How It Works
Receiving is how you record the stock that actually arrived from a distributor and update your inventory and costs. It runs as a guided session with a fixed set of steps, and the first step is uploading the invoice.
Instead of typing every line by hand, you can attach the distributor's invoice and Scotch POS reads it for you — pulling out the products, quantities, and costs and matching them onto the purchase order.
Key things to know:
Uploading is optional. You can skip it and add items by hand instead. The rest of the session — reviewing items, margins, negative stock, and finalizing — is the same either way.
One delivery can have more than one invoice. This happens most often when categories are invoiced separately, such as alcoholic and non-alcoholic products split across sheets. You can upload up to six files in a single session.
You can receive with or without a purchase order. Receive against an existing PO when you placed the order in advance, or use blind receiving when stock arrives with no PO on file.
Where to Access Each Feature
To… | Go to |
Start receiving / open the receiving flow | Stock management → Purchase orders → Start receiving |
Upload invoices for a receiving session | The Upload invoice step inside the session (opens automatically after you start receiving) |
Starting a Receiving Against a Purchase Order
Use this when you already placed the order. The purchase order has to be in draft or ordered status (open) — completed or already-receiving POs can't be started again.
Step 1
Go to Stock management → Purchase orders.
Step 2
Click "Start receiving." The New receiving flow window opens ("Choose where and who you're receiving from, then how.").
Step 3
Under Receiving details, choose the Store and the Distributor. The distributor list shows how many open purchase orders each one has.
Step 4
Under How do you want to receive?, select "Receive against an existing PO," then pick the open purchase order for that distributor. Click "Start receiving." The session opens on the Upload invoice step.
Starting a Blind Receiving (No Purchase Order)
Use this when stock arrives with no purchase order created in advance. Scotch POS creates a new PO for you as you receive.
Step 5
Go to Stock management → Purchase orders and click "Start receiving."
Step 6
Under Receiving details, choose the Store and Distributor. A distributor is required for blind receiving.
Step 7
Under How do you want to receive?, select "Blind receiving" ("Scan items onto a new PO for the selected distributor."), then click "Start receiving." A new session opens on the Upload invoice step, tied to a fresh PO for that distributor. From here, uploading invoices and reviewing items work exactly the same as receiving against an existing PO.
Uploading One or More Invoices
This is done on the Upload invoice (optional) step, the first step of the session. Accepted files are PDF, JPEG/JPG, or PNG.
Step 8
Click the dashed box ("Click to upload an invoice") or drag files onto it. You can select several files at once.
Step 9
Each uploaded file appears as a card showing the file name, its type, and a status badge (Uploading → Parsing → Parsed, or Low quality / Failed). An "Uploaded invoices" count shows your progress as N / 6.
Step 10
To add more, click the "Add another invoice" card ("Click or drag a file here"). You can upload up to 6 files total per session.
Step 11
To check what was read from a file, click "View details" on its card to open a side panel. To remove one file, click the ✕ on its card and confirm "Remove this invoice upload?". To remove everything and start over, click "Clear all."
Step 12
Once processing is done, click "Continue to review items" to move to the Add items step.
Skipping the Upload
If you don't have an invoice file, or you'd rather enter everything yourself, click "Skip and add items manually" on the upload step. This takes you straight to the Add items step with nothing pre-filled, and you build the receiving by hand.