GRNI and PO-Linked Vendor Bills

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What GRNI Means

GRNI means goods received, not invoiced. It is the holding area between warehouse receiving and accounts payable. When a PO receipt is posted, Arcus increases inventory value and tracks the received value as still awaiting the vendor bill. When AP creates the linked bill, that received value moves into the normal vendor bill workflow.

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When to Use This Workflow

• Warehouse received a PO, but AP does not have the vendor invoice yet.
• AP wants to create bills from actual receipts instead of typing each line manually.
• You need to verify received value, billed value, and the GRNI balance the ledger carries.
• A PO was partially received and only the received quantity should be billed.
• Accounting is reviewing old received-not-billed balances before period close.

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Before You Start

• You need the View Accounting permission to open the GRNI Report.
• Creating bills needs the Post Journal Entries permission. The Create Bills button does not check this ahead of time, so without it the request is refused when you click.
• The Landed column needs the View Order Margin and View Purchasing permissions. Without View Order Margin the column shows a dash in every row and a note above the table says why (see Read a GRNI Row).
• Billing a date outside your company’s posting window needs the Close Period permission (see Choose the Dates).
• The purchase order must already be received. GRNI shows only received value that is not yet billed.

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Open the GRNI Report

1. Open Finance > Payables > GRNI Report. You can also search for GRNI Report in the command palette.
2. Review the summary tiles:
   • GRNI per the general ledger: the balance of your GRNI control account in the general ledger, with the account number underneath. If the ledger cannot be read, the tile is labeled Received not invoiced, operational and says operational (ledger unavailable), with a line explaining that the ledger balance could not be read.
   • Received Less Billed: the received value still waiting for vendor bills, worked out from the purchase orders themselves (receipts less the bills linked to them). The tile is marked operational because it is a comparison of two records, not the ledger.
   • POs Pending Bills: how many purchase orders have unbilled received value.
   • Vendors: how many vendors those purchase orders belong to.
3. Read the reconciliation panel above the table. It walks from the received-not-invoiced total to the GRNI balance in the ledger, one named line at a time, and shows the purchase order count on lines that have one. Hover a line for its explanation. If the walk cannot be built, the panel says GL bridge unavailable.
4. To see the report at a month end, pick a date in As of. Leave it empty to see today.
5. Search by purchase order or vendor. Rows are ordered by most recently received. The column headers do not sort, because the report is paged by the server and sorting one page would misrank the whole list.

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Read a GRNI Row

• PO #: opens the purchase order so you can review the receipt source.
• Vendor: the supplier tied to the received PO. Click it to open the vendor.
• GRNI Balance: the received value still waiting to be billed, measured the way your books carry it. A purchase order brought over from a previous system is valued by the ledger. A purchase order created in Arcus is valued as receipts less bills. A dash means the report could not say.
• Balance Basis: how that row’s GRNI Balance was measured. Ledger followed by the GRNI account number for a brought-over purchase order, Receipts less bills for a native one.
• Received Value: receipt quantity multiplied by receipt cost.
• Billed Value: vendor bills already linked to the PO, excluding voided bills.
• Received Less Billed: received value minus billed value, always, whatever the basis. On a brought-over purchase order it can differ from the GRNI Balance, because the ledger and the linked bills were written by two systems. It is a comparison figure and is never called a balance.
• Landed: the landed cost (freight, duty and similar charges) already allocated onto this PO’s receipts. Hover a figure to see how many landed bills it comes from and how much of it is still in inventory versus already in cost of goods sold. It reads No landed cost on this PO’s receipts yet when there is none. While As of is set the column shows dashes and the note Landed shows today’s cost, so it is blank while As of is set. appears beside the date, because landed cost is only known for today. Without View Order Margin the column shows dashes and the note The Landed column shows no amounts for your role: landed cost amounts need the View Order Margin permission, because they reveal what each unit cost. appears above the table.
• Last Received: the date of the most recent receipt on the PO.
• Days Aging: how long the most recent receipt has been waiting for billing. The number turns amber after 14 days, darker after 30, and red after 60.
• freight: the small link beside the PO number opens a new vendor bill for that PO, so you can add freight or other charge lines to it.

Click Export CSV to download every row that matches your search and As of date, not only the page you are looking at. The file carries the same figures as the screen, with GRNI Balance Basis and Received Less Billed added at the end. The button is disabled while the list is empty.

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Create Bills from GRNI

1. Select one or more PO rows in the GRNI Report. Until you do, the bar above the table says Select one or more POs below to bulk-create vendor bills.
2. Choose the dates (next section).
3. Click Create Bills. The button shows how many POs are selected, for example Create Bills (2).
4. Arcus creates one vendor bill per selected PO and shows how many bills were created, for example 2 bills created. Each bill carries every unit received on the PO.
5. If a PO cannot be billed, Arcus shows a separate message that starts with that PO’s number and gives the reason. The other selected POs are still billed.
6. Open AP Bills to review, approve, pay, or correct the created bill.

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Choose the Dates

• Bill Date defaults to today and is the date on the vendor bill.
• Effective Date is optional and reads Same as bill date when empty. Set it when the bill should post to the general ledger on a different date than the bill date, for example to book a bill into the month the goods belong to.
• When the posting date is not today and falls outside your company’s window, a banner appears under the bar.
  • Without the Close Period permission it reads, for example, September 1, 2026 is 35 days back, beyond this company’s 30-day backdate window. Create Bills is disabled, and its tooltip says the posting date is beyond the window and needs the permission. Pick a date inside the window or ask someone who can close periods to post the bills.
  • With the permission it reads Prior-period posting (or Future-period posting for a later date) and asks for a reason of at least four characters. The reason is recorded on the audit trail, and Create Bills stays disabled until you give one.
• The windows are set in Settings > System > Fiscal Year. The backdate window defaults to 180 days and the future window to 0 days.
• If the server refuses a posting date anyway, one dialog names how many purchase orders it covers instead of one message per PO. Its title says what is wrong, for example the posting date is past the backdate window, the period it is posted in is closed, the tax year is locked or no accounting period covers that date. Depending on the case it offers Use the next open period’s date, or a reason box and Post with this reason (holders of the Close Period permission only), or just Close. The dialog says whether any bill was created, and every other selected PO is billed as usual.

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Purchase Orders Brought Over From a Previous System

A PO that came from a previous system may already have vendor bills in your books that are not linked to it, so Arcus will not bill it by default. When your selection includes one, a dialog opens (titled This purchase order came from your previous system, or These goods have no accrual to relieve when the goods have no accrual in the ledger) and says how many selected POs were skipped and that the bills that could be created already were.

1. Check the vendor’s bills in AP Bills first. The dialog says to confirm the goods are genuinely unbilled.
2. Pick a Goods account when asked. It is only used where there is no accrual to relieve, and it cannot be a bank account or one of the control accounts (payables, receivables, GRNI, landed cost clearing).
3. Give an Override reason. The Override and save button stays disabled until you do, and its tooltip says An override reason is required.
4. Click Override and save. Arcus retries exactly those POs with your answer, and the override is audited.

When the dialog says Unprovable goods on this bill, it also tells you whether the previous system had already billed the PO against payables and settled it. In that case check the vendor bills list before billing again. Click Cancel to leave those POs unbilled.

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Review the Linked Vendor Bill

A GRNI-created bill is linked back to the purchase order. AP should open the bill, compare the vendor invoice to the received items, and confirm status before payment. If your business has an AP approval threshold (set in Settings > System > Approval Workflows), a bill above it is saved as pending approval instead of posted. If the line qualifies for capitalization under your fixed-assets settings, approving the bill can also auto-create the fixed asset record.

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Find the Bill Later

1. Open Finance > Payables > AP Bills.
2. Search by vendor, bill number, or vendor invoice number.
3. Use the status tabs to separate open, overdue, partial, paid, voided, and pending approval bills.
4. Open the row to review line items, payments, warnings, revaluation cards, and void or edit actions.

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What Arcus Updates

• The vendor bill is tied to the PO so AP can compare ordered, received, billed, and paid history.
• The GRNI balance drops by the value of the linked bill.
• The bill follows normal AP approval rules and cannot be paid while pending approval or rejected.
• Posted bills affect AP aging and the general ledger, on the effective date when you set one.
• Posting the bill moves the received value out of the GRNI accrual and into accounts payable in the general ledger.
• If bill cost differs from receipt cost, Arcus can show three-way match warnings or revaluation review cards, and can reprice the unsold stock from that receipt to the billed cost.
• Each created bill is recorded in the activity history, a posting-date or brought-over-PO override is recorded with its reason, and other users see the report refresh.
• Voiding the bill removes it from active AP aging and can bring the PO back into GRNI if received value remains unbilled.

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Common Blocks

• The report is empty: the table reads All caught up! with No goods received without a matching vendor bill.
• Create Bills is not visible: select at least one PO row.
• Create Bills is disabled: the posting date is outside the window and you lack the Close Period permission, or you have not yet given the reason it asks for.
• Failed to create bills: the request did not complete. If you do not have the Post Journal Entries permission, ask an administrator; otherwise try again.
• Failed to export GRNI report: the CSV could not be built. Try again, or narrow the search.
• The PO was brought over from a previous system: see the section above. Check the vendor’s bills in AP Bills before overriding.
• No received items found: the PO has nothing received to bill yet.
• PO is missing from GRNI: confirm the PO has been received and has not already been fully billed.
• Already fully billed: the PO already has active linked bills covering the received value.
• This bulk bill would bill again goods that are already billed: see the note above; bill the remainder from the bill page.
• AP cannot pay the bill: approve it first if it is pending approval, or correct a rejected bill.
• Vendor invoice number is duplicated: open the existing bill and decide whether to use, correct, or void it.
• Period is locked: a bill date in a closed period is refused. Reopen the period or use the correct bill date.
• Three-way match failed: when 3-Way Match Enabled is turned on, a bill whose cost or quantity is beyond your tolerance is refused: for example Price variance: PO cost vs. bill cost, over the threshold. Smaller differences inside the tolerance are saved with a warning to verify with the receiving team. AP Variance %, AP Quantity Tolerance %, Dock Over-Receive Tolerance %, and Duplicate Invoice Number Guard are all set in Settings > System > Approval Workflows.
• Cost variance appears: compare vendor invoice cost to PO receipt cost before payment.

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