Market orders and POs from invoices

Take a photo of the order sheet you wrote at market and it becomes a purchase order. An invoice with no PO can become one too.

For a buying trip, use the Market orders tab: it keeps the plan, every order you write, and how each market sold, for as long as you have records. See The Market orders tab and Getting ready for market. The PO drafts below are still there for a single sheet or an invoice.

Both start as a PO draft on Order board › Purchase orders. Nothing is ordered until you check the draft and press Save as PO.

A market order sheet

1. On Purchase orders, press Read a market order. On a phone, take the photo straight away; on a computer, pick the photo or PDF.
2. BridalIQ reads the sheet: the vendor, and each style, size, color, quantity and cost. One line for each size.
3. Check every line against the sheet. Anything hard to read is listed under Check at the top. Press See the sheet to look at it again.
4. Fix what is wrong, tick Sample on the floor samples, and press Save as PO.

Use photos in JPG or PNG, or a PDF, under 10 MB. iPhone HEIC photos can't be read: set the camera to Most Compatible (Settings › Camera › Formats).

When it can't be read

If AI reading is off, not part of your plan, or this month's AI limit is used up, the sheet is still kept and the draft says so. Type the lines in from the sheet and save it the same way. You can also press Type in a market order with no photo at all.

A PO from an invoice

1. On Invoices, open an invoice that says PO: none found.
2. Press Make a PO from this invoice. Its lines go into a draft.
3. Check it and press Save as PO. The invoice is matched to the new PO.

If a PO already matches the invoice, or one was already made from it, you get no second one.

Names and prices of new items

A style you don't carry yet becomes a new item, named your store's way and priced from the vendor's markup: cost times markup plus shipping, rounded up to the next $10. A style you already have is used again. Owners and managers can enter the markup in the draft and keep it for that vendor.

Your own style numbers

The style number and the new item's name on each line are yours to change. Many stores use their own (private-label) style numbers: type yours over the vendor's. The name starts out your store's way; type another if you like. The POS never renames anything by itself.

• When a style number is already used by another vendor's item, the line says so, for example DUP1 is already used for Allure Bridals' Lilac A-line. The draft can't be saved until you choose.
• Use Lilac A-line: this line orders that item.
• Or tick Keep DUP1 for this new item: a new item is made with that number for this vendor. Stores reuse numbers on private labels, so this is fine. Your choice is kept on the draft and in the history.

You can also change any item's style number later on its page in Inventory (owners and managers). Adding a new item shows a note when another vendor already uses that number.

Staff can read sheets and save drafts. They never see costs, markups or totals; a manager fills in a missing cost or markup.

Every draft, change, throw-away and save is in the history. A draft you throw away keeps its sheet.

Getting ready for market

1. On Market orders, press New market. Give it a name, the city and the days. It is filed under the season it buys for (a market from July to December buys for next spring), so your items get your PS or AF names.
2. Pick The plan in the left menu. Press Suggest a plan: BridalIQ looks at the last market for the same season, what sold in the last 12 months, and what is on hand and on order now, and fills in pieces and a budget for each department and vendor.
3. Change anything you like: the budget for the whole market, the budget and pieces for each department, vendor, price band and silhouette, and notes. Press Save the plan.
4. At market, the plan is on the same screen as your orders, so you can see what is left as you buy.

The Market orders tab

Owners and managers have it. The owner can give it to anyone (Settings › Team: Market orders tab to look, enter market orders to change). Costs show only to people who see costs; someone without money rights sees pieces only.

Entering an order

• Type it in. Press Type in an order. Each line is a style, color, size and pieces. For several sizes, type a run like 8:1 10:2 12:1. Pick floor sample, stock or special order. Enter jumps to the next box; Enter on the last box adds a line. If the internet drops at market, the order is kept on the tablet and sent when the internet is back. It is never sent twice.
• Read a sheet. Press Read a sheet and take a photo, or pick a PDF or download. BridalIQ reads it into the order (or, when AI is off, keeps the sheet for you to type from). Reading needs the internet.
• Import the vendor's file. If the vendor gives you a CSV or Excel file, press Import the vendor's file. Columns named Style, Color, Size, Qty, Cost and Retail are matched; size columns like 2, 4, 6 become a size run.

Each order keeps the vendor's order number, ship start, ship complete and the cancel-if-not-shipped-by date, the deposit (amount, how it was paid and the day) and terms. Write "Card ending 4417" for a card deposit, never the card number.

The PO and the pieces on order

Press Save and make the PO. The order becomes one purchase order, never two, however many times it is pressed. New styles become items named your store's way and priced by the vendor's markup. Every piece ordered gets its own barcode at once and shows as On order, waiting on delivery: not on hand and not in stock value. When the box comes, receive the PO as usual and those same pieces go into stock. Change the order later and the PO and its pieces change with it.

The invoice against the market order

When the vendor's invoice comes in on Invoices, it is matched to the market order by vendor and PO or order number, and checked line by line. Open the order to see the differences. These go on your To do list: a billed price higher than at market, an item billed that was not ordered, an item ordered and not billed, a different color or size, the deposit not taken off, and an invoice dated after the cancel date. A cancel date coming up with nothing shipped goes on it too.

The numbers

• This market: spend and pieces against the plan (red when over), average cost and retail by department, the mix by silhouette, color family and size, floor samples against stock and special orders, deposits paid and owed, what arrives when, a markup check, and the same style and color ordered twice.
• How did it sell: for each line, pieces arrived, sold and on hand, sell-through, weeks to the first sale and the margin on what sold.
• History and compare: markets side by side, the average cost per season (overall and by department) as far back as your records go, each vendor's price moves on the same style, how many pieces you Purchased each season, fill rate, on-time delivery and how often the invoice price was higher than at market. Click a vendor for its card: contacts, terms, deposits and past orders.

Every table downloads as CSV or Excel, and Print summary prints the market. Markets, plans and orders are never deleted: a market is switched off and an order canceled, both kept and searchable, and every change is in the history.