Purchasing Defaults and Payment Terms

Use the Purchasing page to set the company-wide defaults your buyers and payables team work from: how long vendors usually take to deliver, the numbers the reorder engine plans with, when vendor credits expire, how Arcus treats a bill that costs more or less than the receipt, whether freight can be capitalized into inventory, how duplicate vendor invoices are handled, when vendors are emailed about a cancelled PO, and whether you can record vendor prepayments.

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When to Review These Settings

• Before using the Reorder Report or creating purchase orders for the first time.
• When vendors start shipping faster or slower than your current planning assumptions.
• Before issuing vendor credits if your finance team wants credits to expire automatically.
• Before posting PO-linked vendor bills where bill cost can differ from receipt cost.
• When adding, retiring, or changing customer payment terms such as Due on Receipt, Net 15, or Net 30.

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Before You Start

• You need the settings.view permission to open the page.
• You need settings.edit to save any change here. The controls show for everyone who can open the page, but without settings.edit each save is refused with “Permission denied: settings.edit”. On Payment Terms, the add, import, edit, delete, and set-default buttons are disabled without settings.edit.

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Open Purchasing Settings

1. In the deck, open Settings.
2. Choose Purchasing for lead time, reorder economics, vendor credit, bill revaluation, landed cost, duplicate invoice, vendor cancel-email, and vendor prepayment defaults. The breadcrumb reads Settings > Purchasing.
3. Under Purchasing, choose Payment Terms to manage net terms available elsewhere in Arcus (Settings > Purchasing > Payment Terms), or Vendor Return Policy for vendor return defaults (Settings > Purchasing > Vendor Return Policy).

You can also search for Purchasing in the command palette, or follow the link from the Record Vendor Prepayment dialog. The page has four save paths: Save changes saves lead time, vendor credit expiration, bill revaluation, landed cost capitalization, the duplicate invoice guard, and auto-recall together; Save reorder economics saves the reorder fields; Save categories saves the Landed Cost Categories card, which has its own button; the vendor cancel-email policy and vendor prepayments save as soon as you change them. Each save button reads Saving, one moment while it works.

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Default Vendor Lead Time

Default Vendor Lead Time is the fallback number of days Arcus uses when a product-vendor relationship does not have its own lead time. It helps estimate expected delivery dates and helps the Reorder Report decide when a product should be purchased.

• Allowed range: the field accepts whole numbers from 0 to 180 days, but use 1 to 180 when you expect the value to drive planning.
• Default: 14 days when the entity does not specify a different value. The “Current setting” line under the field reads the value back.
• Used by purchase orders: new POs can default the expected delivery date from the effective lead time.
• Used by planning: reorder timing uses the effective lead time when estimating buy timing.

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Reorder Economics

The Reorder Economics card holds the cost and service-level numbers the demand engine uses to size safety stock, the economic order quantity, and recommended reorder quantities. Hover the info icon on any field for what the number means. Honor migrated sales history is on by default. On, real-dated sales imported during migration count toward demand, so planning uses your full history immediately. Off, the engine waits for demand to build from sales made after you started using Arcus. Click Save reorder economics. The button is disabled with “No changes to save.” until you change something, and with “Fix the highlighted fields first.” while a field is out of range. You see “Reorder economics saved”.

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Vendor Credit Default Expiration

Vendor Credit Default Expiration controls what happens when a vendor credit is issued without its own expiration date. Leave it blank when vendor credits should never expire by default, or enter a positive number of days when finance wants an automatic expiration policy.

• Blank (the default, shown as Never): credits issued without an expiration date never expire by default.
• Positive days: credits issued without a date expire that many days after issue.
• Credit-specific date: a date entered on the individual credit wins over the entity default.
• Expired credits: expired credits stop being available for Pay Bills and create accounting cleanup automatically.

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Bill Revaluation

Bill Revaluation controls how Arcus handles a PO-linked vendor bill when the billed unit cost differs from the cost recorded at receiving. This is an accounting-sensitive setting because it decides whether small variances are ignored, reviewed, or posted to inventory and cost of goods sold.

• Variance threshold (USD): differences below this dollar amount are absorbed and do not post an automatic revaluation entry. The default is $0.00.
• Posting mode, one of:
  • Inventory mode (pro-rata Inventory FG / COGS, default): splits the variance between remaining on-hand inventory and cost of goods sold.
  • COGS mode (100% to COGS): posts the full variance to cost of goods sold.
  • Manual review (queue for operator): flags the bill for operator review instead of posting the revaluation automatically.

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Landed Cost Capitalization

Landed Cost Capitalization is off by default, and freight and duty lines on vendor bills are expensed as usual. When it is on, a vendor bill line can be marked Landed (capitalize): its freight, duty, brokerage, insurance, or handling dollars are spread across the purchase order’s received inventory layers, raising unit cost instead of being expensed. Stock still on hand capitalizes to inventory, and units already sold true up to cost of goods sold.

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Landed Cost Categories

The Landed Cost Categories card lists the built-in categories, which are always available, and your custom ones. Click Add custom category, enter a Code key and a Display label, and click Save categories. Remove deletes a custom row before you save. A code cannot repeat or reuse a built-in code. You see “Landed cost categories saved”.

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Duplicate Invoice Number Guard

When a bill’s vendor invoice number matches an existing bill for the same vendor, ignoring punctuation and spacing:

• Block (the default, switch on): the bill cannot save until someone gives an override and a reason, which is audited.
• Warn only (switch off): a live warning shows as the invoice number is typed, but the bill can still be saved. Every continued save is audited.

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Auto-Recall Last Bill on Vendor Pick

Off by default. When it is on, picking a vendor on the Enter Vendor Bill page fills the line grid from that vendor’s most recent bill that was entered in Arcus, is not voided, is not linked to a purchase order, and has at least one real line. Everything stays editable. When no bill qualifies, the grid starts empty.

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Vendor Cancel-Email Policy

This setting decides whether cancelling a purchase order that was already sent to the vendor emails the vendor a cancellation notice. A draft PO the vendor never saw is cancelled silently, and a PO the vendor already shipped becomes a return, not a cancellation. Choose:

• Never email the vendor on cancel
• Only when cancelled by a parent sales order (cascade)
• Always email when cancelling a sent PO (recommended), the default for new companies

The choice saves immediately, and you see “Vendor cancel-email policy set:” with your choice. The guided order-cancel wizard’s Cancel PO & notify vendor always emails the vendor, whatever this says.

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Vendor Prepayments (Asset Posting)

Off by default, and with it off there is no way to record a vendor prepayment. Turn it on to record advances to vendors before their bill arrives: the prepayment posts to your vendor prepayments asset account and is applied to the bill when it arrives, following prepaid-expense accounting. The switch saves immediately, and you see “Vendor prepayments asset posting enabled” or “disabled”.

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Vendor Return Policy

Settings > Purchasing > Vendor Return Policy sets the defaults for vendor returns. Change the fields, then click Save; Reset puts the fields back to the saved values.

• Default Type: the return type a new vendor return starts with when the person creating it does not choose one. Choose Warranty (the default), Defective, Recall, Overstock, Damaged in Transit or Wrong Item Shipped. A type chosen on the return itself always wins.
• Auto-cancel pending VRs after (days): a nightly job cancels vendor returns that have sat pending longer than this. The default is 90 days; enter a whole number from 1 to 730.
• Expected credit within (days): the credit window printed in the terms of the vendor return document. The default is 365 days; enter a whole number from 1 to 3650.
• Auto-draft vendor return on damaged receipt: off by default. When on, receiving damaged units into quarantine on a purchase order creates a pending vendor return for purchasing to review and ship back. Units you disposition as Return to vendor always draft a vendor return whether this is on or off, and written-off units never do.
• Email vendor automatically on ship: on by default. After you confirm Ship to Vendor, the vendor is emailed the return document and tracking. Turn it off to send the email yourself with Email Vendor.

Saving does not rewrite existing vendor returns. The default type applies to returns created afterward, and the nightly auto-cancel job reads the current number each night. See Vendor Returns.

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Messages You May See

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What Changes Elsewhere

• Purchase orders: new POs default their expected delivery date from the lead time, and cancelling a sent PO emails the vendor according to the cancel-email policy.
• Reorder Report: suggestions use the lead time, the reorder economics, and the migrated-history choice.
• Vendor bills and the general ledger: bill revaluation posts cost differences to inventory and cost of goods sold, or queues them for review; landed lines raise inventory cost; duplicate invoice numbers are blocked or warned.
• Vendor credits: credits without their own date expire on the default schedule.
• Vendor prepayments: with the switch on, prepayments post to the asset account until a bill uses them.
• Audit trail: each save is recorded in the Audit Log with the old and new value.

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Payment Terms

Payment Terms are the selectable net terms used by accounts, sales channels, orders, invoices, vendor bills, and reminder workflows. Keep this list clean so operators only choose terms that the business actually honors.

• Name: the label operators see, such as Due on Receipt, Net 15, or Net 30.
• Days: the number of days after the invoice or order date before payment is due.
• Default: the fallback term Arcus can use when no more specific term is selected.
• Active: controls whether the term appears in account and order dropdowns.
• Import: bulk creates or updates terms from a CSV file.

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Default Term Cascade

Arcus chooses the most specific payment term available. The exact workflow can vary by screen, but the practical rule is simple: a term selected directly on the record wins, then channel or account defaults, then the entity-level default.

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Recommended Setup Order

1. Create or clean up Payment Terms.
2. Set one default term if the business wants a fallback.
3. Review account and sales-channel defaults for exceptions.
4. Set Default Vendor Lead Time based on a conservative average, and review Reorder Economics.
5. Configure Vendor Credit Default Expiration with finance approval.
6. Confirm Bill Revaluation threshold and posting mode with accounting.
7. Test a sample reorder, purchase order, vendor bill, vendor credit, and sales order.

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What to Test After Changes

• Reorder Report: confirm suggested order timing still makes sense.
• New purchase order: confirm expected delivery dates look reasonable.
• PO receipt and vendor bill: test a small cost variance and confirm the expected review or posting behavior.
• Vendor credit: issue a test credit with and without a specific expiration date.
• New account: confirm the expected payment term appears.
• New order: confirm channel, account, and default term behavior matches the business rule.

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Common Blocks

• Suggested PO dates look wrong: review product-vendor lead times first, then the entity default.
• A payment term is missing from a dropdown: confirm the term is active.
• An old invoice still shows an inactive term: that is expected. Existing records keep their saved term.
• A vendor credit is not available in Pay Bills: check whether it is expired, voided, fully applied, or tied to another workflow.
• A bill variance did not post automatically: review the threshold and whether Bill Revaluation is set to Manual review.
• A default did not apply to an order: check for a more specific term on the order, sales channel, or account.

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