Receiving goods
What a receivement is, which status actually moves stock and value, and what cost the goods are booked at.
A receivement records goods arriving against a purchase order. It is the only thing in Flow Retail that turns an order into stock, and it is where the cost of that stock is decided.
Summary
What it belongs to
One purchase order
What it changes
Stock quantity and average cost, in one warehouse
When it changes them
Only at status RECEIVED
Cost booked
The price per unit you enter, or the order's net unit cost
Can be split
Yes — several receivements per purchase order
The four statuses
PENDING
Registered, not yet processed
No
UPDATING
Being worked on
No
CONFIRMED
The supplier has confirmed a shipment. The goods are coming, not here.
No
RECEIVED
The goods have physically arrived
Yes
Only RECEIVED moves value. It increments stock and books a cost. The other three are administrative.
CONFIRMED is the one that misleads. It means the supplier confirmed a shipment — it carries quantities, an expected arrival date and the supplier's order reference, and it lifts the purchase order to IN_TRANSIT. It carries no price, asserts nothing about cost, and touches no stock. That is deliberate: a discount is routinely agreed after a delivery has been confirmed, so confirming must not fix the cost.
What cost the stock is booked at
When a line is received, Flow Retail books a cost per unit:
The price per unit on the receivement line, if you entered one. Use this when the delivered price differs from what was ordered.
Otherwise, the purchase order's net unit cost in local currency — the line price after any agreed discount, converted from the order's currency.
The fallback is the net cost and not the list price on purpose. Falling back to list price would value the stock at what the supplier asked before the discount was agreed, and overstate your inventory.
That booked cost is then blended into the product's average cost for that warehouse — see How cost price is calculated.
Partial and split deliveries
A purchase order can have several receivements. Receive what arrived, leave the rest outstanding, and the purchase order sits at PARTIALLY_RECEIVED until the remainder comes in.
If the remainder never arrives, close the purchase order rather than receiving quantities you did not get. Closing leaves received stock untouched and stops the order sitting open — see Purchase order statuses.
Serial numbers
A receivement line carrying a serial number must have a quantity of exactly one unit. Ten serialised items are ten lines, not one line of ten. Receiving is rejected if a serial number is set on a line with any other quantity.
Limitations
A receivement writes into a single warehouse. Splitting one delivery across warehouses means more than one receivement.
Supplier invoice approval is tracked on the receivement and is separate from the purchase order's status. Receiving goods does not approve an invoice.
Cost is booked at the moment of receiving. A price correction agreed later does not retrospectively revalue stock already received.
Last updated 19.09.2026
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