Overview
Suppliers (or vendors) are the external companies and distributors from whom your business purchases products, parts, and equipment.
Maintaining centralized supplier directory profiles in nbound ensures that purchasing agents have instant access to account numbers, email contacts, phone numbers, and default lead times when reordering low-stock parts.
Streamlined Restock: Associating preferred suppliers with catalog items allows nbound to automatically populate vendor details when generating purchase stock orders.
Adding a supplier
To register a vendor in your inventory directory:
Go to Inventory → Suppliers from the main dashboard navigation.
Click Add Supplier in the top action bar to open the creation sheet.
Enter the Vendor / Company Name (e.g., 'Apex Plumbing Supply' or 'Trane HVAC Wholesale').
Input key contact information including Primary Contact Name, Email, Phone, and Website.
Add Account / Tax ID details, physical mailing address, and default payment terms if applicable.
Click Save. The supplier record is created and ready for catalog assignment.
Linking products to suppliers
You can assign a primary supplier to each item in your product catalog:
Assigning Supplier on Product Profile
When editing a product in Inventory → Products, locate the Supplier dropdown field. Select your desired vendor and specify the vendor-specific SKU or part code if it differs from your internal SKU.
Restock workflows
When an item reaches its low-stock threshold:
Direct Purchase Order Creation
Create stock orders directly filtered by supplier. nbound pools low-stock items linked to that vendor into a consolidated purchase order draft.
Vendor Performance Tracking
Review historical stock orders to track delivery fulfillment times, backorders, and unit supply cost trends per vendor.