What a shipment is

A shipment is not a document you create. It is the receiving side of a purchase order. Every approved purchase order gets one row on the Shipments page, and that row is its shipment.

Find a shipment

Open Shipments from the top menu. The page has two tabs, Incoming Shipments and Completed Shipments, each with a count next to it. Click a row to expand it and see its products with Ordered, Delivered and Landed Value. A replacement order for a supplier claim carries the claim's code next to its PO number.

Only approved purchase orders appear on this page. Orders that are drafts, waiting for approval or not approved do not appear, and neither do orders of a supplier that has been deleted. When Incoming Shipments is empty, it says so and provides Create a purchase order and View purchase orders to take you there.

The Shipments menu appears for accounts that can read purchase orders and for accounts with Manage Shippings or Assign Shipments. If your account is limited to certain departments, the page only lists orders within them, so two colleagues can see different tab counts.

One shipment belongs to exactly one purchase order. You cannot create a shipment on its own or put several purchase orders into one shipment. If a delivery covers two purchase orders, you work through two rows.

A shipment's tab depends on quantities, not on a status you set. It stays under Incoming Shipments until everything ordered has been recorded as delivered, then moves to Completed Shipments automatically.

Reopening an approved purchase order puts it back to draft, so it leaves the Shipments page until it is approved again. Anything already recorded as delivered against it is kept.

Assign a shipment

1. Open Shipments from the top menu.
2. Find the purchase order on the Incoming Shipments tab. The Shipments filters panel narrows the list by date range, PO number, supplier or the person currently assigned.
3. Click the add-person icon in the actions column at the right of the row. Hovering over it shows Assign to user.
4. In the Assign Shipment window, pick a person from the list, or pick Not assigned to clear the current assignment.
5. Click Save.

Assigning requires the Assign Shipments permission. Without it, the assign icon is not shown on the row at all. The lorry icon next to it, whose tooltip reads Edit delivery, requires the separate Manage Shippings permission.

Only incoming shipments can be assigned. Once a shipment is fully delivered, its row offers View details and nothing else, so the person recorded against it cannot be changed.

You can pick any active member of your organisation. The list is not narrowed by permission or department, so you can assign someone who cannot record the deliveries themselves. The person you assign is notified in the app and by email, depending on their own notification settings, unless you assign yourself. Clearing the assignment sends nothing.

Default shipment assignment

The default person to receive shipments is set in Settings, under Organization. The whole-organisation setting is Default Shipping Assigned To, in the Main Settings section. Each department can have its own default in the Department Defaults section.

The department default is used when the supplier belongs to exactly one department, or when the supplier's departments and every product on the order share a single department. Otherwise, the organisation-wide default is used.

When a shipment record is created

Behind the row is a shipment record that holds the assigned person and comments. It does not always exist from the moment the purchase order is approved. It is created by whichever of these happens first: the purchase order is approved with a default person to receive shipments set up; someone assigns the shipment to a person from Shipments; someone records the first delivery against the purchase order; or someone posts the first comment on the shipment.

When the record is created on approval with a default person, it is already assigned to them and they are notified.

If no default person is set up, no record is created when the order is approved. The order still appears on Shipments, but its Assigned To column stays empty until someone assigns it, receives against it or comments on it. An empty Assigned To does not mean the shipment is missing. A default person who is no longer an active member is skipped in the same way.

The default is applied only when the shipment record is first created. If an order is reopened and approved again, an existing shipment record is left alone: the person already assigned stays, and no new notification is sent.

Overdue delivery notifications

When an approved purchase order passes its expected delivery date with goods still to deliver, the person assigned to its shipment and the person who created the order are notified the next morning, in the app and by email. They are notified again every 7 days while it stays late.

Notifications stop once everything has been received or the expected delivery date is moved later. If the order becomes late again, they are notified again straight away. Each person can turn either notification off under Delivery overdue in Settings, then Notifications.