Creating Vendors

You can display the Vendor Form at any time by simply clicking on the Vendors button in the "Views" box or pressing the [F3] keyboard key. Just like other data forms, you add a vendor by clicking on the Add button or pressing [Alt-A]. You do not have to close the form you were on, since you can use the Views buttons to get back to it after you finish adding a vendor.

On most forms where a vendor is needed, you can also add a vendor "on the fly" by clicking on the small New button next to the Vendor ID pick list. This takes you to the vendor form and returns you to where you started after you save the new vendor.

The original concept for the vendor list was design-oriented, as a list of manufacturers and their local representatives. The Vendor ID, then, is usually created as an abbreviation of the manufacturing company, with the "contact" information on the first tabbed page used for the representative for that manufacturer. In the "Manufacturer" section are additional fields that can be used for contacts at the manufacturer's headquarters, unless these are the same as the "representative".

The "Main Address" is, by default, where orders would be sent (and if items are shipped to this vendor, it is also the default shipping address). But you can set up alternate ordering and shipping addresses as needed in the Vendor screen's "Other addresses" section. Ordering worksheets will look for the most specific address first when selecting one to print.

Besides products, vendors can be used to specify other activities on a project, such as installation contractors, staging warehouses, etc.

Each FF&EZ vendor list is delivered with a "TBD" vendor ("To Be Determined"). This vendor can be used as a placeholder on specifications that are being set up for bids from different suppliers or for which no vendor has been selected. It cannot be deleted, since a number of automatic functions use it for "placeholder" specs. You can edit the other fields on it, though.

Supplier Vendors

As of version 3.2, FF&EZ can also handle supplier vendors, which are simply vendors that have the "Supplier" flag checked on the Vendor Form. This means that you can specify the manufacturer of a product and the manufacturer's model number as usual, but within a project, the spec screen also allows you to select a supplier (and the supplier's own item number) from whom you would actually order the product for that project. When a supplier vendor is selected, order-related reports and orders (in Design/Purchasing) show the suppliers' information for ordering purposes and print the original vendor (manufacturer) information in the item description. A supplier can be assigned individually by editing a spec or you can use the Assign Supplier utility to assign a supplier to a group of specs or replace an existing supplier with a different one.

The default "to be determined" vendor (TBD) can be flagged as a supplier if you want to use it to deliberately mark specs that will be supplied by a vendor different from the manufacturer. As an alternative, you could set up a supplier version, such as "STBD" or "TBD-SUP" as a "Supplier to be Determined" vendor. The second example would sort all "TBD" vendor data in adjacent sections on reports.

Other Vendor Types

In addition to the two most common types of vendors, you can designate a vendor as a "Freight line" or shipping vendor and as a "Staging/warehouse" vendor. The latter type functions mainly as a way to ship products to something other than the project site or to another vendor. In both cases, these vendors will appear on "short lists" where that specific type of vendor would be selected.

"Master" Vendors

There is one other "flag" that can be set for a vendor, the "Master" flag. It signifies a vendor that is considered the primary or "master" version when more than one instance of the same vendor is needed (for instance, local representatives). All vendors are created with this flag enabled, so you only need to disable it for secondary instances. This is a relatively new feature, so master vendors in older vendor lists may need to be set with the Utilities> Set Masters command on the Vendor screen.

Discounts

FF&EZ offers a simple way to include an automatic vendor discount for products from selected vendors. This can be employed as a permanent discount if you are a large client for whom a discount has been given, or a discount can be entered temporarily on the vendor record when entering the vendor's quote on a project (and then removed from the vendor record afterwards). The discount in FF&EZ is expressed as a "% of catalog cost." That is, if you get a 15% discount, you would enter it as 85% of the catalog cost.

Like other percentages in the system, a vendor discount is copied to a spec after the vendor is selected (or reselected), however unlike the others, a change to the percentage on the vendor record does not trigger an ability to cascade the change to the specs. This is because vendors can be used in too many projects and the potential for inadvertently creating incorrect costs in multiple projects is too great to risk.

However, you can update the vendor discount in a specific project by using the Pricing Tool.

Managing Older Vendors and Projects

As you use the system, vendors will change. They will move or expand with alternate addresses for shipping or ordering and their representatives may change. Remember that making a change to a vendor record will be reflected in every project that references that vendor, so you will want to make those changes in a way that makes sense for older projects.

If you want all your specifications to always reference the latest data for a vendor, you only need to keep the vendor's information current on the Vendor screen.

However, if you want older projects to retain the vendor data that was originally used for that project, you can easily set up an "archival" version of a vendor to which the older projects will continue to point. To do so:

Locate the original vendor in the vendor list. Use Edit to change its Vendor ID to one denoting that it is an "old" version of the vendor. You can add a suffix or a symbol to the end or a prefix that makes all "old" vendors sort to the same location in the vendor list (symbols used as prefixes will make those vendors sort to either the top or the bottom, depending on the symbol used). You might also want to add a note to the end of the vendor name or in the vendor's notes field, depending on how visible you want it to be on reports.
Save the vendor.
Now, use the Clone command to create a new version of the vendor. For the "Vendor ID," use the original vendor ID for that vendor (this is why you needed to change the original to a slightly different one in step 1). Change any other information that is needed to make it the "current" version.
Optional (if applicable): If all projects for the old version of the vendor are closed, you can edit the old vendor again and mark it as "Obsolete" to prevent it from appearing in vendor pick lists.
You can now use the "new" version of the vendor for all new specs.

Important: If you have existing projects that already used the old version of the vendor, they will still point to the old vendor (changes to the Vendor ID flow to the specs just like any other data on the Vendor screen).

To point any existing project specs to the new version (if you need to) do this:

Open the project
Display the Specification screen.
Locate any specification using the old vendor.
If there is only one or two, you can simply edit those specs and point them to the new vendor. However, if there are more than a few. Select the Utilities> Reassign Vendor command and select the new version of the vendor.
Repeat this for any other projects in which the new version needs to be used.

Note that this is the Reassign Vendor command on the Specifications screen, which only affects specs in that project. The version that you find on the Vendor screen will change all specifications in all projects, which defeats the purpose of keeping the old version of the vendor.

If the new vendor refers to a Supplier, the same general approach can be used, however instead of using the Reassign Vendor utility, use the Assign Supplier utility instead.