Work with suppliers in the portal

A supplier with portal access gets one page for everything between you: the requests for quotation you sent, your purchase orders, the documents you ask of them, and the bills you owe them with what you have paid. Their answers reach Procurement and Books directly, with no retyping.

Before you start

• Requests for quotation, purchase orders and documents need Procurement switched on; bills and payments need Books.
• Give the supplier access with the sections Requests for quotation, Purchase orders, Documents asked of you and Bills and payments as needed, and add their people (see give a customer or supplier access).
• Quoting and answering orders need the Approver role; delivery notes, documents and messages need Requester.

Steps

Quote a request for quotation (the supplier)

1. In Requests for quotation, they open a request marked Not quoted.
2. For each item they type the Unit price and the Quantity you can send. An empty price means they cannot supply it.
3. They add a Delivery date and a note if useful, and select Send my quote. While the request is open they can change it with Send the new quote.

Answer a purchase order (the supplier)

1. In Purchase orders, they open the order. The home page also lists it under Order to confirm.
2. Under Your answer, they choose one: Confirm the order; Propose changes (new quantity, price, reason, date, then Send my changes); or Decline the order with a reason.

Send a delivery note (the supplier)

1. On an open order, they select Send a delivery note.
2. Under You are sending, they type the quantity per item, the Delivery date and Your delivery note number (optional).
3. They select Send the delivery note. Your team receives the goods as usual.

Send a document (the supplier)

1. In Documents asked of you, under Send a document, they pick the Kind of document (for example Trade licence or Tax registration certificate), a title and Expires on (optional).
2. They choose the File and select Send the document. It shows In review until your team handles it.

What your team does

1. Quotes appear in Procurement's comparison of the request, beside the other suppliers'.
2. Order answers appear on the purchase order, as if the supplier had answered its link.
3. Delivery notes and documents arrive in Portal → Requests. Open a document with Open the file (or in the Documents app, when it is on), then select Handled.

Good to know

• One answer per order. Once a supplier has confirmed, proposed changes or declined, the order shows their answer.
• Files: PDF, JPEG, PNG or WebP, 4 MB at most. With the Documents app on, a document goes there "in review", linked to the supplier, with its expiry date; otherwise it is kept sealed in your organisation's private documents.
• Bills and payments lists the supplier's bills, open or paid. The supplier's Statement shows Owed to you, Overdue, the Open bills and Bills paid.
• Each request for quotation and purchase order has its own Messages thread (see answer portal messages).
• Purchase order links sent without the portal keep working.