A vendor is any company you buy from — a distributor, a manufacturer, a wholesaler, a drop shipper, or a 3PL. The vendor record holds the terms of that relationship, and purchase orders, drop-ship routing, product costs and your storefront’s delivery and pickup options all read from it.
Where vendors live
Go to Purchasing → Vendors in the sidebar. Purchasing is its own top-level section, and it appears when your plan includes fulfillment.
The vendor record — the supplier record itself — is read in more places than most dealers expect:
- Purchase orders — the PO picks up the vendor’s payment terms, and the PO document is delivered to the address configured on the vendor’s Integration tab. Only vendors with Status: Active appear in the vendor picker when you create a purchase order.
- Drop ship — only vendors with Drop Ship Enabled appear in the drop-ship vendor picker on a product, and in the vendor picker when you create a vendor shipment from an order.
- Your storefront — the Delivery and Warehouse Pickup options on a product page come from that product’s vendor, and only while the vendor is active.
- Feeds and costs — product and inventory feeds hang off the vendor, and every vendor part number and vendor cost is stored as a vendor product (a product alias) pointing back at it. A vendor can hold as many feeds as you need — an item-master feed, one or more inventory feeds, and enrichment feeds side by side.
Adding a vendor
- Open the vendor list — go to Purchasing → Vendors.
- Click Add Vendor — top right of the page (the empty state has the same button).
- Fill in the form — only Vendor Name and Vendor Code are required; the Create Vendor button stays disabled until both have a value.
- Click Create Vendor — in the Actions card on the right.
- Land on the vendor — you’re taken straight to the new vendor’s detail page, where every remaining setting lives.
📷 Screenshot: The Add Vendor form filled out — Basic Information, Capabilities and Primary Contact sections visible, with the Actions and Quick Tips sidebar on the right (placeholder — replace with
/docs-images/vendors/adding-a-vendor-create-form.png)
Basic Information
| Field | Required | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor Name | Yes | The company name. Shown throughout the app and printed on the PO document. Product imports that carry a vendor column match on this name. |
| Vendor Code | Yes | Short reference code, max 50 characters. Saved in upper case no matter how you type it. It’s the first thing an import looks at when deciding whether a vendor already exists, so keep codes distinct. |
| Vendor Type | Yes | Distributor, Manufacturer, Wholesaler, Dropshipper, or 3PL Warehouse. Drives the type badge on the list and the All Types filter. Defaults to Distributor. |
| Status | — | Active, Pending Setup, On Hold, or Inactive. Defaults to Active. Only Active vendors can be picked when creating a purchase order, so leave a vendor on Pending Setup while you’re still gathering account details. |
| Website | — | Reference only. Enter a full URL including https://. |
Capabilities
Three checkboxes, described on the form itself:
| Checkbox | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier — you purchase inventory from this vendor | On | A label. Nothing else in the app changes based on it. |
| Drop Ship Enabled — vendor can ship directly to your customers | Off | The one capability with teeth. It unlocks the vendor’s Drop Ship tab, counts toward the Drop Ship Enabled stat card, and is the filter behind every drop-ship vendor picker in the app. |
| Manufacturer — vendor manufactures products | Off | A label. Manufacturer as a type is set in Basic Information; this is separate and purely descriptive. |
ℹ️ Note: Turning on Drop Ship Enabled does not make any product drop-ship. That’s decided per product, by setting the product’s vendor or drop-ship vendor. See Products.
Primary Contact
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Contact Name | Shown in the Contact column of the vendor list. |
| Contact Email | Printed on the PO document as the vendor’s email. This is not where the PO is sent — the destination is set on the Integration tab, covered further down. |
| Contact Phone | Reference only. |
⚠️ Warning: These three fields are the vendor record’s contact, which is a different thing from the entries on the Contacts tab. The list view, the PO document, and the vendor header all read these fields — not your contact directory.
Account Information
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Account Number | Your account number with this vendor. Printed on the PO document as the customer number, so the vendor can identify you. |
| Payment Terms | Prepaid, COD, Net 15, Net 30, Net 45, Net 60, Net 90, or 2% 10 Net 30. Copied onto every purchase order raised against this vendor — both the ones you create by hand and the ones a drop-ship order raises automatically — and printed on the PO. You can still override the terms on an individual PO. |
| Credit Limit | Recorded on the vendor for reference. Nothing checks it when you raise a PO. |
| Minimum Order Amount | Recorded on the vendor for reference. Nothing blocks an undersized order. |
⚠️ Warning: The Payment Terms list on the vendor’s detail page is shorter than the one on this create form — it stops at Net 60. A vendor saved as Net 90 or 2% 10 Net 30 shows a blank Payment Terms box when you reopen it. The stored value is unchanged, and purchase orders still pick it up, but the box stays blank until you choose something from the shorter list.
Notes
Internal Notes is free text, visible only inside your dashboard. It never reaches the vendor.
What ILLUMA fills in for you
Saving the form also sets a handful of values you never see on the create screen:
| Setting | Value on a new vendor |
|---|---|
| Vendor number | Allocated from your VND number series — VND-1000 upward on a standard setup. Editable at Settings → Number Series. |
| Vendor code | Upper-cased. |
| Currency | USD |
| PO submission method | None (Manual) — see Sending Purchase Orders before you raise a PO |
| Drop ship method | Manual |
| Blind drop ship | On |
| Include packing slip | Off |
| Home delivery (storefront) | On |
| Warehouse pickup (storefront) | Off |
| Performance counters | Empty — no rating, no on-time rate, no fill rate, no lead time, zero orders, $0.00 spend |
ℹ️ Note: The Performance card is display-only. Nothing in the platform calculates rating, on-time rate, fill rate or average lead time yet, so a vendor you use daily still reads N/A. Total Spend behaves the same way.
The vendor list
📷 Screenshot: The Vendors list — four stat cards across the top, the search box and Type/Status/Drop Ship Only filters, and the vendor table below (placeholder — replace with
/docs-images/vendors/adding-a-vendor-list.png)
Four stat cards sit above the table. The first three are clickable shortcuts that apply the matching filter:
| Card | Counts |
|---|---|
| Active Vendors | Vendors that are not deactivated and whose status is Active |
| Drop Ship Enabled | Active vendors with Drop Ship Enabled |
| Pending Setup | Vendors whose status is Pending |
| Open POs | Purchase orders in draft, pending approval, approved, sent, confirmed or partially received |
Below them: a search box, an All Types filter, an All Statuses filter, and a Drop Ship Only checkbox. Search matches vendor name, code, vendor number and contact name.
The table shows up to 100 vendors, sorted by name:
| Column | Contents |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Code, name, and vendor number stacked |
| Type | The type badge |
| Contact | The vendor record’s contact name and email, or a dash |
| Status | Active / Pending / On Hold / Inactive |
| Drop Ship | A green check when Drop Ship Enabled is on |
| Performance | Rating and on-time rate, when they exist |
| Total Spend | Currency total, or $0.00 |
Click any row to open the vendor.
💡 Tip: Deactivated vendors are hidden from this list by default. Choose Status → Inactive to see them.
The vendor detail page
The header shows the vendor code, name, type and status badges, and the vendor number, over a stats bar of Products, Total POs, Open POs and Total Spend. Everything else is organized into tabs:
| Tab | What’s there |
|---|---|
| Overview | Basic Information, Primary Contact, Account Information, read-only Performance, and Notes — the same fields as the create form |
| Contacts | The contact directory for this vendor |
| Products | Every product sourced from this vendor |
| Drop Ship | Operational drop-ship settings, once Drop Ship Enabled is on |
| Storefront Fulfillment | Delivery and warehouse pickup shown to customers |
| Integration | PO submission method, plus this vendor’s product feeds, inventory feeds and SFTP connections |
| Purchase Orders | Not built yet — manage POs from Purchasing → Purchase Orders |
📷 Screenshot: A vendor detail page on the Overview tab — code badge and name in the header, the four-figure stats bar, the tab row, and the Basic Information / Primary Contact cards (placeholder — replace with
/docs-images/vendors/adding-a-vendor-detail-overview.png)
⚠️ Warning: There is one Save Changes button, in the page header, and it only appears once something has changed. It saves edits made on any tab. If you change a drop-ship setting and then navigate away without pressing it, the change is lost.
Products tab
Lists this vendor’s vendor products — the aliases that tie a vendor part number to one of your products. One row per product this vendor supplies, with your SKU, the vendor’s SKU, the cost, the product status, and Preferred / Dropship tags. Rows appear here when a feed’s proposals are applied, or when you add a source on a product’s Vendors tab. The Products figure in the stats bar counts active aliases only.
Contacts
The Contacts tab is a directory of the people you deal with at this vendor. It’s separate from the Primary Contact fields on the Overview tab.
- Open the Contacts tab — on the vendor’s detail page.
- Click Add Contact — top right of the panel.
- Fill in the contact — Name is required; Title, Email, Phone and Department are optional. Department offers Sales, Support, Accounting, Shipping and Technical.
- Tick the roles that apply — Primary Contact, Receives POs, Billing Contact, Technical Contact.
- Click Add — the contact appears as a card with the person’s initials, their roles as tags, and their email as a clickable link.
📷 Screenshot: The Add Contact dialog with name/title/email/phone filled, the Department dropdown open, and the four role checkboxes below (placeholder — replace with
/docs-images/vendors/adding-a-vendor-contact-modal.png)
| Role | What it means |
|---|---|
| Primary Contact | Only one contact per vendor can hold it. Marking a new one automatically clears the flag from the previous holder. Primary contacts sort to the top of the list and carry a Primary badge. |
| Receives POs | A label on the card (“Ordering”). It does not change where a purchase order is emailed. |
| Billing Contact | A label (“Billing”). |
| Technical Contact | A label (“Technical”). |
⚠️ Warning: Purchase orders are never emailed to contacts, including ones marked Receives POs. The destination comes from the Integration tab. Use the directory to know who to call — set the PO address separately.
An invalid email address is rejected when you save, and addresses are stored in lower case. Use the ✎ button on a card to edit a contact and the × button to delete one — deleting a contact removes it permanently, unlike deleting a vendor.
Drop Ship tab
The tab is inert until Drop Ship Enabled is ticked on the Overview tab; until then it just says so. Once enabled:
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Lead Time (Days) | How long this vendor typically takes to ship. Recorded on the vendor for your team’s reference. |
| Drop Ship Fee | The per-order fee this vendor charges. Recorded for reference. |
| Blind Drop Ship | On by default. A record of your agreement that the vendor ships without their own branding. |
| Include Packing Slip | Off by default. A record of your agreement. |
ℹ️ Note: These four are documentation of the deal, not switches. The drop-ship PO is built from the order and sent using the vendor’s Integration settings — it doesn’t change based on any of them today. Whether a given product drop-ships, and through which vendor, is set on the product.
Storefront Fulfillment tab
This tab controls what customers see on the product page for items sourced from this vendor. The storefront resolves a product’s vendor from its drop-ship vendor first, then its vendor, then its parent product’s vendor — and reads these settings from that vendor.
- Offer home delivery — on by default. Turn it off and the Delivery option disappears for this vendor’s products.
- Offer warehouse pickup (customer will-call) — off by default. Turning it on reveals the pickup settings and the warehouse list.
With delivery on, two optional display fields appear. Display Label is shown in parentheses after “Delivery” (for example $400 Flat Rate). Flat Rate (cents) is, in the tab’s own words, reserved for a future price fallback and is not applied at checkout today. Leave both blank when delivery is already priced into the SKU.
With pickup on, you get Help Phone Override and Help Text Override for the panel footer — both fall back to your dealer defaults when blank — plus the warehouse network.
Warehouse network
Each row you add with + Add Location becomes a pickup option on the product page. A row needs a Warehouse Code, City, State and ZIP to be shown to customers; street address, suite, country, ready-in days and sort order fill out the display. Sort Order controls the order customers see. Unticking Active keeps the row but hides it.
📷 Screenshot: The Warehouse Network panel with one location row expanded — code, address, city/state/ZIP, ready-in min/max days, sort order, and the Active checkbox with the Remove button (placeholder — replace with
/docs-images/vendors/adding-a-vendor-warehouse-row.png)
ℹ️ Note: Pickup only shows if the vendor has at least one active location. An individual product can opt out of either option with Hide Delivery option for this product / Hide Warehouse Pickup option for this product on its edit page. A deactivated vendor shows neither.
How purchase orders reach this vendor
The Integration tab opens with PO Submission Method, which decides how a purchase order raised against this vendor is transmitted — the choices are None (Manual), Email, Freshdesk Ticketing, and four methods that are shown but not yet built. Each one, what it sends, and which fields it needs are documented in Sending Purchase Orders; set the method here, and read that article before you raise the vendor’s first PO.
💡 Tip: For a vendor you create in the dashboard, choose Email and fill in Submission Email. That is the configuration to use today — see Sending Purchase Orders for why the default method needs an address the dashboard has no field for.
Pulling product and inventory files from a vendor is a different thing entirely, configured further down the same tab under Products, Inventory and Connections — and a vendor can carry several feeds at once. See Product Feeds, Inventory Feeds, Spreadsheet Uploads and Vendor Connections.
Vendors created automatically by an import
A product import that carries a vendor or dropship_vendor column creates any vendor it can’t find. It matches on code first, then on the exact name, and only creates a record if neither hits.
Auto-created vendors arrive thin: the name from your spreadsheet, a lower-case hyphenated code derived from that name, and nothing else — no contact, no terms, no vendor number. The import also stamps the record’s type as supplier, which isn’t one of the five choices on the form, so the Vendor Type box reads blank when you open the vendor. The vendor is active, but no Status is set either.
💡 Tip: After a big import, open every vendor with a lower-case-looking code. Pick a Vendor Type, confirm the Status, add the account number and payment terms, and the vendor is ready to order from.
Deactivating a vendor
Delete on the vendor’s detail page deactivates rather than destroys — the confirmation dialog says so. The vendor’s status becomes Inactive, it drops out of the default list, out of purchase-order vendor pickers, and its products stop showing storefront delivery and pickup options. Its purchase-order history, product links, costs and contacts are all kept, and you can still open it by filtering Status → Inactive.
⚠️ Warning: Deactivating can’t be undone from the vendor page. The deactivation flag is separate from the Status field, and the dashboard has no control for it — setting Status back to Active does not return the vendor to the list. If you only want to stop ordering from a vendor for a while, set Status → On Hold instead of deleting; if a vendor was deactivated by mistake, ask ILLUMA support to restore it.
Next
With the vendor record in place:
- Set up how its catalogue reaches you — Product Feeds, or a one-off Spreadsheet Upload.
- Keep stock in step — Inventory Feeds.
- Approve what a feed proposes — Review Queue.
- Send it orders — Sending Purchase Orders.
- Link products to it from Products.
If something doesn’t behave the way this article describes, start at Vendor Troubleshooting.