Excerpt from the QuickBooks Point of Sale Store Operations Handbook:
Since one of the primary purposes of any Point of Sale system is to track inventory, it is important that you receive, sell and adjust the inventory correctly. This will ensure that you have accurate margin reports as well as accurate financial reporting. Our example assumes that we have no prior inventory and are receiving items from a purchase order. We will show you later how to receive items without a purchase. By creating a purchase order, you obtain several advantages such as knowing what you ordered and the cash that you have committed. Also, by using the purchase order, you can create items on the fly and input order quantities. That will save time by combining two steps into one process.
