Vendor Master — vendors, planning rates & details
Find any supplier and the warehouses it ships from, see which prepaid lanes still need a planning rate, and track contact with suppliers until the rates come in.
Open Vendors under Master
In the Supply Chain sidebar, open <b>Master › Vendors</b>. The <b>Vendors</b> and <b>Planning Rates</b> tabs sit under the page title. The top right shows the <b>Distribution Centers</b> filter, how many records are waiting to come in from your source system, and the date the data is current as of.
Read the Vendors summary cards
Three cards summarise your supplier base.
- Total Suppliers — Companies you buy from, one per ESN, with how many vendor numbers they hold between them and the average per supplier.
- States Covered — The states goods ship from, not where suppliers have their head offices.
- Total POs — Purchase orders raised on these suppliers, and the average per supplier.
Find a supplier
Type in <b>Search</b> to filter by vendor, supplier, name, ship-from, buyer, PO or item. Use <b>Columns</b> to choose which columns are shown and <b>Group by</b> to group rows (by <b>Supplier</b> by default). Each row shows the <b>ESN</b>, <b>Supplier Name</b>, <b>Vendor Nos</b>, <b>Primary Ship-From</b>, address and <b>Total POs</b>. A <b>+ more</b> chip means the supplier has more vendor numbers or ship-from warehouses than are shown.
Open the Supplier Detail
Select an <b>ESN</b> to open <b>Supplier Detail</b>. The header shows the ESN and name, with <b>Ask Ella</b> and <b>View Linked Data</b> at the top right. Below the header, the supplier's main vendor number and ESN appear first.
- Vendor Info — The ESN, every vendor number (flagging any with no delivery in 12 months), the primary buyer and the total purchase orders.
- Address — The supplier's address line, city, state and zip code.
See where it ships from
<b>Ship From</b> names the primary warehouse or 3PL and the total number of warehouses used. <b>All Ship-From Warehouses</b> lists each one with its address, city and state, and how many vendor numbers and POs it covers.
Track contact and request rates
Under <b>Conversion</b>, <b>Contacts</b> shows the supplier's contact status. Change it from the dropdown, select <b>Add a contact</b>, or select <b>Mark Do Not Contact</b> to stop the supplier being asked. Once the supplier has been contacted, you'll see when it was last asked and last answered, who the analyst is, any note, and its contacts. <b>Rate requests</b> lists the requests sent; select <b>Request rates from the supplier</b> to send one.
Open Planning Rates
Select the <b>Planning Rates</b> tab. Its three cards show where rates stand.
- Suppliers — Suppliers with a delivery in the last 12 months, split into prepaid only, own-hauled only and both. Also shows how many have a rate on every active lane.
- Waiting for review — Rates from a supplier's answer or your Freight Allowances form that no reviewer has decided on yet.
- Stale rates — Suppliers with a rate confirmed (or started) longer ago than the chosen number of days.
Filter by status
The status pills narrow the list: <b>All</b>, <b>Needs rates</b>, <b>Stale</b>, <b>To review</b> and <b>Do Not Contact</b>, each with its count. The text under the pills explains exactly what the selected filter counts. For example, <b>Needs rates</b> counts suppliers with an active prepaid lane that has no planning rate on file. Your rate card alone doesn't count, and neither does having contacted them.
Read each supplier's rate coverage
Search by supplier, ESN or vendor number. Set <b>Transport</b> (for example <b>Prepaid lanes only</b>) and <b>Stale after</b> (for example 365 days). Each row shows the following.
- Annual prepaid cases — The supplier's yearly prepaid volume. The list is sorted by it, largest first.
- Active lanes — How many lanes are active, and across how many DCs.
- Lanes rated — A badge (Some lanes rated, Rate card only, Stale or No rate), a progress bar, and how many lanes are rated, on the rate card only or without a rate.
- Contact — Contacted and replied, contacted with no reply, or not contacted, with the date last asked.
- To review — How many of the supplier's rates are waiting for review.
Ask Ella or view linked data
Every Supplier Detail has <b>Ask Ella</b> and <b>View Linked Data</b> at the top right, as on every Supply Chain record, so you can ask about the supplier or see the records linked to it.
Why it matters
Freight planning is only as good as the rates behind it. With every supplier's warehouses, contact history and rate coverage in one place, planners can see which lanes still need a rate, chase the suppliers that haven't replied, and keep rates from going stale.
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