Supplier management¶

Set up the suppliers you receive goods from — manufacturers, vendors, and distributors that ship inbound orders to your warehouse. Suppliers and customers share a single party record, so a business that both ships you goods and buys from you needs only one entry.

This page covers supplier-specific fields and workflows. Because suppliers and customers share the same underlying record, most of what applies to a customer applies to a supplier too — see Customer management for addresses, contacts, tags, and the detail workspace.

Suppliers and customers are the same record¶

Every business you deal with is stored as one party record carrying a Party Type:

This design means:

• A supplier and a customer with the same name are one record, not two — no duplicate maintenance.
• Addresses, contacts, tags, and notes are shared across both roles.
• Changing a party's type does not create a new record or lose history.

Accessing supplier management¶

Go to Catalog → Suppliers from the main sidebar.

The supplier table shows these columns:

Supplier-specific fields¶

Three fields exist only on parties that are suppliers. They are the practical reason to keep supplier records rather than treating every party as a customer:

All three are optional. They are informational — the platform records and displays them but does not block orders that fall below a minimum order value or warn on lead-time overruns.

Creating a supplier¶

1. Go to Catalog → Suppliers and select Add Supplier.
2. Enter the Company Name (up to 255 characters) and confirm the Status — it defaults to Active. These two are the only required fields.
3. Add the Lead Time (Days), Minimum Order Value, and Supplier Rating if you have them.
4. Add the Preferred Shipping Method (for example Ground), any Special Delivery Requirements (for example Requires loading dock), and free-form Notes.

5. Select Create.

   A supplier number is generated automatically, in the same series as customer numbers — both are parties in one numbering sequence.

Marking a party as both¶

The create form includes an Also a Customer checkbox. Select it when the business you are adding will also place orders with you. Checking it reveals the customer-side fields:

A party created this way has the type Both and appears on the Customers page as well as the Suppliers page, carrying an Also Customer badge in the supplier list.

Searching and filtering¶

The search bar matches against supplier name, email, phone, and supplier number.

Status and Tier filters support operators beyond simple equality:

For example, set Status to is none of Inactive and Suspended to see every supplier still available to order from, including those on credit hold.

Managing supplier details¶

Click a supplier row to open its details, or use the Edit action to change fields in place.

Because suppliers are parties, the following work exactly as they do for customers — see Customer management for full instructions:

• Addresses: Billing, shipping, remit-to, and pickup addresses. Deactivated addresses are retained and can be reactivated.
• Contacts: Multiple contacts per supplier, typed as Primary, Billing, Shipping, Technical, Sales, Accounts Payable, or Accounts Receivable
• Status changes: Moving a supplier to Inactive or Suspended
• Tags

Suppliers and receiving¶

Receiving orders record the party a shipment came from in their customer field. Because suppliers and customers share one record type, a supplier party can be selected there — this is how an inbound shipment is attributed to the business that sent it.

There is no separate supplier field on a receiving order and no automatic link from a supplier record to its inbound history. To review what a supplier has sent you, filter receiving orders by that party.

See Receiving Shipments for the inbound workflow.

Permissions¶

Supplier access is governed by the customers permission module, not a separate supplier module. A role that can view customers can view suppliers; a role that can create customers can create suppliers.

To restrict supplier access separately from customer access, you would need to restrict the customers module as a whole. See Roles & Permissions.

Data filters that scope a user to particular customers apply to the Suppliers page as well.

Getting it right¶

• Check before creating. Search the Suppliers and Customers pages before adding a party. The most common data problem is the same business entered twice — once in each role.
• Set lead times early. Lead Time is the field most useful for planning inbound work. Populate it when you create the supplier, while the information is at hand.
• Use Both rather than duplicates. When a customer starts supplying you, edit the existing record instead of creating a supplier record with the same name.
• Deactivate, do not delete. Setting a supplier to Inactive keeps history intact and removes it from the default list view, which is usually what "remove this supplier" actually means.
• Record delivery constraints on the record, not in tribal knowledge. Special Delivery Requirements is the right home for facts like dock restrictions or appointment requirements.

Troubleshooting¶

Related guides¶

• Customer management — addresses, contacts, tags, and the party detail workspace
• Receiving Shipments — the inbound workflow
• Roles & Permissions — controlling who can manage parties