Goods Received Note (GRN): How to Stop Purchasing Variance

A purchasing variance is a difference between what you ordered, what arrived, and what you were billed. If you skip the middle document (the goods-received note), the difference falls into food cost and looks like the kitchen. AKLI’s procurement module is where the purchase order, the receipt, and the invoice are supposed to meet.

Three documents

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  Purchase order: item, quantity, unit, and the price you agreed, sent before the truck.

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  Goods-received note: what actually arrived. Item, quantity, unit, condition, who received it, and when. If the price on the delivery note differs, record the price you will put into stock, not the price you wish you had ordered.

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  Supplier invoice: what you are asked to pay. Match it to the received quantity and the received price. A credit note belongs in the same period as the receipt it corrects, or the week’s purchases are wrong.

Quantity variance is units ordered versus units received, minus anything you rejected. Price variance is the received price versus the ordered price, on the quantity you actually kept. A quality rejection is not stock. If it is invoiced, it is a dispute, not an ingredient the recipe can use. A substitution (a different cut or pack size) is a different SKU until someone maps it. Booking it as the original item corrupts both the count and the recipe cost.

A worked short delivery

This is an illustration, not a customer result. You order 10 kg of chicken at SAR 28 per kg. The purchase order is SAR 280. The truck arrives with 9 kg. The invoice bills 10 kg at SAR 30 per kg, SAR 300.

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  Stock should increase by 9 kg, not 10. The missing kilogram was never an ingredient.

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  Price variance on what you kept: (30 − 28) × 9 = SAR 18. If those 9 kg are the only stock of that item, weighted average cost is SAR 30 per kg. If older stock is still in the bin, the delivery moves the average instead of replacing it. Price variance after a mid-period price change is that case.

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  The extra kilogram on the invoice is SAR 30 you should not book as food. It is a billing error until a credit note arrives.

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  If you add 9 kg to stock at the ordered SAR 28 (SAR 252) and book the SAR 300 invoice in full, purchases exceed the stock you added by SAR 48: SAR 18 of price difference on the 9 kg you kept, plus SAR 30 for the kilogram that never arrived. If you value those 9 kg at the invoiced SAR 30 (SAR 270), the remaining gap is only that missing kilogram. Either way, treating the invoiced quantity as stock overstates food cost while the kitchen wasted nothing.

Actual food cost uses purchases in the numerator: opening inventory + purchases − closing inventory. Overstated purchases overstate cost of goods sold. The food cost calculator will show it. It cannot tell you the SAR 48 was a receiving error. The goods-received note can.

How this gets mistaken for waste

Theoretical cost only explains what recipes say you sold. The gap to actual COGS is variance: waste, portioning, comps, counts, and paperwork. Logged waste at SAR 400 against a SAR 4,000 variance means SAR 3,600 is still unnamed. Some of that unnamed piece is often a delivery that was invoiced and not received, or a credit note dated into next week. Treat the waste log and the receiving log as separate. Forcing the waste log to “explain” the invoice makes both numbers useless. The split is waste and variance.

Commissary and outlets

A transfer is not a supplier invoice, but it has the same discipline. The producing branch issues a quantity at recipe cost. The outlet receives that quantity. If one side is entered and the other is not, one food-cost percentage falls and the other rises by the same goods. Cost the batch on the commissary, transfer the yielded item, and do not cost the raw ingredients again at the outlet. That ledger is central production.

What AKLI records

Purchase orders, supplier price history, goods received, and invoice matching sit in procurement. AKLI costs recipes at weighted average cost, so a new delivery moves the average and the recipes that use the ingredient recalculate. None of that requires a named POS. Sales import is a separate, optional step. Module detail is on procurement. The operating model (who orders, who receives, and what is allowed to enter stock) is purchasing and goods received. AKLI is not your accounting system. The books still need the invoice your finance team will pay. Export is CSV or Excel if they want the period’s figures.