Many vendors ship free once an order reaches a set total, and sell some products a little cheaper by the full master carton (the vendor's case). Purchase orders can show how close you are to free freight, price master cartons for you, and suggest what to add to get there.

Set it up on the vendor

Go to Point of Sale > Inventory > Vendors / Suppliers, open the vendor and click Edit Vendor. Under PO Defaults:

  • Free Freight At: the order total this vendor ships free. Leave it blank if they have none.
  • Freight Note: anything the dollar figure does not capture, such as "or 10 cases" or "prepaid at $1,500, 2% off at $5,000". It shows under the free freight bar. Nothing is calculated from it.
  • Master Cartons: Off; Round suggestions to full cartons, where the Restock Assistant and Fill to Free Freight suggest whole cartons and you can still type any quantity; or Require full cartons to submit, which rounds the same way and also stops a purchase order being submitted until every line with a carton quantity is whole cartons.
  • Partial Carton Pricing: how this vendor bills a line that is not whole cartons. "Carton price on full cartons only, the rest at regular cost" charges the full cartons at the carton cost and the rest at the regular cost. "Carton price on every unit once at least one full carton is ordered" charges every unit at the carton cost once at least one full carton is on the line. Ask your rep if you are not sure.

Set it up on the product

On the product form, under Vendor & Stock, fill in Master Carton Qty (how many the vendor packs in a case) and Master Carton Cost (your cost per unit when you buy full cartons). Master Carton Cost only shows for people who can see costs. Importing a vendor price sheet can fill both in for you; see Importing a Vendor Price Sheet.

Master Carton Qty is not the bulk package on wire and other bulk products. The package is what one order unit holds (a 500 ft spool); the carton is how many of those the vendor packs together.

How a line is priced

When a product has a master carton cost, the purchase order prices the line for you as you change the quantity, and it stays one line. Say the carton is 6, the carton cost is $10.00, the regular cost is $12.00, and you order 9. Under "full cartons only" the line is 9 units for $96.00 (6 at $10.00 plus 3 at $12.00), and "6 @ $10.00 carton, 3 @ $12.00" shows under it so you and the vendor can see how the unit cost was reached. The same note prints on the purchase order you send. The unit cost is kept to four decimal places so the line total matches the vendor's invoice. When a line is short of a full carton, a hint says how many more reach one.

If you type a different unit cost when you add a line, your cost is kept and the line is not re-priced.

The free freight bar

When the vendor has a Free Freight At amount, the purchase order shows a bar under the line items, for example "$312.40 more for free freight" with "$2,187.60 of $2,500.00" beside it. It turns green when you get there. If rounding some lines up to full cartons would reach free freight, it says so, with a Round them up button that does it for you.

The bar also shows on a draft purchase order's own page, and the Purchase/Return Orders list shows how far each draft is from free freight. That helps you see when a draft that special orders keep landing on is worth sending.

Fill to Free Freight

Next to Restock Assistant, Fill to Free Freight opens a list of this vendor's products worth adding:

  • Products below their Max Stock, sized up to Max Stock from what you have available, the same way the Restock Assistant sizes them.
  • Products with no Max Stock set that sold in the last 90 days, sized at about a month of sales less what you have available, at least one.

Best sellers come first, and each row says why it is there. Rows are ticked from the top until the order reaches free freight. Untick any, change quantities, and the total at the bottom shows where you will land. Click Add to put the ticked items on the order. Products already on the order, one-off items, products you don't track stock for and products with no cost are left out.

When the vendor requires full cartons

With Require full cartons to submit, the draft always saves, but Submit PO is refused until every line whose product has a carton quantity is whole cartons. The draft page lists the lines to change and the quantities that would work.

If your stores keep their catalogs in step, a vendor's Free Freight At, Freight Note, Master Cartons and Partial Carton Pricing settings are shared with your other stores automatically. The bar always counts only this store's order.