Purchase orders in your supplier's currency
Buying abroad means an order in your supplier's currency, a customs bill in your own, a rate that moved between ordering and paying, and a landed cost that is hard to work out three months later. Stockroom keeps all four on one document.
- Supplier currency on the PO
- Rate frozen when you order
- Landed cost in your own books
One order, two currencies
Stockroom never adds euros and dollars into one total.
- The order is priced in their currency. Each supplier carries the currency they invoice in, and their purchase orders are written in it.
- A reference rate, pulled nightly. Stockroom fetches the European Central Bank's daily reference rates every night and defaults each order to the rate for its own date. It does not fetch rates while you are working.
- Editable while draft, frozen when ordered. Change the rate on a draft if your bank gave you a different one. When you mark the order as ordered, the rate freezes, so a later rate change does not alter a document you already sent.
- Both totals, side by side. The supplier's total in their currency and yours alongside it, on the PO and in the list. Figures in different currencies are reported separately.
- Customs in your currency, on their order. A shipping or adjustment charge can be in your own currency on a foreign order, so USD goods and an MXN broker's fee sit on one document. It converts into your landed cost, and it does not print on the supplier's copy. The printed total leaves it out so their rows still add up.
- Orders without a rate are flagged. The incoming-value figure on your dashboard leaves out any foreign order that has no rate yet, and says so underneath.
Freight, duty and fees in the unit cost
The unit price on an import invoice is only part of what you paid.
- Freight, duty and fees on the part. Allocate every charge across the lines by value, quantity, weight or a split you type yourself, and it goes into each item's cost instead of a general expense account.
- The rate you settled at. Receiving freezes a settlement rate on the receipt and stores the unit and landed costs in your currency beside it. COGS reads those stored figures and does not re-convert, so editing a rate later does not change what you have already booked.
- Costs reach Shopify converted. A weighted-average cost push from a foreign-currency order converts into your shop currency, so the cost field in Shopify is filled in and comparable.
- COGS on FIFO or weighted average. Whichever basis your accountant uses, with a reconciliation line for stock moved outside Stockroom and a count of any units it could not cost.
- Margin including freight. Because the landed cost is on the item, the margin reports and the receiving screen show the margin after freight and duty.
Planning around long lead times
Long lead times are what make importing hard, so reorder points have to account for them.
- The lead time you get. Alongside the lead time your supplier quotes, Stockroom works out the one your own receipts show, plus on-time delivery across the last five dated deliveries.
- Order-by dates. Knowing an item will cross its reorder point in nine weeks does not help if shipping takes twelve. The suggestion works back from the lead time to the date you need to order by.
- On the way is a status. When the supplier says it shipped, mark it on the way with the tracking number, carrier and a revised arrival date, which feeds the countdown and the overdue check.
- Overdue orders show on Home. Orders past their expected date, after a two-day grace period, appear on Home with everything else that needs attention.
- Incoming, broken down. Click any incoming number and see which purchase orders and in-transit transfers are behind it, with expected dates and outstanding quantities.
Common questions
Where do the exchange rates come from?
The European Central Bank's daily reference rates, pulled once a night. They are reference rates, not the rate your bank gave you, so they are right to within a spread. You can correct any order's rate by hand while it is still a draft.
Can I record the rate my bank actually charged?
Yes. Type it on the draft and it becomes that order's rate, then it freezes when you mark the order placed. Totals, landed cost and COGS all use your figure instead of the published one.
What if a charge arrives in a third currency?
That is the current limit. A charge can be in the order's currency or in your own, and those are the only two options. A freight invoice in a third currency has to be converted by you before you enter it.
Does my supplier see the customs charges I add?
No. A charge in your own currency does not appear on their PDF. The printed total leaves it out so the rows they read still add up, and it carries no supplier tax, since a customs broker's fee is not owed to your supplier.
We have years of foreign orders in Stocky.
Those come across with both figures kept: the price your supplier charged in their currency, and your own cost of record alongside it. Where a historical cost was missing, Stockroom filled it from the reference rate for that receipt's date and marked it as backfilled, so you can see which ones to check.
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