Accounts Payable/Suppliers

From PERPWiki

1 About the Suppliers Section
2 Adding a Supplier
3 Editing a Supplier
4 Removing a Supplier

About the Suppliers Section

This section handles most functions related to vendors. Every business, no matter how small, obtains supplies and equipment, and in order to record the financial transactions for purchasing those supplies and equipment some basic information must be entered into pERP for each and every vendor.

You can access the Suppliers section from

- Accounts Payable > Suppliers
- The Side Menu if you are in the AP Application
- The Add box in the top right corner (see "Using the Add Box" in Getting Started)

The Suppliers icon from the AP home screen

The AP Side Bar, showing sections and actions you can take relating to Accounts Payable.

When you open the Suppliers section, you bring up the supplier list, a screen like that shown below. Your screen may be different, and may show more suppliers, depending on the settings on the search bar and in your Preferences.

The supplier list, showing a page of five suppliers.

YOUR SCREEN MAY NOT LOOK EXACTLY AS ABOVE, DEPENDING ON HOW YOUR PREFERENCES ARE SET.  
THIS IS NOT A BUG AND DOES NOT NEED TO BE REPORTED.

If you have entered this section and want to get out -

Click the back button on your browser OR
Select another icon from the top menu OR
Click on a link in the side menu OR
Click the Cancel button

Each line in the list links to a supplier record (sometimes called a supplier card from the old days of Rolodex and file cards; the screen mimics this by using tabs)

From this screen, you can perform a number of tasks related to suppliers, depending on your level of access.

Search (available to all staff with read privileges) - The search bar controls the records shown on the screen. Use of the search bar is discussed in detail in Getting Started. Note the Warning to Save before changing filters, moving to another screen etc.

Sort - The records can be sorted by Supplier Code or by Supplier Name by clicking on the header under the search box. If sorted ascending (numbers followed by ABC), a little down-pointing triangle (v) will show by the header; if the sort is descending (ZYX...followed by numbers), a little up-pointing triangle will show beside the header. Just click again to re-sort.

Edit (limited permission) - Existing supplier records can be edited if you have this level of access. You can change, add, or remove information. You can click on the supplier code at left, or on the edit icon at right (if you do not have access, you will not see this icon) Details are given later in this chapter.

Add (limited permission) - New supplier records can be added. If you do not have access, the "New Supplier" button will not show. Details follow.

Delete (limited permission) - Existing suppliers can be deleted, but the only time this should be done is if you have just created the supplier and you know for a fact that there are no financial records whatever attached to the supplier. Permission is normally restricted to managers. To delete a supplier, click the Delete icon at right. If you do not see this icon, it means you do not have permission to delete suppliers. If you click the delete icon, a dialog box should appear asking you to confirm the delete.

WARNING!

DELETING A SUPPLIER WHICH IS LINKED TO FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS MAY HAVE UNFORSEEN AND DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES.
IF A SUPPLIER GOES OUT OF BUSINESS, SET THE STATUS TO DISABLED. See Removing a Supplier

Adding a Supplier

To add a new supplier to the list, click the New Supplier button (Fig. 4-5) in the bottom left corner of the Supplier List screen.

Figure 4-5

Figure 4-6, below, shows the first step in creating a new supplier record

You will be required to add the supplier code and name, as shown above, into the two mandatory (yellow) fields.

The actual, full (Doing Business As) name of the supplier should be entered in the Name field, as this information may be used for reports, cutting cheques, addressing envelopes etc. Do not enter the supplier name in ALL CAPS.

SUPPLIER CODE

The user must enter a unique supplier code, as the system will NOT automatically supply a vendor code (this was done per specifications).

The default is set when pERP is installed on your system, so plan early on how you want to set these codes. It's easier to make changes before you start adding records.

If you work for Blue Falls Manufacturing, you will continue to use the old ACCPAC codes. This consists of the first three letters of the first word in the supplier name in UPPER CASE, followed by a three digit identifier and an optional currency identifier. Thus, Binary Green Ocean Products of Canada would be coded BIN001 (the absence of a final letter indicates payment in CAD). Binocular Suppliers International would be coded BIN002U, indicating that they will be paid in USD, or BIN002E if they are paid in euros. However, users from other businesses or organizations may use whatever supplier code meets their needs; the field will accept up to seven alphanumeric characters.

WARNING:  If you forget to add a code, you will get a warning saying "Field must not be empty"

Figure 4-7 User has attempted to save with an empty code field. Simply enter a correct code and click SAVE again.

WARNING: If you enter a code that has already been used, the record cannot be saved.
This type of typographical error is very easy to make when the codes are 
similar, like CAN001, CAN002, and CAN003.  You will see this error message: "Duplicate Supplier Number"

Figure 4-8 Error message showing that CAN001 already exists.

If you are not sure what code to use, click the Cancel button, go back to the supplier list, and check for the next number in line.

NOTE: We use upper case for clarity and consistency. pERP does not care if you type the code in upper or lower case. It will accept can004 just as well as CAN004. As of 4 Jan 08, the system will not reformat lower to upper case.

IMPORTANT:  If for some reason you do not want to enter this supplier, click the CANCEL button. 
 This will erase your entry without saving it and return you to the supplier list.

IMPORTANT:  After you have entered the code and name, click the SAVE button.  If your entry is a unique code, 
your screen will open to a set of tabs where you will enter additional information about this vendor.

Figure 4-9 The opening screen for a new supplier. All blank!

The screens for entering a new supplier and editing an existing supplier look the same. For a new supplier, you are "editing" all blank data, and that is why the page title is "Edit Supplier".

Note the orange caution and blue information flags. The first lets you know that something is not right, the second tells you what is required.

You will not be able to fill in any of the information on the Address tab, because this is only a display page, linked to the Address Book. After you have entered the address information in Address Book and linked the two records as discussed below, this tab will display properly. In future versions of pERP, the tab may show phone, fax, and email address as well as the fields shown.

Since most of the procedure for editing and adding supplier information are similar, the remaining steps are discussed together in the next section.

A NOTE: As a matter of style and clarity, your company should decide in advance how to handle text. In our examples, we have tried to ensure that supplier names are entered in title case (each important word capitalized). The supplier code should be in upper case (all capitals). One field in Figure 4-8 follows this standard, but one should be corrected.

Editing a Supplier

You can edit a supplier from the Supplier List by clicking on either the supplier code at the left, or the edit button at the right. Please see Figure 4-3 or Figure 4-9

Figure 4-10 A supplier line from the list

To edit the supplier Cambel Appliance, you can click either on the supplier code (CAM001) at the left, or the edit icon (with the pencil) on the right.

Note: some users may not be allowed access to the edit features. In this case, the edit button should not appear, and the link from the supplier code will be read-only. Some users will see both an Edit icon and a Delete [X] icon as shown above.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The "Delete" [X] icon is intended to be used only during setup, development, and training. You can only delete a recently-created supplier record. If there is any chance that there is any financial, order, or other information attached to the record, DO NOT DELETE the supplier. Instead, set its status to Disabled.

Address Tab

Figure 4-11 Your new supplier record may look like this. You haven't done anything wrong - there's another step you need to take to "set" the address information into the tab. These fields will automatically brought in from the Address Book, so you can't edit them from here. To add a new contact or to edit the address or phone information, you must go through the Links tab as described below.

If there are two or more contacts for the company, you can select the one whose name you want to show. At the present draft, in order to view contact information for that representative, you must go via the Links tab (see below).

Links Tab

Links to other parts of eGroupware, specifically the Addressbook and the Calendar but also to some financial sections, are under this tab. For now, we are only concerned with the Addressbook.

A. ENTERING NEW ADDRESS INFORMATION

One of the first things you will want to do for your new supplier card is set up the address.

If you are creating a new supplier, pERP will first look in the address book for an exact match to the supplier name. If there is one, the address will be automatically linked and the address card will open.

If there is not an address card, pERP will create one and open the new address card immediately for you to edit.

Why use the Address Book? Why don't we just enter the address for the supplier right in the supplier card? The answer relates to how information is handled and shared. Enterprise Resource Planning software needs to make information widely available to a number of different modules, functions, departments, and individuals. Storing all address information for suppliers, customers, shippers, employees etc. in one central table, the Address Book, gives pERP tremendous power and flexibility. Suppose some marvelous new communication device is invented, and we want to add a field for it to all our addresses. The change can be made once in the Address Book, and the new field will immediately be available for suppliers, customers, anywhere in pERP that needs an address (as opposed to having to go into each section and make the change a dozen times). At the same time, it permits careful access control--only HR staff, for example, might be allowed to view employee address information, and only specified employees might be able to view or edit supplier addresses.

1. The new Addressbook record has been created with only the organization name Note the British spelling, 'organisation'. This is not a bug and does not need to be reported. The field label should have a capital, Organisation, but we know that so don't report that either.

Figure 4-14 The new address card has the supplier name in it [image update needed].

2. If you do not see this card, it may be hidden behind another window, or you may have popups turned off in your web browser. Use Alt-Tab (PC) or Apple-Tab (Mac) or other methods familiar to you to locate the hidden window. 3. If pERP linked to an existing address card, that card will open in View mode. To make changes, you will have to click the Edit control in the bottom left corner. The Edit will open in a new popup. 4. If pERP created a new card for you, it will have opened in edit view. 5. Once in Edit mode, you can add data to any field in any tab. This section is self-explanatory and you will find it fairly easy to complete the name, address, telephone, and email sections. You may also want to set the Category (Supplier, Dealer, Customer, Staff) but nothing bad will happen if you leave this blank. You can also add to the "Private" and Details tabs if you wish.

NOTE: For details of the Copy function, see the Appendix on Address Book. Cancel will close the card and return you to the Supplier screen.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The new record MUST be set to Group Staff, as shown above. If you are viewing a supplier for which the address card is set to Personal, you will receive a nag screen asking you to have the person who created the card change it to Group Staff.

Figure 4-15 Showing the nag screen for a personal address linked to a supplier

NOTE: THE ADDRESS CARD CONTAINS MORE INFORMATION THAN IS DISCUSSED IN THIS SECTION. TO USE THE INFOLOG, PLEASE SEE THE APPENDIX.

Figure 4-16 The address card edit window, in the process of adding information to the Details tab.

6. When you have finished entering the contact information for this supplier, you must click the SAVE button in the bottom left of the address edit window. You are saving the address record into the Address Book.

Figure 4-17 The saved screen shows the information you added, and a message at the bottom assures you that the record has indeed been saved. (Screen has been changed, update image)

7. Now you are finished and want to go back to work on your new supplier, so click the Links tab, then click the link which you'll find there. This link was created automatically for you.

Figure 4-18 Click the link (shown above in blue) to return to the Supplier card.

8. That will bring you back to the screen below. You'll note the orange Caution bar saying that the Supplier address is not set. All that means is that you need to click Save to set the address from the link into the address tab.

'Figure 4-19 Back to the new supplier.

9. In this step, you are saving the supplier record, along with its new address information, into the supplier list. The result is to move or set the information from the address card into the details tab.

Figure 4-20 The information from the address book link has been set into the Address tab by clicking Save.

B. LINKING TO THE ADDRESSBOOK

In the Edit Supplier screen, click on the Links tab.

If you know the address is already in the Address Book (most likely because you just entered it yourself!), you can now link the address to the supplier. A good example of this is when you have just created a supplier paid in Canadian dollars, complete with address, and now you are creating a supplier paid in US dollars. You send the money to the same address, so you want to link the existing address to your new USD account.

Set the New Link field to Address Book if necessary. Enter your search string in the field.

NOTE: DO NOT use the supplier code as a search string. It's not that something bad will happen, just that you won't find what you're looking for.

You can enter the whole name, the first letter or two, or some "wild card" characters. To search for Berness Plumbing and Heating, for example, you might use Bern or Ber*, though Ber* might return too many choices.

Note: Ber and Ber* will return the same results. B*rnes will return Bearness, Barness, Berness, Borness, Bernes, etc.

When you've entered your search string, press the Search [>] button.

Figure 4-21 User has entered wor in the search field, and will click [>] to find the address card or cards (if any).

In the example above, the search turned up over 100 items, so "wor" was not enough information to find the right record. "World" worked better.

Figure 4-22 A link (or more) has been found.

A search for 'world" turned up about a dozen entries. Click the field (it says "Caster World Ltd." in the figure above) to see all the entries.

Figure 4-23 Showing the selection for "world". If the one you want is not showing in the window, it pays to check. Just select the one you want (highlighted in blue) and click the Link button.

Figure 4-24 A link was not found, due to a typo in our search field.

If there are no matches, a note "Nothing found - try again !!!" will be shown. This could be because of a typo, as shown above, or because there is no matching record in the Addressbook.

Click OK to close the dialog and do a new search. Just erase your search string and start again.

Once you have found a good record, click the [Link] button. The screen will update and show the link at the bottom of the record under Existing Links.

Figure 4-25 The link has been established (note the last line under Existing links)

Once the link has been established, click Save again. This will return you to the Address tab, with a note of the address link. Click Save a second time to register the address information on the tab.

' Figure 4-26 This is what will result if you forget that second Save! No big problem - if you see this message, the link has been made but not registered. Just click Save again.

Figure 4-27 After clicking Save the second time, the address screen will show the address information. You can now click the links tab, click the address book link at the bottom, and review or complete the address information. The methods for doing this were given previously in this manual.

Note: The Address Book is a separate program with many features. The features and abilities of the Address Book are discussed in Appendix A.

If a link is not found and you are sure there is no existing address, click on New Contact. This will open the Address Book ready to add contact information as previously described.

NOTE: All our address book records are public. Although one tab is labeled "Private", and there is a little checkbox marked "private", those features are turned off. Anybody in the company can read it!

Finance Tab

Figure 4-30 The Finance tab

This screen contains some basic financial information about the supplier. Users with restricted access may be able to view this page and other pages but will not be able to edit the contents.

Currency - is the currency in which we pay this supplier. The current contents of the drop-down list (set by Admin) are: CAD, USD, EURO. (Some images from the Demo site may show AUD) There may be some suppliers that we pay in more than one currency. In this case, it will be necessary to enter the supplier information twice, once for each currency. You might then have BIN001 for CAD and BIN001U for USD, for example. If the address is the same for both currency accounts, the same info can be linked to each, so that the address need only be entered once.
Supplier Since - will be used in the future for reports, anniversary notices, etc. The date can be typed in, or selected from the calendar control. The format of the date display is set in the user preferences. This field may be left blank.
Payment Terms - is the same list of terms used for both vendors and our dealers.
Tax Group - a dropdown set by Admin: Canada (default), Canada (Maritimes), No Taxes. These will determine the taxes applicable to a purchase from this supplier, basically GST, HST, and None. More realistic examples might include state tax (payable to suppliers in same state as manufacturer but not in other states), and federal tax.

The following four fields came with eGroupWare and their purppose is unclear. They may not be relevant to your situation and all can be left blank:

- Bank Account
- Bank Reference
- Bank Particulars
- Remittance

Catalog Tab

This tab contains, among other features, a catalog of supplier products. This list could conceivably be quite long, and you will want the search bar to make finding products easy.

Figure 4-31 A Catalog for a supplier. This particular catalog contains only three items. These products may or may not have an equivalent code in our system. If they do not have a pERP SKU, they will not be tracked in Inventory. However, they can be purchased, shipped, received, and invoiced (or just invoiced if you wish, without the other steps).

WARNING: The Search Bar shown above does not save any changes if you flip to a different page of results, change your filters, or search for something. Any additions or edits made to the records displayed will be discarded when the next group of records is displayed.

If you're doing data entry or edits on a page with a search bar, you have two choices:

Set the page size so all records are shown at once on the screen
Make sure you get in the habit of clicking 'Save' before moving to the next page of records, changing a filter, etc..

Items shown in blue on a screen will do something. In the Header Bar, clicking on a blue header will sort by that header, either ascending (v) or descending (^).

You can click on one of the stock (numbers under Our Code) and open that item in the Stock List. Save any changes you make then to go back to your supplier screen either use your browser Back button a couple of times or go to A/P > Suppliers from the main icon bar.

The supplier catalogue is built up gradually using the New Item button at bottom left, which opens a popup that allows you to enter new information.

Note: "Their Code" is the supplier part number.

Figure 4-32 The popup for entering new catalog information. The supplier name is shown at the top.

Supplier Stock Code on this pop-up is the SUPPLIER code. Don't get mixed up. Note that this is a mandatory field.

NOTE: The supplier stock code CANNOT be left blank.

NOTE: The supplier stock code MUST contain a unique identifying number.  If you do not have a supplier number,
 do not use a description such as "N/A" or "Unknown".  Instead, use the short description as the supplier stock code.

Description - an optional field for the SUPPLIER description of the part, which may not match our description. Although it is optional, you are strongly advised to complete this field. Supplier Price is the amount per number of units as we purchase from that supplier. This line contains four parts describing how we buy this item from the supplier

Unit Cost field (just enter a number with no currency symbol)
Currency (which cannot be changed here, as it comes from the Finance tab for the supplier)
Quantity field - default is 1
UOM (unit of measure) field.

These four fields are how we purchase this item. Together, they determine costing information. For example, 147 EUR per 1 each, or 15 CAD/1 roll, or 287 USD/1 case or $9.95 per litre. This information is tracked elsewhere in pERP to determine cost trends, cost of builds, and other information.

NOTE: DO NOT include the currency symbol when you enter the amount.  Entering $14.79 as the Unit Cost would give an error 
like "'$14.79' is not a valid floatingpoint number", which is computer talk for "Don't use the currency symbol!". 
You would get the same error if you had entered [pound sign]14.79 or [euro sign]14.79.

Orders Tab

The Orders tab displays current (open) purchase orders for this supplier. You can click on an order number to open and examine the order (or right click on an order number to open the order in a new tab while leaving the supplier record open. Close the new tab when done).

Shipments Tab

This tab shows the status of any current shipments for this supplier. When a shipment has been received (see Receiving), a shipment number will be created and placed in this list.

Invoices Tab

This tab gives a quick look at the invoices for the supplier. You can use the status filter to select the invoices you need:

All - shows all invoices regardless of status
Not Posted - invoices that may have been started and saved but which have not been posted
Due - compares the invoice due date to the system date; invoices not yet due are in black text
Overdue - invoices due or overdue are flagged by red text in the due date
Open - invoices that have been entered and posted but not yet paid
Closed - posted and paid

The Search field will allow you to locate a specific invoice by Our Reference or Their Reference; you cannot search any other column. You can also sort the invoices by any header in blue.

For further information, see AP Invoices

Ledger Tab

The Ledger tab shows transactions related to this supplier.

Removing a Supplier

If for any reason you no longer wish to have a supplier in your list (supplier goes out of business, drops the products you purchase, etc) you cannot simply delete the supplier record. Doing so would corrupt all the financial records attached to that supplier.

WARNING!

DELETING A SUPPLIER WHICH IS LINKED TO FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS MAY HAVE UNFORSEEN AND DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES.

The correct way to remove a supplier is to set the supplier status to disabled (requires edit permission). Select the supplier record, find the Status field in the bottom left of the Address Tab, and select Disabled from the list. Save the record. The company will no longer appear in the Supplier List unless its status is set to Disabled or All, as shown below.