Suppliers
Suppliers in Alfred live under Configurations › Suppliers. Each supplier record holds the contact info, payment terms, and currency Alfred uses when emailing POs and computing landed costs. Each supplier also has a per-product catalog — per-variant supplier SKU, unit cost, lead time, MOQ, and pack size — that flows into purchase plans and pre-fills PO line items. Assigning a primary supplier to a product is what makes the Purchase Planner and PO staging pages 'just know' which supplier should fulfill each line.
Key Concepts
Supplier Record
Each supplier captures: business name + address, primary contact email (used as the default 'To' when you send POs), notes, default lead time in days, currency, MOQ (units and/or amount), payment terms, and incoterms. Three contact roles are tracked separately — Primary Ordering Contact, Fallback Order Contact, and Billing Contact — each with name / email / phone fields. The primary ordering contact's email is what pre-fills on the Send to Supplier modal; the billing contact is captured for your records and shown on supplier-facing emails when present.
Supplier Catalog (Supplied Products)
Every supplier has a Supplied Products card listing each Shopify variant this supplier can fulfill, with per-variant supplier SKU, supplier unit cost, lead time override (falls back to the supplier default), MOQ, and pack size. These values flow into Purchase Planner forecasts and PO line items: when you stage a PO from a plan, Alfred resolves cost as supplier > product default > Shopify cost, and lead time as supplier > product default > plan default. Pack size and MOQ work the same way — the supplier catalog wins where set.
Primary Supplier (on Product Configurations)
A product can be supplied by multiple suppliers, but only one is the primary. The primary supplier is what pre-fills on PO staging and what the Purchase Planner uses to compute cost / lead time. Set primary suppliers in bulk under Configurations › Product Configurations using the 'Set Primary Supplier' bulk action, or one at a time via the Primary Supplier picker on each product row.
Auto-Link from POs
When you add a variant to a PO from a supplier that doesn't yet have it in their catalog, Alfred auto-creates the Supplier Product link silently. If you typed a supplier SKU on the PO line and the catalog row had none, Alfred backfills it. Existing catalog values are never overwritten — your edits on the supplier detail page always win. This keeps the catalog growing organically without manual data-entry tax.
Supplier-Scoped Purchase Orders
Every supplier detail page has a Purchase Orders card listing every PO ever sent to that supplier — status, dates, totals — with a click-through to each PO detail. A Credit Memos card shows every supplier credit memo, with running totals (Requested / Confirmed / Applied). Both lists are scoped to that supplier and respect your active currency.
Currency
Set each supplier's currency on the Purchase Details card. When you start a PO with a supplier, Alfred pre-fills PO currency from the supplier and warns you if you try to override it. Supplier unit costs are stored in the supplier's currency — when you save costs back to the catalog from a PO (the 'Save supplier costs?' prompt on draft → submitted), Alfred refuses if the PO currency doesn't match the supplier's, to keep the catalog clean.
How to Use
Add a supplier
Configurations › Suppliers, click Add supplier. Fill in name (required), address, currency, and contacts. You can save without a full address — the only hard requirement is a name + country. Email on the supplier record becomes the default 'To' on every Send to Supplier modal for POs assigned to that supplier.
Set purchase details
On the supplier detail page, fill in the Purchase Details card: default lead time (days), currency, MOQ, payment terms (Net 30, Net 60, etc.), and incoterms (FOB, DAP, etc.). These defaults flow into every new PO with this supplier — you can override per-PO when needed.
Build the supplier's product catalog
Scroll to Supplied Products on the supplier detail page. Use Add products to browse your Shopify catalog and select variants this supplier can fulfill. For each linked product, fill in supplier SKU, unit cost, lead time (if different from the supplier default), MOQ, and pack size. These values pre-fill PO line items and forecast inputs.
Assign as primary on products
Go to Configurations › Product Configurations. For each product that this supplier should be the default for, set the Primary Supplier dropdown to this supplier. Or select multiple rows and use the bulk 'Set Primary Supplier' action. Primary supplier is what drives auto-population on PO staging and forecast cost / lead time math.
Edit or delete a supplier
Edit any supplier field inline on the detail page — changes save automatically. To delete a supplier, click Delete on the supplier detail page; suppliers with active POs cannot be deleted until those POs are received or cancelled. Deletion also clears the primary supplier assignment on any product that pointed to it.
Tips & Best Practices
- ✓Set the supplier email and currency BEFORE you send your first PO — both pre-fill into the Send modal and the PO currency, saving manual entry every time.
- ✓Use the bulk 'Set Primary Supplier' action under Product Configurations to wire up dozens of products to one supplier in seconds.
- ✓Supplier unit costs in the catalog should reflect the price you actually pay, not your retail cost. Alfred uses these for landed cost, GMROI, and OTB budget math.
- ✓If a supplier has multiple ordering contacts (e.g. one for normal restocks, one for urgent), set the Primary Ordering Contact and Fallback Contact on the supplier record. Both surface in supplier-facing materials.
- ✓MOQ on the supplier record is a hard floor — Alfred rounds purchase quantities up to MOQ automatically in PO staging. Set it only when the supplier truly enforces it.
- ✓Per-variant supplier overrides win over the supplier-level default. Set the default once on the supplier, then override per-variant for the few SKUs that ship faster or cost less.