How to add and set up a supplier

A supplier is the company you actually pay, such as Kaimen Knitwear or Portside Mills. Buying › Suppliers lists every one. How suppliers fit with purchase orders is in What are suppliers and purchase orders?.

Before you start

• The Store and Suppliers modules must be on.
• Seeing suppliers needs View suppliers in Settings › Permissions. Adding and changing them needs Edit suppliers. Both start at lead.
• Without Edit suppliers the pages still open, but Add supplier, Edit, the … menu and the other buttons for changing a supplier are not shown.

What does the suppliers list show?

One row per supplier, with Name, Brands, Lead time, Terms, Currency, Min. order, Open POs and On time. Click a row to open the supplier's page.

Hover an On time figure to see what it rests on, for example "9 of 11 finished orders arrived by the promised date". A supplier with nothing finished yet shows a dash, and the hover reads "No finished orders to judge yet". How the score works is in How to record new terms and read a supplier's performance.

How do you add one?

1. Go to Buying › Suppliers and press Add supplier.
2. Type the Supplier name.
3. Check the Currency. It starts on your workspace's home currency; type a different three-letter code, such as EUR, if they bill in another one.
4. Press Add supplier.

That is all the form asks for. Fill in the rest on the supplier's page when you have it, because the moment you need a supplier is usually the moment you are writing an order.

You can also add one from the order form: type a name the Vendor box does not recognise and choose the Create row. See How to write a purchase order.

What if the name is already taken?

Tideswell tells you which supplier already has it. Names count as the same when they differ only in capitals or surrounding spaces.

When the existing supplier is archived, the message says so and offers Restore it instead. Restoring keeps its purchase order history in one place rather than splitting it across two suppliers.

What should you fill in first?

Press Edit at the top right of the supplier's page. It holds the name, Currency, Payment terms, Lead time (days), Revision window (days), Minimum order amount, Website, Address and Notes. Press Save.

Three of those change what the rest of Tideswell does, so they are worth getting right.

• Lead time decides how urgently that supplier's products are flagged on Selling › Inventory, and how many units the reorder suggestions cover. With none recorded, Tideswell assumes 14 days. See How to find out what you need to reorder.
• Currency is copied onto each new purchase order when it is created. Orders already written keep the currency they were written in.
• Payment terms shows on the Terms card (on the Overview and Terms tabs) and in the list. The number of days the buying calendar uses is set separately, as Pays after shipping, in How to record new terms and read a supplier's performance.

Revision window and Minimum order sit on the same Terms card for your team to read, so check an order against the minimum before you place it. The revise-by date on an order comes from the vendor's revision window, which you set with Add vendor profile on the order form, as How to write a purchase order explains.

Changing a term in Edit records it as a new set of terms starting today, so the history of what was agreed stays intact.

How do you add the people you deal with?

Open the People tab on the supplier's page. In the Contacts section, press Add a contact. Fill in Name, What they handle (Sales, Accounts, Warehouse or Other), Email and Phone, then press Add contact.

The first contact you add is marked Primary. Their name, email and phone fill the Contact card on the Overview tab as Primary contact, Email and Phone.

A purchase order revision goes to the contact who handles Sales, the primary one if there are several. With no Sales contact, it goes to the primary contact. See How to send a revision and export an order.

To change who that is, press the star on another contact's row. The pencil edits a contact, and the bin deletes one after you confirm. A contact does not get a sign-in; giving the rep their own access is How to let a supplier's rep confirm their orders.

How do you record what they supply?

Open the Items tab and press Add an item under What they supply. Search your catalogue by name or SKU, pick the item, then fill in whichever you know of Their cost, Minimum order (units), Lead time (days) and Note. Press Add item.

This is the supplier's standing quote, so a new price can be compared rather than remembered. You can add an item from any brand, which is how you record a second source for something you normally buy elsewhere.

Two of these figures feed the suggested quantities on a draft purchase order. An item's own lead time is used before the supplier's, and a suggestion is rounded up to the item's minimum. See How to add products and choose your columns.

Where do contracts and price lists go?

On the Documents tab. Press Add a document and choose one or more files: the signed agreement, the current price list, certificates.

Each file shows its size and the date it was added, with a button to download it. Make sure before you delete a document, because it cannot be brought back.

How do you add your own fields to suppliers?

An admin adds them in Settings › Custom fields › Suppliers. Once your workspace has at least one, a Custom fields section appears on the Overview tab of every supplier's page for you to fill in. See How to add your own field to a supplier.

How do you link Shopify brand names to a supplier?

From the Unmatched brands tray at the top of Buying › Suppliers. It lists brand names on your Shopify products that are not linked to a supplier yet.

For each one, choose a supplier from Attach to…, press Create supplier to make a new supplier with that name, or press Ignore for a brand you never want to be asked about again. The tray only appears while there is something to sort.

Linking brands is what lets a purchase order typed with that brand name find the right supplier. It also applies the supplier's lead time to that brand's products on the stock screen.

A supplier's page shows its linked names as chips beside the supplier's name at the top. Sorting them is done from the tray on the list.

What else is on a supplier's page?

At the top are the supplier's name, its brand names as chips, and one line with the primary contact, email, payment terms and currency. When the Agent has a suggestion about this supplier, it waits under that line. See How to approve, refuse or undo a suggested change.

Below that are five figures. On time in full is the share of finished orders that arrived on time and complete. Spend is what you have ordered, with the order count.

When late is how many days late the supplier is on average.

Landed cost per unit is the latest figure, with freight and duty. Last order is the date of the newest order, with its PO number. A figure with nothing behind it shows a dash.

Under the figures are eight tabs. The tab you pick goes into the page address, as ?tab=orders, so a link you copy opens on the same tab.

• Overview: Worth knowing, a short list of things to act on, such as late orders, a missing price list or a rep who cannot yet confirm orders. Then Recent orders (the newest five), the Contact and Terms cards, Notes and Custom fields.
• Orders: every purchase order for this supplier in one table, with a total. The All, Late and On time buttons filter it.
• Scorecard: the delivery record. See How to record new terms and read a supplier's performance.
• Terms: the current terms and Terms history. See How to record new terms and read a supplier's performance.
• People: Contacts, and Outside access for who outside your company can see this supplier. See How to let a supplier's rep confirm their orders.
• Items: What they supply.
• Documents: uploaded files.
• Activity: Decisions, where Record a decision keeps the reason a supplier is set up the way it is, and the comments and history of changes. See What are decisions and track records?.

How do you stop buying from one?

On the supplier's page, press the … button next to Edit, choose Archive and confirm. The supplier stays attached to every past purchase order and drops out of the pickers you use to write new ones.

To bring one back, press Show archived on the list, open the supplier and press Restore (it sits beside Edit on an archived supplier).

What if you buy one brand through another company?

Open the supplier you do not pay directly, press the … button next to Edit and choose Bought through another supplier. Choose the supplier you actually pay, read the panel, then press the Fold button, which names both suppliers.

Its purchase orders and brand names move across, and it is archived. The panel spells out what you gain and what you give up. The main cost is that the folded supplier stops having its own lead time, contact, terms and currency, and the other supplier's are used, including in the reorder suggestions.

To reverse it, open the archived supplier, press the … button and choose Undo merge. Every order moves back and the supplier is active again. Undo it before you reassign any of those orders by hand or fold the other supplier into a third one, because after either of those the undo refuses.

Your workspace may use its own word for suppliers; Settings › Terminology shows both.