Where a Purchase-Order Cost Comes From

Open Purchases → Purchase Orders → New PO, pick a supplier, add an item. The Unit Price box fills in, and a small line of grey text under the line says where the figure came from.

The order the console triesCopy Anchor Link

1. An agreed rate — one you authored on the Agreed Prices screen, in force on the order's date. The caption reads "Agreed 100.00 / CASE · includes tax".
2. A rate a won quote left behind — from awarding a request for quote, if you ticked Remember these rates.
3. What you last paid — read off a real purchase document. The caption reads "Last paid 100.00 / CASE · PO-1042 · 14 Aug".
4. The supplier's cost list — the standing cost on their own record. It carries no unit and no date, so it can fill the box but never warns.
5. The item's cost — the catalog figure, used only when nothing supplier-specific exists.
6. Nothing on file — the box stays empty and you type the cost.

The item's selling price — what you charge your own customers — is nowhere in that list, and never will be. Filling a purchase cost from a selling price overstates what you owe and then feeds a wrong figure into your stock value.

Typing your own figureCopy Anchor Link

Type over the box and your number is kept. Changing supplier, re-picking the item or reloading the page never overwrites something a person typed.

Once you have typed a different figure the caption adds a second line — "5.0% above the agreed 100.00". Nothing is blocked and nothing is corrected. You are told, and then it is your order.

When you get no caption at allCopy Anchor Link

That silence is deliberate, and it is one of three things:

• First time you have bought this item from them. There is nothing to say.
• The line is keyed in a different unit from the rate held. A rate agreed per case is never divided down to a piece, so no comparison is offered rather than a wrong one.
• You do not have the View pricing permission. The purchase-order form works exactly as before; you type the cost.

A rate that has lapsedCopy Anchor Link

If you once agreed a rate and its window has closed, the caption still mentions it — "Last agreed 12.50, expired 31 Mar". It is context so you know it existed, not the price being used.

On a sales orderCopy Anchor Link

Pick a customer on New Sale and each line picks up a quiet line of text: "Last sold at 11.50 / EACH · 2 Aug". Display only. It changes no price, blocks nothing and warns about nothing — it is there so whoever is building the order knows what this customer paid last time.