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Big Ambitions Purchasing Agent: Contracts and Orders

Last checked September 8, 2026

Short answer

Hire a Purchasing Agent for your headquarters, assign the employee to a workstation and connect an importer contract. Then assign the agent to the purchasing plan, choose the receiving location and save the products and ordering options. Being present on the HQ schedule alone does not complete the plan.

Connect the employee, importer and purchasing plan

The developer’s March 2023 setup answer starts with hiring the agent, providing an empty headquarters desk and assigning the employee before visiting an importer at the piers. Use that sequence to establish the relationship, then inspect the current plan rather than assuming that a visible employee automatically owns every order.

Select an importer that actually offers the intended goods. Check the product’s current F1 sourcing information and the contract catalog, then verify the warehouse destination and item list. Keep a short record of which agent purchases each product for each receiving location. This becomes particularly useful once several contracts contain overlapping products.

Use Smart and recurring for different decisions

Smart Delivery controls how much is purchased. Recurring controls whether the order repeats. The developer explicitly separated these settings in October 2025. For routine replenishment toward a chosen inventory level, enable both; for an occasional refill, Smart can be used without recurring.

Think of a hypothetical target of 800 units with 650 remaining: the top-up is 150 before other order constraints. A fixed order of 800 would add another 800. This arithmetic illustrates the distinction, not a suggested warehouse size. After saving, inspect both controls so an intended refill does not become repeated accumulation or a single order that silently ends.

Reassign the plan before the Sunday cutoff

A July 2026 developer investigation found an agent back on the HQ schedule but absent from the Purchasing Agent plan after training. The developer identified Sunday before 20:00 as the required assignment deadline. Review the plan after training or an HQ move; seeing the employee at a desk on Monday is insufficient evidence that the previous evening’s order was confirmed.

Make this a quick weekly habit: check the named agent, receiving location, products and saved order status before the deadline. If you moved headquarters, inspect the former HQ for empty purchasing plans as well. Keep the old and new configurations visible while correcting the move so you can identify which plan was supposed to place the order.

Read units and prices from the actual order

A March 2026 developer reply confirms that a quantity of one means one item, not one box. Read the units field literally and compare the proposed receipt with the receiving site’s capacity. Inspect current order limits and the quoted total before confirming; an old walkthrough’s minimum spend or box conversion is not a safe substitute.

Skill is also not a promise that every new contract will be cheaper. In April 2023 the developer explained that agent skill and the Import Index both affected the offer, with prices fixed when a contract was made. That explanation predates later economy updates. Compare the live offer with your existing prices and preserve the order list before renegotiating.

Diagnose a missed purchase and scale carefully

If no goods arrived, check the saved plan, agent assignment before cutoff, confirmed or recurring status, available cash, receiving capacity and the actual supplier message. If the warehouse received the goods but the shop is empty, move the investigation to the warehouse’s distribution plan. Purchasing and delivery to shops are separate stages.

An August 2023 developer reply confirms that multiple Purchasing Agents can work with the same importer. Its practical prerequisite was that the new agents were scheduled and assigned before contracting. Use additional relationships to solve an identified sourcing need, and read current constraints before expanding. A second agent does not by itself create storage or repair a missing store route.

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