This article walks through the full life of a transfer order (TO): enter freight and other costs, post ("close out") the order, ship it, and receive it in full. Receiving is what lands the freight in your destination inventory cost.

Before you start

  • Posting a TO creates a linked purchase order (PO) for the destination warehouse and a linked sales order (SO) for the source warehouse.
  • The PO and SO are internal records. They don't create vendor bills and don't sync to QuickBooks Online.

Step 1: Add freight as extra costs on the transfer order

  1. Go to Inventory → Transfer Orders and click Add Transfer Order.
  2. Find the Extra Costs section. It sits above the SKU line items. It's for the costs of moving the transfer, such as freight, duties and fees.
  3. Add a row for each cost. Each row has:
    • a name (required)
    • a unit price (required, 0 or more)
    • a quantity (a whole number of 1 or more; it defaults to 1)
    • an optional cost type
    • an optional reference number, such as a freight invoice number
    • an optional cost allocation type, which controls how the cost is spread across the items
  4. Save the order.

When the TO is posted, these extra costs are copied to its linked purchase order. When the order is received, they are spread across the received items and added to inventory cost.

Step 2: Post (close out) the transfer order

Click Save Order and choose Mark as Posted. Posting creates the linked PO and SO.

Freight invoice arrives after posting?

After a transfer order is posted, its Edit button is disabled (“This transfer order has been posted, so it can no longer be edited.”). To add or change freight before anything is received, contact Luminous support. After the first receiving report is saved, edit extra costs on the receiving report instead.

  1. Open the posted TO and edit the rows in Extra Costs.
  2. This saves only the extra costs and leaves the rest of the order alone. Luminous updates the linked PO's copies to match.

Once any receiving report exists, the TO's extra costs become read-only and you'll see this message: "This transfer order has been received. Edit its extra costs on the receiving report." If you try to save anyway, Luminous refuses with "Cannot update extra costs. The transfer order has already been received; edit the extra costs on the receiving report instead."

Step 3: Mark the linked sales order as shipped

Shipping the SO deducts stock from the source warehouse. Receiving needs this to happen first. Either:

  • tick Auto Mark Sales Order as Shipped when creating the TO, or
  • open the linked SO and mark it shipped yourself.

Step 4: Fully receive the transfer order

Pick one of these:

  • Auto-receive on arrival date. If you ticked Auto-Receive Transfer Order on Arrival Date, Luminous creates the receiving report for the full ordered quantity once the SO is shipped and the arrival date has been reached. It keeps retrying daily for up to 30 days.
  • Receiving report form on save. If you ticked Open Receiving Report Form on Close, the form opens when you save the TO. Confirm the quantities and save.
  • Manual receiving.
    1. Go to Inventory → Receiving.
    2. Click Create Receiving Report.
    3. Select the PO linked to your transfer order.
    4. Enter the full quantity for every SKU and choose the receiving location.
    5. Check the Extra Costs section on the report. It should show the freight you entered on the TO. You can review it or correct it here.
    6. Click Save Receiving Report.

If you receive manually before the auto-receive job runs, the job skips that TO. You won't get a duplicate report.

If stock arrives in several deliveries, create one receiving report per delivery. The TO is fully received once the received quantities add up to the ordered quantities. See How do I receive a transfer order in Luminous?.

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