Suppliers

Part of the IP4CMS portal. ← All module guides

What it's for — The Suppliers module is where you keep a directory of the service providers — the vendors and contractors your estate pays for services rendered. Each supplier record holds their contact details, banking and tax information, payment terms and a running financial account balance (what you owe them). Suppliers can also be grouped into categories, given login access to their own supplier portal, and rolled up into batch payouts when you settle outstanding balances.

Where to find it — In the main left-hand navigation, click Suppliers. This opens the supplier list at /app/suppliers. From the list toolbar you can also reach Manage categories (/app/suppliers/categories). Individual supplier pages live at /app/suppliers/<id>.

Before you start — You need:

• The Suppliers licence module enabled for your tenant. If it is switched off, the Suppliers item does not appear in the navigation and the API rejects requests.
• At minimum the suppliers:read:all permission to see the module. To add, edit, delete and manage portal users you also need suppliers:create:all, suppliers:update:all and suppliers:delete:all respectively. A user with admin:full:access has all of these.
• Currencies must be configured in your financial settings, because every supplier is created with a financial account in a chosen currency. The form defaults to your tenant's default transaction currency.

Key tasks

Add a supplier (quick add)

1. Go to Suppliers.
2. Click Add Supplier in the top-right of the list. A modal opens.
3. Choose the Supplier Type:

• Individual — requires First Name and Last Name.
• Organization — requires Organization Name.

1. Fill in the optional contact, address, tax and banking fields (see field list below).
2. Set Currency (required — this is the currency of the supplier's financial account and cannot be changed later) and Payment Terms.
3. Click Create. The supplier is saved, a financial account is created automatically, and the list refreshes.

Add or edit a supplier (full form)

The full-page form gives you every field plus Status and Category, which the quick-add modal does not.

1. To create: open the new-supplier route (/app/suppliers/new). To edit: open a supplier and click Edit Supplier, or use the row action.
2. Work through the sections: Supplier Type, Personal/Organization Information, Contact Information, Financial Settings, Banking Details, Address Information, Tax Information, Status and Category, and Notes.
3. Click Create Supplier / Update Supplier.

Fields

• Supplier Type (required) — Individual or Organization. Drives which name fields are required.
• First Name / Last Name — required for individuals.
• Organization Name — required for organizations.
• Email — validated as an email address if entered.
• Phone
• Address — Street Address, Address Line 2, City, State/Province, Postal Code, Country (defaults to USA).
• Tax ID and VAT Number.
• Bank Name, Account Number, Routing Number, SWIFT/BIC Code — SWIFT is used for international wire transfers and feeds the payout file.
• Payment Terms — Net 30 (default), Net 60, Net 90, Due on Receipt, or Cash on Delivery.
• Currency (required) — set at creation only; locked when editing.
• Status (full form only) — Active, Inactive or Suspended. New suppliers default to Active.
• Category (full form only) — optional; pick from your supplier categories or leave as "None".
• Notes — free text.

View a supplier

1. Click a supplier in the list.
2. The detail page shows an information card (status, account balance, contact, banking, address, tax, dates) on the left and tabs on the right:

• Overview — financial account summary, banking details, notes, tags. If no account exists yet, a notice explains one will be created on next update.
• Transactions — the supplier account's transaction ledger, with the option to create transactions, when the account exists.
• Documents — placeholder ("coming soon").
• Users — supplier-portal accounts (visible only if you can manage users).

A negative balance means you owe the supplier money; a positive balance is a credit; zero means nothing outstanding.

Delete a supplier

1. Open the supplier (or use the row action in the list).
2. Click Delete Supplier and confirm. This is a soft delete — the record is hidden and its status set to Inactive, not physically removed.

Filter and search the list

• Use the search box to match across first name, last name, organisation name and email.
• Use the toolbar filters for Supplier Type and Status.
• The grid is paginated (20 per page by default) and shows Account Code, Supplier Name, Type, Email, Phone, Balance, Status and Created date.

Manage supplier categories

1. From the supplier list, click Manage categories (/app/suppliers/categories).
2. Click New supplier category, or the edit action on an existing one.
3. Fill in:

• Code (required, up to 50 characters) — a short identifier.
• Name (required, up to 255 characters).
• Display order (required, 0 or higher) — controls ordering in dropdowns.

1. Save. To remove a category, use Delete — suppliers using it will have their category cleared (the suppliers themselves are not deleted).

Manage supplier-portal accounts (Users tab)

The Users tab lets a supplier log into their own portal. It is only shown if you have suppliers:update:all.

• Invite via Email — enter the supplier user's email. They receive an email with a temporary password and are prompted to change it on first login.
• Create User — set email, a password (minimum 8 characters), an optional Role (the default supplier role is pre-selected), and optional name/phone. Use this to create the login directly instead of emailing an invite.
• Resend — resets the user's password and re-sends login credentials. A temporary password may be shown back to you on screen.
• Deactivate / Activate — disables or re-enables a user's ability to log in.
• Delete — permanently removes the portal user.

Supplier self-signup (public portal)

Suppliers can register themselves from a public supplier-portal site without a portal operator creating them first. The flow is: the supplier enters their details and email or mobile → an OTP verification code is sent → they confirm the code and set a password → an account creation step creates both the supplier record and a linked portal user. This requires the Suppliers module to be enabled. Operators do not drive this flow; it surfaces in the portal as new supplier records and portal users.

Supplier payouts (settling balances)

Payouts batch up suppliers who have a positive (payable) balance so you can pay them and record the settlement. This is an administrative operation:

1. Preview pending — list suppliers with a payable balance, optionally filtered by currency and a minimum amount. Each line shows the payable amount and the supplier's banking details (bank name, account number, routing number, SWIFT, account holder).
2. Create a batch — generates a draft payout batch with a batch number, total and one line per eligible supplier. You can restrict it to specific suppliers, a currency and a minimum amount.
3. Export the bank file — download the batch as a CSV of payment instructions to upload to your bank, which marks the batch as Exported.
4. Mark paid — once your bank has paid, record a payment reference. This posts the settlement journal (clearing the supplier balances) and marks the batch and all its lines Paid.

These payout actions currently require admin:full:access (full admin). They are not exposed as a self-service screen inside the standard Suppliers list pages.

How the data connects

• What you enter in the supplier form (name, contact, banking, tax, terms, currency, category, notes) is stored on the supplier record, scoped to your tenant.
• Creating a supplier automatically creates a financial account in the chosen currency and links it. The account holds the running balance shown on the list and detail page. Older suppliers without an account get one created the next time they are updated.
• Creating a supplier also provisions an auth scope so the supplier can later be given portal logins. Portal users you invite or create attach to that scope; supplier self-signup creates the supplier and its first portal user together.
• Categories are a separate, tenant-scoped lookup table. A supplier optionally references one category; deleting a category clears that reference on its suppliers.
• The account balance feeds payouts. Suppliers with a positive balance are eligible for a payout batch. The batch copies each supplier's banking details onto its lines, produces a CSV bank file, and on "mark paid" posts a settlement journal and flips the batch and lines to Paid.
• The member/resident app can see a minimal, safe projection of active suppliers (name, category, phone, email only) — banking, tax and account data are never exposed to members.

Permissions & access

• Holding admin:full:access grants all of the above.
• The whole module is gated by the Suppliers licence module. With it disabled, the nav item is hidden and the supplier, category, signup and payout endpoints are blocked.
• The Users tab and portal-account management appear only if you have suppliers:update:all.
• The member-portal supplier list is gated by module membership only and exposes minimal fields.

Tips & gotchas

• Currency is permanent. A supplier's account currency is chosen at creation and the field is locked when editing. Create a new supplier if you need a different currency.
• Quick add vs full form. The "Add Supplier" modal omits Status and Category — new suppliers default to Active with no category. Use the full form (or edit afterwards) to set those.
• A missing financial account is normal for older records. If you see the "no financial account yet" notice, simply edit and save the supplier and the account is created automatically.
• Deletes are soft. Deleting a supplier hides it and sets it Inactive; it is not erased. The same supplier email could therefore still collide on a fresh signup.
• Negative balance = you owe them. On the detail page a negative (red) balance is the amount payable to the supplier; that's what becomes a payout line.
• Suspended vs Inactive. Both stop a supplier appearing as Active to members; choose Suspended to flag a temporary hold and Inactive for retired suppliers.
• Resending an invite resets the password. "Resend" issues a brand-new temporary password — the supplier's previous one stops working immediately.
• Banking details drive payouts. Bank account number, routing number and SWIFT are copied into the payout file. Lines flag whether bank details are present, so keep them complete for suppliers you intend to pay.
• The Documents tab is a placeholder and not yet functional.
• Payouts have no dedicated UI screen here — they run through admin APIs and require full admin access.