Purchasing Policy, Receiving Inspection and the Posting Preview

The purchasing policy lives in Settings, Procurement Defaults, under Requisition policy, for people who can manage settings. Buying away from the preferred supplier has three answers: Allow it, Allow it and flag it, and Refuse it unless overridden. Every workspace starts on Allow it, so nothing changes until someone chooses otherwise. The check uses the preferred supplier already set on each item, and a second switch, Only suppliers marked preferred, covers items with no preferred supplier of their own: they may then only be bought from a supplier whose vendor record is marked preferred.

The policy is checked at every door the budget check already guards: approving a requisition, approving an RFQ, awarding a whole quote, awarding item by item, and the Reorder page. On a document that breaks it, a Purchasing policy panel names the item and the supplier that is not preferred. Under Allow it and flag it, approval goes ahead and is listed for review. Under Refuse it unless overridden, approval is refused until someone with the Override purchasing policy permission writes Why this supplier, at least ten characters, and presses Approve with this supplier. The Reorder page never overrides; it refuses and points you to a requisition, where a reason can be given.

In practice: a Nairobi hospital marks Dawa Distributors as the preferred supplier for surgical gloves and sets the policy to refuse. A ward manager’s requisition goes to a cheaper trader. The panel blocks the award; the procurement head writes “Dawa out of stock until the 14th, ward has two days of gloves” and approves. The award goes through, and the exception waits in the register for someone else to look at.

Some things should never be bought on an ordinary approval: controlled drugs, firearms for a security company, chemicals that need a licence. On the item’s form, set Restricted purchase to Yes — needs an approver allowed to buy it, and add a note that says why, such as “Controlled substance: pharmacist sign-off”. The item stays on sale and in stock as normal; only buying it changes.

Approving any requisition, RFQ or award that includes a restricted item needs the Approve restricted purchases permission, on top of whatever approval chain already applies. The Purchasing policy panel lists the restricted lines so the approver sees what they are signing for. The approval is recorded on the requisition and carries down: the RFQ and the quotes raised from that same requisition are not stopped a second time, so the person who signed for it once is not asked again at every step.

Restricted items are never waived by an emergency. In practice: a Kampala agro-chemicals dealer marks two pesticides as restricted with the note “Requires licensed handler”. When the store raises an urgent requisition for one of them as an emergency, the budget block is lifted but the restricted line still waits for the operations director, who holds the permission. Once she approves the requisition, the RFQ and the award follow without another restricted-purchase prompt.

Allow emergency purchases is a switch under Requisition policy, with an optional Emergency limit. When it is on, a person with the Raise emergency purchase permission sees an Emergency purchase box on the requisition and must give a reason, such as “Generator failed at the cold store; stock spoils within 24 hours”. An emergency gets past a budget block and a preferred-supplier block. It does not get past restricted items or approval rules, and above the limit an emergency follows the ordinary rules.

Every purchase that went around the policy lands in Policy exceptions, opened from the Procurement overview or the Related menu: an award away from the preferred supplier, a restricted item bought, an emergency. Each row shows when, the kind, the document, the supplier, the amount, who made it and their reason. The list opens on Waiting for review, with Reviewed and All beside it.

Review is a separate act by a separate person. Someone with the Override purchasing policy permission, and never the person who made the exception, types a note and presses Mark reviewed. In practice: at month end the finance controller of a Mombasa logistics firm filters to emergencies, sees three generator repairs raised by the same site manager, and reviews them with the note “Approved; raise a maintenance contract so these stop being emergencies”.

Receive delivery on a purchase order lists each line with Ordered, Already received, Outstanding, Receiving now and Damaged. Under each line, tracked items ask for their Batch / lot and Expiry, or their Serial numbers, one per unit received, separated by commas or on separate lines. These are checked when the receipt is approved, so a duplicate or missing serial is caught before the stock lands, not discovered at the next count.

Hold for inspection takes a quantity and an Inspection note, such as “Check seals and temperature log”. Those units are booked in with the receipt but placed on Inspection pending when it is approved: counted, valued and on the books, but off sale. An item set to Inspect every receipt on its form is held in full every time, with a note on the line saying so. Release held units from Inventory Statuses once they are checked; serial-tracked units are held and released by serial.

In practice: a Dar es Salaam pharmacy wholesaler sets Inspect every receipt on its vaccines. A delivery of 40 boxes arrives with batch VX-2611 expiring next June. The storekeeper enters the batch and expiry, approval puts all 40 on Inspection pending, and the quality pharmacist releases them from Inventory Statuses after checking the cold-chain log. Until then no till and no sales order can take them.

Preview posting, beside Submit Delivery, fills a panel called What approval will post. It shows one balanced journal per line: the item, the quantity times the unit cost and where that cost came from, then each account with its debit and credit, and a total. It writes nothing. Lines that will not post say why, and held lines say how many units go on Inspection pending.

The preview uses the same cost rules and the same accounts as the approval itself, so it is not an estimate dressed up as a journal. When the receipt is approved, the journal it posts matches the preview line for line; our own tests approve a receipt and compare the two. Held units stay on the books at full value; holding them only takes them off sale.

Use the preview to catch the expensive mistakes before they are ledger entries: the wrong inventory account picked in Receipt Details, a cost that came from the item’s buying price when you expected the order price, a line received into the wrong warehouse. In practice: a Kigali hardware store previews a cement delivery and sees it debiting the shop-fittings stock account. The receiver changes the inventory account, previews again, and submits only when the journal reads right.