Purchasing & Inventory

The Purchasing and Inventory sections are available on the Business and Enterprise plans (and for preview during the free trial). Once enabled they appear in the sidebar, and either can be hidden from Settings → Modules without touching its data. Purchasing depends on Inventory, so hiding Inventory hides Purchasing as well.

Neither section imposes anything on those who don't use it: expenses are recorded as before, and the supplier name in the expense dialog is a free-text field that suggests registered suppliers without forcing you to pick one.

The purchasing cycle

1. Purchase request (PR-): created by the engineer or supervisor with the items and quantities the project needs, then submitted for approval.
2. Approval: without an approval matrix, anyone holding the approve permission approves the request. If you set up an approval matrix (from Purchasing → Approval matrix), each document type gets ordered steps with a minimum amount and an approver per step (a role, a member, or the document's project manager). The creator of a document cannot approve it, and a delegate can approve on behalf of an absent approver, with their name recorded.
3. Request for quotations (RFQ-, optional): send the items to several suppliers and enter their quotes; the comparison sheet is built automatically, comparing prices line by line and marking the lowest. Awarding is line by line, and awarding a line to anyone other than the lowest bidder requires a written justification. The award creates a draft purchase order for each winning supplier.
4. Purchase order (PO-): at net prices before VAT, with optional discount and freight. On submission it goes through the approval matrix if a step applies to its amount; otherwise it is sent directly. A rejection returns it to draft with the reason. The ordered quantity of each purchase-request line is tracked until it is fully ordered.
5. Receiving: from the order page, record the quantities received (in full or in part) into a warehouse or directly into the project's site store, along with any quantity rejected at inspection and the inspection note. A stock receipt linked to the order and an automatic journal entry are created. If delivery will not be completed, choose "Close short" to close the order on what was received.
6. Supplier invoice: record the supplier's invoice from the order page. Masar compares ordered, received and invoiced (three-way matching), and the cost is never charged twice, whether the invoice is recorded before or after the receipt.

Every document has a timeline recording creation, submission, approvals, rejections and comments with the person's name and time.

Who sees what

• A member sees documents for the projects assigned to them only, and what they created or were assigned, unless you grant them the permission to view all documents.
• Prices are hidden on the server from anyone without the view-prices permission (engineers and supervisors by default).
• Settings → Members → Roles offers ready-made role templates for the purchasing and inventory department (procurement manager, buyer, storekeeper, warehouse manager...) that you can adjust before saving.

Suppliers

• A supplier register with a number for each supplier (SUP-), VAT number, payment terms and contact details. Suppliers can be created in one go from the supplier names on your past invoices.
• Supplier status: New, Approved, Suspended, Blocked. Existing suppliers are Approved. A new supplier stays "New" until qualified only if you enable the "Orders to approved suppliers only" control.
• Supplier documents (commercial registration, VAT certificate...) with expiry dates and reminders before they expire.
• A supplier scorecard (on-time delivery, average delay, return rate, price versus the lowest quote) and a manual rating after an order is closed.
• Supplier statement, supplier aging and upcoming payments.
• Supplier advances: paid from a bank account and recorded as a balance you hold with the supplier, then applied to their invoices later, reducing the amount due without a new bank movement.

Supplier credit notes

When part of a delivery the supplier has already invoiced is returned, or the supplier grants a discount after invoicing, record a credit note (SCN-) from Purchasing → Supplier credits:

• Return credit note: linked to a supplier return, with one active credit note per return.
• Price allowance: a discount on an amount already charged.
• If the credit note carries VAT, you must enter the supplier's credit note number and select the original invoice it adjusts (Article 54 of the VAT Implementing Regulations). A credit note without VAT has no such requirement.
• The balance is used either as a cash refund into a bank account, or as a deduction from another invoice of the same supplier.
• The credit note, refund and deduction appear on the supplier statement, with credit balances on a separate line.

Cash custodies

From Purchasing → Cash custodies, open a custody for a purchasing representative: a cash box under the holder's name with an optional limit.

• Funding and returns are transfers from and to a bank account; funding beyond the custody limit is rejected.
• Spending from the custody uses the regular expense dialog, choosing the custody as the source account.
• Each custody has a statement of receipts, payments and balance. A holder without finance permissions sees only their own custody and its statement.

Inventory

• An item catalogue with a ready-made library of common building materials, one base unit per item and alternative units with a conversion factor (bag → ton, for example). Excel import, preferred suppliers per item, a duplicate-item warning, item proposals approved by the person in charge, QR label printing, and barcode search with a USB scanner.
• Warehouses: a main warehouse and a site store per project (created on the project's first movement). You can assign keepers to each warehouse; a member with no keeper assignments works on all warehouses as before.
• Movements: receipts (GRN-), issues to a project (ISS-), transfers between warehouses (TRF-), returns, adjustments and opening balances. A posted document cannot be edited; cancelling it writes reversing movements and reverses its entry. Valuation uses the moving weighted average.
• Two-stage transfers (when enabled): the quantity leaves the sending warehouse and stays "in transit" until the receiving warehouse confirms it; any shortage is recorded in a linked adjustment document.
• Supplier return (PRT-): returns a received quantity at its original receipt cost and reduces the amount owed to the supplier.
• Stock count (CNT-): enter the counted quantities to see the differences; on approval the shortage or surplus adjustment is posted. You can enable a blind count (the counter does not see the book balance) and count separation (the approver is not the counter).
• Reorder level per item per warehouse, with an alert when stock falls below it.
• The project's "Materials" tab: what was issued to the project and its cost against the planned material plan.

Material requests

From Inventory → Material requests, an engineer or supervisor requests materials for their project (MR-):

1. Submit, then approve (through the approval matrix if you set a policy for it, otherwise by the material-request approve permission; the creator cannot approve their own request).
2. Issue from the warehouse within the remaining requested quantity and the available stock, in one or several issues. Approved quantities are reserved from available stock until issued.
3. If stock is not enough, convert the shortage into a purchase request in one click.

If you enable the "Issues require an approved material request" control, direct issues to a project without a request are limited to the owner and the warehouse manager. Direct site purchases from the expense dialog are not affected.

Procurement & inventory controls (optional)

From Purchasing → Approval matrix → Procurement & inventory controls. All of them are off by default, and an organization that doesn't enable them keeps the usual behaviour:

Reports

• Purchasing → Reports & control: matching, request aging, cycle time, delivery follow-up, spend, committed, price history, RFQ savings, supplier performance, and received-not-invoiced.
• Inventory → Reports: balance and valuation (including in transit), consumption by item, count differences, and items below the reorder level with a one-click purchase request for the shortfall.
• Purchasing reports, the supplier statement and aging can be printed and exported to Excel.