More in Purchasing & Replenishment is part of Purchasing & Replenishment in Windward System Five. System Five includes 57 documented capabilities here — 29 in the standard set and 28 optional. Trades that lean on it include Auto & Truck Parts Sales & Service, Industrial Supplies, Lighting Showrooms.
These 57 capabilities sit within System Five's 1287-capability documented set — a selection, not a ceiling.
Look up and stock tyres from the catalogue
Tires are looked up in the Activant catalog and added to System Five inventory, using a cross-reference that maps each Activant group and type to a System Five main and sub-category and a default labour part.
Buy the same part from either supplier
An item can carry many suppliers with their own part numbers, prices, extra, freight, duty, landed cost and currency, plus multiple barcodes, and purchase orders automatically print each supplier's own part number.
Buy the same part from another supplier
An item can carry a preferred supplier plus any number of alternates, each with their own part number, price and barcode; a purchase order automatically prints the chosen supplier's part number, and any of the stored barcodes will scan to the item.
Get paid back for returned cores
Lists cores by part number or supplier, distinguishing billed from unbilled cores and optionally including cores on work orders, then bills the supplier for all selected cores in one action.
Scan goods against the receiving paperwork
The barcode number is available as a printed column on receiving report designs, so goods can be scanned against the paperwork as they are checked in.
Check we were billed what we ordered
Compares the total value of purchase orders against the total value of bills per supplier for a date range, with options to show incomplete POs, only POs with no bill against them, bills made out to a different payee, a difference column, and GST inclusion in PO cost and landed values.
Send the manufacturer the file they want
A dedicated BRP export exists for dealers reporting to the manufacturer, but the wiki page carries only a video and no written description of the file or the process.
Load supplier allowances without retyping
A purpose-built data load maps a supplier's spreadsheet of allowance details onto existing inventory items in bulk, with defaults for status, brand, department and discount type. Items must already exist in live inventory.
Keep the supplier catalogue clean
Catalog items can be listed and filtered by supplier part number, description, category, supplier and date, edited inline, printed, promoted into real inventory, deleted, or bulk purged by supplier or by supplier and category. Items already linked to a real part are highlighted.
Stock the parts customers keep asking for
A misc part used for special orders reads the catalog to fill in the item detail, and a usage report over a date range flags catalog items for automatic creation as real stocked parts once they have been sold a chosen number of times.
Load the full co-op catalogue and keep it current
System Five loads the full Do It Best product catalogue from the supplier POSLOAD file and keeps cost, price, availability and product data current from FILEMNT maintenance files. Do It Best category numbering is carried through to inventory.
Keep co-op costs and prices current
The co-op's maintenance file is loaded through Part Load with supplied transformations that correct barcode length, shorten department codes to a three character category, and set cost price, list price and deleted status.
Import co-op order confirmations as orders
Order confirmation files downloaded from the Do-It-Best secure FTP server are imported and become purchase orders, visible in the recent list of the purchase order browser.
See an order in both currencies at once
A purchase order carries its own currency and can be viewed in either the supplier's currency or base currency, with landed cost restated line by line.
Send orders to suppliers electronically
Purchase orders raised in System Five are exported and transmitted electronically to supplier accounts held on the eConnect network, and supplier acknowledgements come back into the system in EDN format.
Send purchase orders to suppliers electronically
Purchase orders are submitted electronically to participating eConnect trading partners, with supplier feedback received and the status of previously submitted orders queryable.
Buy from overseas in their currency
An item can hold a foreign currency code and amount, with cost recalculated from the exchange rate, and purchase orders for a foreign supplier can print in the supplier's currency.
Bill the customer the freight you were charged
A freight line on a customer invoice is linked to the purchase order it came from, creating an auditable connection between what the carrier charged and what the customer was billed.
Trace every freight charge you pay
Freight is set up as a regular inventory item with stock control so each freight charge can be traced, costed and reconciled the same way as goods.
Refresh Honda costs and prices in bulk
Honda dealer price files are converted and brought into System Five through the Data Load tool to refresh supplier costs and retail pricing in bulk.
Load supplier catalogue data into my parts file
Documented integrations with inventory and parts catalogue providers so supplier catalogue data can populate the item file.
Trade orders with your buying group
Purchase orders are exported to IRLY Distributors carrying the dealer's four digit dealer number, and the order confirmation files IRLY returns are imported to create the confirmed purchase orders in System Five.
Load the lighting supplier's catalogue
A predefined part load template ships with the software for lighting stores, mapping Lights America manufacturer files including finish, height, length, width, carton per unit, number and type of bulbs and maximum wattage into the catalogue.
Send liquor orders the way required
A purchase order raised for Connect Logistics Services is exported to the file format the LiquorConnect.ca ordering site expects, using a supplied stylesheet, direct from the purchase order screen.
Receive only what actually turned up
The file LiquorConnect returns after filling an order is imported back onto the original purchase order, replacing the prices and quantities with what was actually supplied before the order is received into stock.
Report member buying to the group
Reports member purchases for group purchasing arrangements with per-account custom report layouts, user-defined columns, a fees tab, direct export to a spreadsheet and drill-through to customer, ship-to, supplier, invoice or part.
Order NAPA parts without leaving the screen
Online NAPA part search and ordering from inside System Five, tied to your store ID, chosen distribution centre and a NAPA supplier record, with catalog parts created into a nominated non-stock category.
Order NAPA parts without leaving the invoice
NAPA parts special-ordered or back-ordered on an invoice can be pushed to a purchase order for all special orders on that invoice, or one PO raised across every invoice waiting on NAPA parts, sent online, with NAPA's order response and optionally NAPA's invoice returned into the PO.
Order parts you do not stock
Catalogue parts that are not carried in inventory are routed to a designated non-stock category with a configurable price adjustment factor applied on the way in.
Plan buying by category, not item
An Open to Buy view identifies by sub-category where inventory is low, used to plan stocking orders rather than reordering item by item.
Cap what you buy each month
Open To Buy budgets set projected purchasing by sub-category by month, feeding the Open To Buy and Inventory Value reports, and replacing the single open-to-buy value previously held on the sub-category.
Plan a buy against a set budget
An option-to-buy budget function supports planning a purchase against a spending budget before the order is committed.
Load Orgill orders straight into purchasing
Imports Orgill-supplied purchase order files directly into System Five purchasing, matching Orgill part numbers to your own. Orgill can suppress hyphens in part numbers where your numbering does not use them.
Find the right part in the catalogue
PartSmart 10 is the current online successor to the desktop PartSmart 8 catalogue, which is end-of-life. PartSmart 8 build 8.2.50 or higher worked with any version of System Five.
Turn a catalogue lookup into a real part
A part inquiry in PartSmart creates the item directly in the Virtual Warehouse parts database, which point of sale part search can be configured to include.
Keep supplied load settings from being overwritten
Supplied load templates cannot be overwritten during a load; changes made mid-load can be saved as a separate named settings file instead.
Invoice before the carrier's bill arrives
When the carrier's bill has not arrived, a placeholder freight entry can be used and the actual cost applied to the customer invoice later, with unmatched freight items showing up as quantities and balance-sheet amounts still to be cleared.
Print orders on our own paperwork
Purchase orders and receiving reports are two separate print modes, each with any number of designed form layouts, and the order's status decides which modes are offered. Special order details print in the header when every line shares a customer and ship-to or ship-via, otherwise under each line.
Keep purchase order lines in usable order
Purchase order lines can be sorted by description, part number and other fields, and an option makes the sort reapply automatically whenever a line is added, changed or deleted. Turning it off preserves a manually chosen order.
Queue a part onto the next order
From the item you can see open purchase orders with quantity, status, supplier and expected date, queue a quantity onto the next order for that supplier with a comment, and run the special orders report for that item.
Make purchase order totals add up
Compares each purchase order header total against the sum of its detail lines, lists the orders that disagree, and updates the header totals from the detail on the orders you select.
Compare what we buy against what sells
For selected items and departments over a date range, shows the last three suppliers purchased from with the date and cost of each purchase, monthly sales for every month in the range, an average monthly sales figure and total stock on hand.
Tell the supplier exactly what you want
One comment warns the purchasing clerk on screen when the item goes on an order; a second prints on the purchase order as a line comment — furniture retailers use it to specify fabric, grade and colour.
Tell the buyer what the counter needs
A clerk can suggest a part for ordering with a quantity and comment, using the item's highs and lows to suggest the quantity. The suggestion lands on a Queued Orders tab for the buyer to accept or ignore.
Flag a part for the next order
Anyone editing an item can enter a quantity to order and a comment and send it to the purchase order queue, where the buyer picks it up on the next order to that supplier.
Get every special order onto one desk
Special orders entered by salespeople on work orders drop automatically into a special order queue with the customer's delivery date, so one buyer places all orders instead of every salesperson phoning suppliers. Lines can be deselected if the delivery date is too far out.
Fill the customer's order when stock lands
A special order links a specific purchase order line to a specific customer's work order line, so receiving the PO fills that customer's order automatically. Incoming regular stock can also be offered to fill outstanding special orders on receipt.
Build the order the shop actually needs
A suggested order list combines outstanding customer back orders with the highs and lows calculation, optionally weighted by configured season and sales factors, and is reviewed line by line before adding to the purchase order.
See how each supplier's stock sells
Show how the stock from each supplier, or each brand, is selling over a book-month range, across work orders, layaways, invoices, service invoices, transfers and quotations, with an option to include items that have no supplier or brand assigned.
Check what the supplier did with the order
With the partsManager Pro integration a purchase order carries an eConnect tab listing messages returned by the supplier's web service, refreshed on demand with Update Status.
Check supplier stock before promising a part
When a part goes out of stock on a work order, a Supplier button on the stock warning queries the eConnect service for the supplier's location, quantity, description and cost, which is then used to decide on a special or tag order.
Claim the rebates we already earned
Sales rebates with multiple tiers of sales targets, and advertising incentive rebates, are recorded per period on the supplier record and reported through a supplier rebate report.
Keep supplier details in one place
Suppliers use the same find-and-edit model as customers, including default supplier templates that pre-populate terms, taxes and credit limit, unlimited contacts, comments that pop up when the supplier is opened, lookup words and CSV import.
Set each supplier's terms and credit limit
Each supplier holds balance owing, days until due, a credit limit, an optional financier, a default general ledger account for its bills, a default bank account that filters cheque runs, and a default tax-included cost rate where that option is enabled.
Trade orders with suppliers electronically
Purchase orders, invoices, inventory and customer records are exported and imported through a stylesheet-driven XML utility, so a new supplier, buying group or service provider is connected by configuring a stylesheet rather than changing the software.
Quote and order parts you do not stock
Supplier electronic catalogues load into a separate parts database holding pricing and supplier part numbers for items you do not stock. Staff can look up the price, create a real inventory item from the catalogue entry and order it, searching by part number or optionally by description.
Keep supplier catalogue prices up to date
A separate parts database sits alongside real inventory as an extended supplier catalog. On reload, matching part number and alternate supplier updates price only, and matching part number and barcode replaces the barcode, so repeat supplier files refresh cleanly.
Yes. Lists cores by part number or supplier, distinguishing billed from unbilled cores and optionally including cores on work orders, then bills the supplier for all selected cores in one action. This is optional in System Five.
Yes. System Five loads the full Do It Best product catalogue from the supplier POSLOAD file and keeps cost, price, availability and product data current from FILEMNT maintenance files. Do It Best category numbering is carried through to inventory. This is optional in System Five.
Yes. The co-op's maintenance file is loaded through Part Load with supplied transformations that correct barcode length, shorten department codes to a three character category, and set cost price, list price and deleted status. This is optional in System Five.
Yes. Order confirmation files downloaded from the Do-It-Best secure FTP server are imported and become purchase orders, visible in the recent list of the purchase order browser. This is optional in System Five.
Yes. Purchase orders raised in System Five are exported and transmitted electronically to supplier accounts held on the eConnect network, and supplier acknowledgements come back into the system in EDN format. This is optional in System Five.
Yes. Purchase orders are submitted electronically to participating eConnect trading partners, with supplier feedback received and the status of previously submitted orders queryable. This is optional in System Five.
Every capability on this page is documented in the System Five capability index. Last updated 2026-11-05.