Vendor details bring together the contact and product-specific information needed for purchasing. The customer register, in turn, is used for your organisation's customers. You can store product codes, prices and delivery information from different vendors for the same product.
Before you start
This guide applies to the browser service. Warehouse and purchase order features must be enabled in your service. You need permission to view vendors and create a new vendor. Maintaining a saved vendor and linking products require permission to edit the vendor. The product selection list shows products according to your access permissions.
In the Manager role, vendor permissions belong to the Vendors and email templates group, which also controls permissions for purchasing email templates. If necessary, ask your administrator to check your permissions. See setting permissions for a manager user.
Create a vendor and enter its basic details
- Open Warehouse management → Vendors from the side menu and select Create new vendor on the page.
- Enter the Name on the form's Basic info tab. The name is required and must not be used by another vendor.
- If needed, enter the Vendor number, Business ID and address details. The vendor number is optional, but if entered, it must be unique.
- Check the Status. The default for a new vendor is Active.
Deleted is a status you can save: it preserves the vendor and its links. It is different from actually deleting the vendor. This status excludes the vendor only from selections that retrieve active vendors; it does not guarantee removal from all vendor lists.
Add contacts
Open the form's Customer contacts tab and select New contact. Enter the contact's Name and a valid Email address; both are required. The phone number and Language are optional.
If needed, select Primary contact. There can only be one primary contact: selecting a new one clears the previous selection. In a new purchasing vendor section, the primary contact is selected as the recipient or, if there is no primary contact, the vendor's only contact is selected. If there are several contacts and none is primary, select the recipient yourself.
Accept the contact details using the New contact button on the contact's form. You can edit a contact using the pencil icon on the contact row and the Update contact button. These actions only change the details in the open vendor form: you must also save the vendor.
When the basic details and contacts are ready, select Create new vendor at the bottom of the vendor form. After a successful save, the saved vendor's edit form opens. Later, you can open it by clicking the vendor's card on the Vendors page. Changes to basic details, contacts and the primary contact selection are saved using the Update vendor button at the bottom.
Contact language and email template language
The contact's Language controls the language of the vendor's response page. When creating a new product inquiry or a regular purchase order section, it also helps with automatic email template selection: the system first looks for that vendor's own template in the same language, then for another available template in that language. If no suitable template is found, select one yourself.
The language of the outgoing inquiry or order email is determined by the selected email template, rather than directly by the contact's language. If the template has no language specified, the default language for sending is Finnish. When editing a saved purchasing section, this automatic selection does not select the template again. It is not used when recording a completed purchase.
For each message you send, therefore, check the recipient in the vendor section and the template selected using the Select email template button. When the contact changes, update the register and check the recipient for the next inquiry or order. Saved contact details do not replace checking the recipient when sending. See also sending a product inquiry.
Link products to a saved vendor
The Products tab becomes available only after the vendor has been saved. Select Link products there. In the selection dialog, select the products you want using the plus icons on the rows, then confirm with the Save button. A selected product is marked with a check mark.
Products are selected from the existing product register and must be in use. If a product is missing, create the product first. The same product can belong to several vendors, but each vendor–product link can exist only once. Linking is saved immediately, separately from the vendor's basic details.
Enter vendor-specific product details
Edit a field in the table on the Products tab by double-clicking its cell. The pencil icon on a row opens a form for editing the price, delivery time, balance, discount and country of origin; confirm the change there using the Save button. The vendor product code is edited in the table cell.
- Vendor product code is the identifier used by the vendor, separate from the product code in the product register. Its maximum length is 256 characters.
- Unit price provided by vendor is the purchase price saved for this vendor–product link. It can be zero, but cannot be negative.
- Expected Delivery (Days) is entered in whole days, with a minimum of zero. It is the length of the delivery time, not a delivery date.
- Vendor warehouse balance describes the balance recorded for the vendor, not the balance in your own warehouse. The value cannot be negative. Changing it does not receive products into your own warehouse.
- The Discounts field takes a discount percentage from 0 to 100.
- Country of origin is an optional country selection.
You can leave these additional details blank. The price, balance and discount are saved to two decimal places; use no more than two decimal places when entering them and check the saved value.
The purchase price from the vendor link becomes the default price for a new purchase order row. If it is missing, the purchase price from the product register is used, and if that is also missing, the price is zero. An explicitly entered zero price also overrides the price in the product register. The discount percentage is not automatically deducted from this default price: for example, with a vendor price of 100 and a discount of 10, the default price is still 100. Check the order's final unit price separately. Changing the register price does not update prices on order rows that have already been saved. Price handling is described in more detail in the purchase order guide.
Batch updates and saving changes
To change details for several products, tick the rows you want in the table on the Products tab and select Batch update above it. Enter the shared values and confirm them using the save button on the form that opens.
In a batch update, an empty numeric field leaves the previous value unchanged. This also applies to the single-product form opened using the pencil icon. To remove a numeric value, clear its cell directly in the table. Selecting Empty for the country of origin removes the previous country.
Product links, cell changes, changes confirmed in the pencil icon form and batch updates are saved through separate updates. A cell change is sent to be saved when you finish editing the cell. Cancel on the vendor form closes the form but does not undo these saves. If you receive an error message, correct the details and reopen the vendor to check that they were saved.
Links, files and deletion
After confirmation, the trash icon on a product row removes only the link between the product and the vendor, not the product from the product register. A warning is shown for a product on active purchasing sections. The deletion is saved immediately, and Cancel on the vendor form does not undo it.
Use the trash icon on a row in the Customer contacts tab to delete a contact. Deleting a contact that has already been saved takes effect immediately after confirmation. A contact that has not yet been saved is removed only from the open form. A contact linked to a purchasing vendor section cannot be deleted, even if the section has already ended.
You can add the vendor's own files in the Files section of the Basic info tab using the Add files button. When creating a new vendor, selected files are uploaded after the vendor is saved. For a saved vendor, uploading a new file starts immediately, and Cancel on the form does not remove the uploaded file. Check that the upload completes. The Contracts tab of a saved vendor shows contracts linked to it.
To actually delete a vendor, use the Delete button at the bottom of the saved vendor's form. This requires delete permission and confirmation. Deletion is blocked if the vendor has purchasing vendor sections or contracts; the check is not limited to active ones. A successful deletion also removes the vendor's contacts, product links, files and own email templates. Products in the product register are retained.
Check the result
Reopen the vendor's card and check the name, status, contacts and primary contact selection. On the Products tab, check that the correct products and vendor-specific values have been saved. In the first inquiry or order, check the recipient, email template and prices again before sending.
In the product details on Android and iOS, Vendors: shows the names of vendors linked to the product. This list of names is for viewing product details; the vendor creation and maintenance described in this guide are done in the browser.