New Goods Receipt Note (GRN)

A Goods Receipt Note records stock physically arriving from a supplier. It increases your inventory and creates a temporary liability in a clearing account, but it does not book the supplier bill — that happens when the purchase invoice is entered against it.

Where to find it

Go to Purchases > GRN > New Direct GRN. Use it when goods arrive without a purchase order having been raised first. To receive against an existing order, use Order To GRN instead.

Before you start

The supplier must exist.
The items must exist in Items and Services.
The accounting period must be open for the delivery date.
You need the SA_GRN permission.

Header field reference

Field	Required	Description
Supplier	Yes	Who the goods came from. Selecting them loads their currency and tax group.
Delivery Date	Yes	The date the goods physically arrived. Stock increases and the ledger entries post on this date, so it must be in an open accounting period.
Reference	Yes	The unique identifier for this document type, from your pattern in Setup > Transaction Reference.
Supplier's Reference	No	The supplier's delivery note or docket number, for cross-referencing against their paperwork.
Receive Into	Yes	The warehouse the goods are being taken into. Stock increases at this location, so getting it wrong misstates two warehouses at once.
Deliver To	No	The physical address the goods were sent to, where it differs from the standard warehouse address.
Shipping Company	No	The carrier that delivered the goods.
Workorder	No	Links the receipt to a production job, so raw material cost is tracked against that job.
Select a Project	No	Assigns the cost to a project budget for project-wise expense tracking.
Branch / Department	No	The organisational unit and internal division the receipt belongs to.

Current Debit

Shows the live balance with the supplier — positive means you owe them, negative means they owe you. Click the figure to open the full history of transactions, payments and outstanding balances for that supplier.

Barcode

Scan a product code and the item is identified and added to the receipt lines automatically. On a large inbound consignment this is considerably faster and safer than typing item codes.

Line Items (Order Items)

Column	Description
Item Description	The item received.
Batch No / Exp Date	Batch and expiry, where batch tracking is enabled for the item.
Quantity	How many units were ordered or expected.
Received	The quantity actually arriving on this receipt. This is the figure that moves stock.
Price	The unit cost, which becomes the item's cost basis in inventory.
Line Total	The line value.

Enter what actually arrived, not what was ordered. The Received figure drives stock and the cost of your inventory; correcting it later means voiding the GRN.

Total Details

Field	Description
Sub-total	The sum of received line values.
Discount(-) / Round Off(+) Amount	A flat adjustment so the receipt matches the supplier's document exactly.
Amount Total	The total value received.

Memo

Notes about the receipt — condition of goods, discrepancies, who signed for it.

Attachments

Attach the supplier's delivery note, a signed docket, or photographs of damaged goods.

Custom Fields

Add your own inputs where the standard form does not capture something you need — a vehicle number, a gate entry reference. Enable under Setup > Preferences > Show Add Custom Field on Forms.

Action Buttons

Button	What it does
Update	Recalculates totals without committing the receipt.
Process GRN	Finalises the receipt, moving stock and posting the ledger entries.

Inventory Update

Once a GRN is processed the stock balance for each item is updated automatically, so your records reflect the actual quantity on hand and the goods are available to use or sell.

General Ledger

Finalising a GRN records the physical movement of stock into your warehouse and the temporary liability that goes with it.

Account	Effect
Inventory Account	Debited — reflects the increase in physical stock as items enter the warehouse.
GRN Clearing Account	Credited — holds the temporary liability until the supplier invoice arrives.

Service items generate no General Ledger entries at receipt. A service is non-physical and involves no inventory movement, so there is no stock value to adjust and no clearing entry to make at this stage.

The clearing account is the key idea. It parks the value of goods you have received but not yet been billed for. When the purchase invoice arrives, the clearing balance is reversed into Accounts Payable. A clearing account that never clears means goods received without an invoice booked against them.

Related Transactions & Actions

Action	What it does
Invoice	Book the supplier bill against this receipt. See GRNs To Invoice.
Debit Note	Return goods to the supplier. See Direct Debit Note.
Print / Email	Issue the receipt document.
Void	Cancel the receipt, reversing the stock movement and the ledger entries.

Printing and Viewing GRN Reports

Open any receipt from the GRN list to view or print it, or use the GRN View for the full record including its ledger entries.

Good Received Note (GRN) Report

For a consolidated view of receipts, go to Reports > Purchases. Filter by date range and supplier, and export as PDF or Excel.

GRN List — find and action receipts
GRN View — read one receipt in detail
Order To GRN — receive against a purchase order
GRNs To Invoice — the next step
Purchase Order — the step before

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