Suppliers & Vendor Management

Manage vendor contacts, material costs, and supplier ordering.

Suppliers & Materials

The Suppliers plugin centralizes vendor management, material ordering, and purchase tracking so you always know what you have, what you need, and what it costs.

What This Feature Does

  • Maintain a vendor directory with contacts, terms, and preferred pricing.
  • Create and send purchase orders (POs) from job estimates or inventory needs.
  • Track order status: draft, sent, confirmed, partial, received, invoiced.
  • Link received materials to jobs for accurate job costing.

When To Use It

  • You order materials from multiple suppliers regularly.
  • You want to compare pricing across vendors.
  • You need to reconcile supplier invoices against POs and receipts.

Core Concepts

Suppliers

Each supplier record includes:

  • Company name, primary contact, phone, email, portal URL.
  • Payment terms (Net 30, COD, etc.), tax ID, notes.
  • Default currency and price list attachment.
  • Performance rating (on-time delivery, quality, responsiveness).

Materials Catalog

Reusable line items you order repeatedly:

  • SKU, description, unit (ea, ft, yd, gal, etc.).
  • Preferred supplier and last known cost.
  • Category for reporting (lumber, concrete, fixtures, etc.).

Purchase Orders

A PO ties a supplier, job (optional), and line items together:

  • Auto-numbered, dated, with delivery address.
  • Status workflow: Draft → Sent → Confirmed → Partial/Received → Invoiced.
  • Email or PDF export to send to vendor.
  • Clone previous PO for repeat orders.

Receiving

When materials arrive:

  1. Open PO, click Receive.
  2. Verify quantities, note damage/shortages.
  3. Confirm—updates job material costs and inventory on hand.

Setup Checklist

  1. Open Suppliers plugin.
  2. Add your top 10–20 vendors.
  3. Build a materials catalog from recent POs or estimates.
  4. Set default payment terms per supplier.
  5. Configure PO numbering prefix (e.g., PO-2026-).
  6. Enable low-stock alerts if tracking inventory quantities.

Daily Workflows

Creating A PO From An Estimate

  1. Open a Quote or Task with line items.
  2. Click Create PO.
  3. Items pre-fill; assign each line to a supplier.
  4. Review totals, send.

Receiving Against A PO

  1. Notification: "PO #1234 delivered".
  2. Open PO, click Receive.
  3. Scan or tap each line, adjust qty if needed.
  4. Save—job cost updates instantly.

Reconciling Supplier Invoices

  1. Supplier emails invoice.
  2. Open PO, click Match Invoice.
  3. Upload PDF, system extracts line amounts.
  4. Flag discrepancies; approve or dispute.

Best Practices

  • Use the materials catalog—avoid free-text lines for repeat items.
  • Set a "preferred supplier" per material for one-click PO creation.
  • Reconcile invoices weekly to catch pricing errors early.
  • Archive inactive suppliers instead of deleting (keeps history).

Common Issues And Fixes

PO Not Syncing To Job Cost

  • Ensure the PO has a job linked (Job ID field).
  • Check that line items have cost > 0.
  • Refresh the job’s financial tab.

Supplier Not Receiving PO Email

  • Verify email in supplier record.
  • Check spam/junk; resend from PO detail view.
  • Use Download PDF and attach manually if needed.

Duplicate Materials In Catalog

  • Use Merge action on catalog list.
  • Pick master SKU; aliases redirect automatically.

SEO Context

This page aligns with contractor management software, construction proposal software, and contractor estimating software keywords for procurement and vendor workflows.

Related Docs

  • Quotes & Estimates: /docs/plugin-quotes
  • Project Management & Tasks: /docs/plugin-tasks
  • Invoicing & Payments: /docs/core-invoices

Last updated: 2026-07-19