QuickBooks Online doesn't have a separate "receive inventory" transaction the way Desktop does. You record items as received by creating an Expense, Check, or Bill against the open purchase order, adding the PO, and entering the quantity that actually arrived. QuickBooks updates quantity on hand and keeps the rest of the PO open.
1. Have a purchase order open for this vendor first. Purchase orders exist on QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced. If you haven't created one for this order yet, do that before receiving anything; the receiving step works by pulling items off an open PO, not by entering them from scratch.
2. Start an Expense, Check, or Bill, whichever matches how you're paying. Click + New and choose whichever of the three fits: a Bill if you're not paying yet and the vendor invoices you, an Expense or Check if you're paying on the spot.
3. Pick the vendor. Selecting the vendor from the Payee dropdown surfaces any open purchase orders for them in a panel on the right side of the screen.
4. Add the purchase order. Click Add next to the correct PO. QuickBooks pulls every line item from it into the transaction automatically, with the full ordered quantity pre-filled.
5. Adjust the quantity to what actually arrived. If the full order showed up, leave the quantities as they are. If it's a partial shipment, lower each line's quantity to what you're actually receiving right now; QuickBooks tracks the difference and leaves the rest of the PO open for the next shipment or the final bill.
6. Save. Quantity on hand updates immediately for whatever you just entered as received. The PO's status updates too, showing partially received or closed depending on whether anything's still outstanding.
Entering a receipt as an Expense or Check before the real vendor bill arrives works fine in theory, but in practice it's easy to end up entering the same goods twice, once as a placeholder receipt and again when the actual bill comes in, unless someone's careful to close out the first entry correctly rather than duplicating it.
Partial shipments compound the problem. If a line's quantity doesn't get adjusted down to what actually showed up, quantity on hand gets overstated quietly, and nobody notices until a sale can't be fulfilled against stock QuickBooks thinks exists but the warehouse doesn't actually have.
A shipment confirmation or packing slip from your vendor or carrier gets checked against the PO automatically, and the quantity that's actually arrived gets entered for you instead of someone eyeballing a box count against the line items.
When an order comes in across more than one shipment, what's already been received versus what's still open on the PO stays accurate automatically, instead of relying on someone remembering which boxes arrived last week.
Tell us who checks the boxes against the PO, and how that count ends up, or doesn't, in QuickBooks, and we'll tell you if that step can happen without someone typing in quantities by hand.
Tell us how inventory receiving actually happens on your dock or in your warehouse, and we'll tell you if that count can get into QuickBooks without someone re-entering it. Receiving inventory is one manual step; n-frames automates whatever else in the business is still running on someone doing it by hand, any tool, any process.
Let's talk →Desktop works differently: it has a dedicated Item Receipt transaction under the Vendors menu, meant specifically for logging goods received before a bill shows up. QuickBooks Online has no equivalent transaction type; receiving there happens by adding the PO to an Expense, Check, or Bill instead.
Same flow as receiving a full order: add the purchase order to an Expense, Check, or Bill, then type in the smaller quantity actually in hand instead of the full ordered amount on each line. The PO stays open for whatever's still outstanding.
Yes, if you're not using a PO at all for this purchase, just enter the items directly on a Bill or Expense without referencing one. You lose the open/closed PO tracking that shows what's still outstanding from that vendor, which is the main thing a purchase order gives you here.
Receiving confirms goods arrived and updates quantity on hand. The bill confirms you owe the vendor money for it. In QuickBooks Online these often happen in the same transaction when you add the PO to a Bill, but you can split them, receive now against an Expense or a partial Bill for the quantity that arrived, then handle final billing separately once the vendor's actual invoice comes in.