Purchase orders that start from your reorder points

Every shop has a version of this story. It is the second week of May, the drop-off queue is out the door, and the mechanic reaches for a 12-speed chain and finds the hook empty. The distributor order went in on Monday but nobody added chains because nobody noticed. The bike waits three days. The customer calls twice.

Reorder software fixes that by making the shelf ask for itself. The Service plan gives every inventory item a reorder point per stock location. When stock at that location falls below the point, the item is flagged, and flagged items become lines on a draft purchase order for the supplier you buy them from.

You still decide what goes out. A draft is a draft; the person who places orders reviews it, adjusts quantities for the season, adds the special-order derailleur a customer is waiting on, and sends it. The software does the noticing, which is the part people are bad at in May.

Receiving is where most shops lose track. A box arrives, somebody cuts it open on the counter, the parts go wherever there is space, and the order is marked done even though the brake rotors are on back order. The plan makes receiving an explicit step against the purchase order: each line is received into a specific location, in the quantity that actually arrived.

Partial deliveries stay open. If the distributor ships the cassettes and chains but not the bottom brackets, the bottom bracket line stays outstanding on the order, and you can see at a glance what is still coming. When the rest arrives, you receive it against the same order.

You can receive straight into a van, too. If a mobile tech is picking up an order on the way to their first stop, the parts can be received into that van rather than into the shop and then transferred. One movement instead of two, and the count is right the first time.

Not every order is restock. A customer brings in a bike with a bent hanger that is specific to one frame, a worn freehub body, or an e-bike speed sensor you never keep on the shelf. The plan lets you put a special-order part on the purchase order and tie it to the work order that needs it.

That tie is what keeps the bike moving. When the part is received, the work order it belongs to is the one you look at next. Combined with the planned "your bike is ready" texts and shop statuses on work orders, it closes the loop between the box arriving and the customer getting a call.

It also keeps special orders out of your general stock counts, so a single hanger for one customer does not quietly become an item with a reorder point you never meant to set.

Purchase orders are also a cost record. Every part received carries the price you paid for it, and that cost follows the part onto the work order where it is used. That is what lets the planned job-costing view show you that a tune-up with a chain and cassette made money and one with a special-order hanger and two hours of labor did not.

The supplier bill itself belongs in erp.io Accounting, which is live today and holds your payables. The Service plan matches the supplier invoice to the purchase order so you can see what you ordered, what arrived and what you were billed side by side. The connection that writes those amounts from Service into Accounting is planned under decision D2 and is not built yet.

erp.io Pey, which is also live, matches payments to bank deposits. It does not place orders or move money for you, and we are not claiming it does.