assuming you have gone back or have already completed these first two steps, it’s time to see the magic.

Automatically update unit costs in your PO

The key to successfully filling your PO with the correct unit costs is choosing the right supplier to attach to the PO.

When creating a new PO you will want to ensure that the “Supplier” is set to the same supplier of the product you just added unit costs to. If you’ve set everything up correctly, this will mean that when you add products to the PO or when you view the products already added they should be pre-filled with unit costs.

Keep in mind that unit costs and supplier SKUs will be different depending on the supplier added to the order.

If you have more than one supplier per product, please make sure that you have both attached to the products with the corresponding unit costs attached. You can change the unit costs you are updating by changing the “Primary Supplier” in the product profile.

What this will do is allow you to create one order for product A with unit cost A while also setting up another order with product A and unit cost B.

You can also change the unit costs you are using from within the PO by changing the supplier. Just know that there will be times when the unit costs won’t update if you switch the supplier. When that happens simply remove the product, update the supplier, then add the product back. This should update the unit costs accordingly.

By following these steps, you can efficiently update or enter the unit costs of products while creating purchase orders. If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, please refer to the help center or contact support.

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