Vendors are companies or people you purchase goods or services from, for example, tool distributors or repair shops.

Every vendor needs a 'number' (which can contain letters, spaces and punctuation marks). If you already have vendor numbers, they'll work in the Tracker. If you're interested in integrating Tracker data with your accounting system, now or in the future, use the numbers in that system. But if you're creating new numbers ...

• Keep them short. You'll be typing them often. Fewer characters = fewer typos.
• While you can give a vendor and an employee, item, job or storage site the same number, we suggest avoiding duplicates, which can confuse users. You can't give 2 vendors the same number.
• Avoid punctuation marks (which slow most typists down) and repeated spaces (it can be hard to see the difference between 1 and 2 spaces).
• 'Numbers' are sorted alphabetically, which can be confusing if they really are numbers (11 is before 2 when sorted alphabetically, just like AA is before B). If you want to use numeric 'numbers' and have them sort numerically, use leading zeros to make each number the same length (002 is before 011 when sorted alphabetically).

Vendors can be imported.

ADD, EDIT AND DELETE VENDORS

• Click the Data icon in the main menu then Vendors.
• To add a record, click the Add icon in the grid menu in the upper right corner of the grid.
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• To edit, click the Edit icon. If you click in the record or the field in the record you want to edit first, the cursor will appear in that record or field.
• After you click the Add or Edit icon, the grid menu changes.
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• Click the Add icon to add another record, the Save icon to save, the Cancel icon to undo any changes you've made since your last save.
• Clicking the Add or the Edit icon puts you in editing mode. Once in editing mode, you can add or edit as many records as you like but can't change your search or move to a different page until you save or cancel.
• To delete, select the record(s) you want to delete by clicking checkbox(es) in the left-hand margin of the grid (you can select more than one) then click the Delete icon in the grid menu.

ASSIGN ITEMS TO VENDORS

Select the items you want to assign to a vendor in the find and add to cart, fast add to cart or item assignments screen (the Assign to vendor Task must be selected in the Preferences screen).

FIELDS

The Vendors table contains a large number of user-definable fields. And all fields, whether user-definable or not, can be given custom names. So you may see a column heading in your Vendors screen that's not in this list:

• (Vendors grid) VENDOR NUMBER.
• (Vendors grid) VENDOR NAME.
• (Vendors grid) IDLE. Only active vendors appear in vendor lists.
• (Vendors grid) NOTES. From a practical perspective, unlimited in length.
• (Vendors grid) Address and contact info.

SCREEN-SPECIFIC REPORTS

• BARCODE LABELS.