Procuro
What a purchase order does for your store
A purchase order (PO) is the record of what you've ordered from a supplier: which products, how many, and at what cost. It does three jobs:
- Tells your supplier exactly what you want, so there's no confusion about quantities or prices.
- Tracks incoming stock, so you know what's on the way before it arrives.
- Records what each product really cost you, which is what your margins depend on.
Skip POs and you're relying on memory, email threads and guesswork. That works until your second or third supplier.
Step 1: Set up your suppliers
Add each supplier once, with their contact details, currency and payment terms. Doing this first means every PO afterwards takes seconds to start, and you can compare what each supplier charges over time.
Step 2: Create the purchase order
You have three ways to build a PO, and the right one depends on how your supplier sends information:
- Manually: pick the supplier, search your products, enter quantities and costs. Best for small orders.
- From a CSV: if your supplier sends a spreadsheet, import it. Columns like product name, SKU, barcode, quantity and unit cost map straight onto PO lines.
- From the supplier's invoice: upload the PDF and let AI read it. Procuro AI pulls every line, matches it to your Shopify products by barcode, SKU or name, and builds the PO.
Whichever method you use, check three things before sending: the quantities, the unit costs, and the currency.
Step 3: Account for the real cost
The price on the invoice is rarely what a product actually costs you. Before you finalise the PO, add:
- Shipping and freight
- Duties and import fees
- Invoice discounts
- Taxes that aren't recoverable
- Currency conversion, if you buy in another currency
Spread across your products, these are your landed costs. Leave them out, and every margin you calculate is too high.
Step 4: Handle cases versus units
Many suppliers invoice in cases, while you sell single units. If an invoice says 5 cases of a product packed 12 to a case at $49.73 a case, you're receiving 60 units at about $4.14 each.
Get this wrong and your inventory is off by a factor of 12. Procuro converts cases to units automatically, using the pack size on the invoice, and asks you to confirm anything ambiguous.
Step 5: Receive the stock and update costs
When the shipment arrives, receive the PO. Your inventory goes up, and your product costs should update too. There are three common ways to calculate the new cost:
| Method | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Weighted average | Blends the cost of stock you have with the new stock | Most stores, steady prices |
| FIFO | Uses the cost of the oldest stock first | Stores tracking cost layers closely |
| Replacement | Uses the latest purchase cost | Fast-moving or volatile prices |
In Shopify on its own, you'd update each product's cost by hand. In Procuro, costs update automatically when you accept the PO, using the method you choose.
Step 6: Use your PO history
Once you're creating POs consistently, your history becomes useful. You can see how a product's cost changed across orders, which supplier is cheapest, and what your inventory is worth today. Forecasting then shows what to reorder before it runs out.
Create your first PO in minutes
Procuro handles every step above: suppliers, manual, CSV and AI-built POs, landed costs, case-to-unit conversion, automatic cost updates and forecasting. Plans start at $12 a month, with a free trial.