Purchase from Franchisor
When your store is connected to a franchise, stock can also flow in from your franchisor's side — not just your own suppliers. This page explains what those franchise sources are and how buying from them works; the step-by-step guide covers how to drive it.
A hand-off between you and the Franchisor
A plain supplier order is a one-person job: you place it, then you receive it. A franchise order is different — it's a hand-off between two sides. As the order moves, its status passes back and forth between your store and the Franchisor, and both sides see the same status, so you always know where it stands:
- You build a Draft — your working copy, editable on your side.
- You submit it — it lands in the Franchisor's queue as Pending.
- The Franchisor confirms it — the order becomes Accepted.
- The Franchisor ships it from the stockhouse — now Shipped.
- You receive it on arrival — Delivered, which restocks your inventory and posts a Material expense.
- The Franchisor bills it — Invoiced.
- The Franchisor closes it — Completed, which posts the delivery fee to your Transportation expenses.
The last two steps run on the Franchisor's side: it invoices the order, then marks it Completed. Receiving already settled your stock and the goods' cost; completing the order adds the one remaining charge — the delivery fee, filed automatically as a Transportation expense.
Because a franchise order passes back and forth, Buddy Stall can email you each time the Franchisor moves it — when it's accepted, shipped, invoiced, proposes a quantity change, or is cancelled. These emails are on by default; turn them off any time from the Notifications tab of your Settings.
The order's life
A franchise order passes through more states than a plain one — it's a shared pipeline between you and the Franchisor. Completed and Cancelled are the terminal ones; everything else is a working state along the way.
Draft
Your working copy. Source, lines, and quantities are all free to edit, and it hasn't been sent yet — nothing touches inventory or expenses.
Pending
Submitted, and waiting in the Franchisor's review queue. You can still cancel it — and the Franchisor may propose a quantity change that you approve or reject before it's accepted.
Accepted
The Franchisor has confirmed the order and will prepare it. Nothing has shipped or moved in the app yet.
Shipped
The Franchisor has dispatched the goods from the stockhouse, with an expected delivery date. You receive it when it arrives.
Delivered
You've recorded receipt. Each line restocks your inventory and posts a Material expense — the same wiring as a normal order. The received quantities are saved as what the Franchisor bills.
Discrepancy
Set automatically when the quantities you received don't match what was ordered. The Franchisor reconciles the difference when invoicing.
Invoiced
The Franchisor has issued the invoice — the final amount, based on the quantities you actually received, plus any delivery fee.
Completed
Terminal status. The order is closed, and completing it posts the delivery fee to your Transportation expenses.
Cancelled
Terminal status. Stopped while still Pending or Accepted — before anything shipped — so nothing is committed to your inventory or expenses.
Receiving wires Orders to Inventory and Expenses
Just like a normal order, marking a franchise order Delivered does three things in a single step:
- Every line restocks inventory — the received quantity is added to that store's stock for the matching master inventory item.
- Every line creates a Material expense entry — quantity × unit cost, automatically filed under the Material category for that store.
- The order's status becomes Delivered, with the quantity you actually received recorded on each line — that's what the Franchisor bills you for.
Stock bought from the franchisor lands in the same inventory and expense ledgers as everything else. There's no parallel set of records for franchise purchases — receiving is the one moment Orders, Inventory, and Expenses line up, whatever the source.
Franchisor-exclusive items stay franchise-sourced
Some master inventory items carry a Franchisor Exclusive badge — the Franchisor marks them as stock you may only obtain through the franchise. For these, ordering from the Franchisor isn't just one option; it's the only way to restock them:
- They can't be added to a normal supplier order — trying to order one from your own supplier is rejected.
- They can't be brought in through a direct Material expense either — they're left out of the items you can record a cost entry against.
So a Franchisor Exclusive item only ever restocks by ordering it from the Franchisor's stockhouse or an approved partner supplier. Everything after that — receiving, the inventory bump, the Material expense — works exactly as described above; only the source is locked.
If the Franchisor's account is suspended
The pipeline above is a hand-off, so it leans on the Franchisor being there to accept, ship, invoice, and close each order. If their account is suspended — their side of the app is shut down — an order in flight would otherwise be stuck with no one to move it forward. So the app hands you the wheel: you can run the remaining steps yourself.
When this happens, opening a Franchisor order shows a banner telling you the account is suspended and that you're now managing the order. From there the same pipeline still applies, but you advance it instead of waiting on the Franchisor:
- You ship it — mark the order shipped and set the expected delivery date.
- You receive it — exactly as always, which restocks your inventory and posts the Material expense. There's no Franchisor left to review a shortfall, so the quantity you enter is simply the quantity you're recording: your inventory and the order total settle to what you actually received.
- You complete it — enter the delivery fee yourself, and it's filed as a Transportation expense just like a Franchisor-closed order.
Everything downstream is unchanged — receiving still wires Orders into Inventory and Expenses, and completing still posts the delivery fee. The only difference is who drives the steps.
Suspension doesn't unlock Franchisor Exclusive items for your own suppliers. These self-run orders remain their permanent record — so the exclusivity rule holds, and an exclusive item still restocks only through a Franchisor order you now run yourself.
Read next
Franchise ordering
The step-by-step walkthrough — order from the stockhouse, unlock a partner supplier, and use the public form.
How purchasing works
The basics this builds on — statuses, the truck badge, and how receiving wires Orders into Inventory and Expenses.
Joining a franchise
What connecting sets up in the first place — the preset, shared suppliers, and franchisor reporting.