Receive goods from a supplier invoice, and short shipments
Why a supplier invoice never marks your purchase order received by itself, how to receive what an invoice covers in one click from the shipment or the order, and what happens when the supplier sends 6 of the 10 you ordered.
Updated 19 September 2026
When a supplier invoice linked to a purchase order is costed, its units get their cost straight away. The order itself stays ordered, showing nothing received. That is deliberate, and one click closes the gap once the goods are actually in.
Why an invoice does not receive the order by itself
Invoices and goods travel separately. The supplier's invoice is often in your inbox while the container is still at sea, and receiving is what adds the stock in Shopify: the units move from incoming to available on the order's Shopify transfer. If costing the invoice received the order, Shopify would show stock for sale that has not arrived. So costing and receiving stay two steps, and either can come first.
Receive in one click
On the shipment. Once the shipment is calculated, each invoice linked to an order with units still to receive shows, above its products:
This invoice covers 6 of 10 on PO-0160, not received yet. Receive 6
On the order. Under Supplier invoices, each invoice row says how many of its units are not received yet, with the same Receive button.
Either way the receipt is recorded on the order, dated today, for exactly the units that invoice covers. A green note says what happened and stays on screen, so nobody receives the same goods again from the order page. On a foreign-currency order the receipt uses the order's exchange rate, else the rate the invoice was costed at.
Does it change Shopify's stock? Only when the order has a Shopify transfer, which every order you place in Landara does. An order created from a supplier invoice after the goods arrived has none, because that stock reaches Shopify when you push the shipment's costs. The prompt tells you which case you are in before you click.
Several invoices for one order
Suppliers often invoice an order in parts: 6 now, 4 when the rest ships. Each invoice offers only its own units. A receipt made from an invoice remembers which invoice it was for, so once the first invoice's 6 are received it offers nothing more, and the second invoice still offers its 4. A receipt you enter on the order page with Receive goods is counted against the invoices oldest first.
Short shipments
A short shipment is simply an invoice for fewer units than you ordered. Order 10, the invoice says 6:
- The invoice is costed for 6. Its six units are in your costs.
- Receive 6 records six received. The order reads partially received, with 4 still outstanding.
- The other 4 either arrive on a later invoice, which offers its own Receive 4, or never come: Close the order short and the unreceived units come off the Shopify transfer.
Nothing on the shipment warns about the missing 4. An invoice covering part of an order is normal, and the order is where "short shipped" and "partly received" belong.
When the whole order is billed
Once every invoice on an order has its bill in Xero and nothing is left to invoice, Landara marks the order's own purchase order in Xero as billed, whether the last bill was published from the order or from the shipment. The publish result says so, and the order shows Billed in Xero beside its number, so nobody goes looking in Xero for an open purchase order that is already done.
