Managing Suppliers

One tidy supplier list. Every PO and bill picks the right one automatically.

• Save each supplier once with the right order email
• The order email is where Cooledge sends your purchase orders
• Every supplier has its own page for details, pricebook, discounts and part links
• Upload a supplier's price list so your POs carry their SKUs and prices
• Set a default category so new bills, expenses and POs from that supplier start on the right one
• Archive suppliers you no longer use without losing any history
• Add a supplier from anywhere a supplier picker shows up

Your supplier directory is the list of companies you buy parts from. Reece. Bunnings. Plumbtech. Anyone who sends you a bill. Saving them once means every purchase order, bill or expense you create from then on picks them up automatically.

This article shows you how to add a supplier, edit one and archive one you no longer use. It also explains why the order email is the most important field on the form.

What You Need

• An active Cooledge subscription (any plan). Pricebooks, discounts and part links need Growth or Scale. See Supplier Pricebooks
• Portal access as an owner or admin (Settings is locked off for techs)
• Desktop or laptop (supplier settings live in the Cooledge Portal)

What's a Supplier in Cooledge?

A supplier is any company you buy parts or materials from. Wholesalers like Reece or Plumbtech. Big-box stores like Bunnings. Specialty distributors. Anyone who sends you an invoice for goods.

Saving them once in your directory means:

• Every PO you raise picks the supplier from a clean list
• Every supplier bill you log matches against the right account
• Receipts you snap on the mobile app drop against the right supplier in one tap
• Your reports group spend by supplier without you doing any extra work

If you've never logged a supplier before, this is the page you want to start on.

Where to Find It

1. Open the Cooledge Portal (desktop)
2. In the sidebar, click the gear icon to open Settings
3. Click Suppliers (or go straight to /settings/suppliers)

You'll see a table of every supplier saved against your business, with four columns: Name, Order email, ABN and Pricebook. The Pricebook column shows "No pricebook" or how many products the supplier has and how recent their prices are.

Click anywhere on a row to open that supplier's page.

Adding a Supplier

1. On the Suppliers page, click Add Supplier in the top right
2. Fill in the New Supplier form
3. Click Save

The new supplier's page opens straight away, so you can upload its pricebook if you have one. The supplier is now available everywhere a supplier picker shows up. POs, bills, expenses.

Fields on the form

• Name (required). The trading name you'd recognise on a receipt
• Order email. The address Cooledge sends purchase orders to. See the next section for why this one matters
• Accounts email. The address you'd use for invoices or account queries. Optional
• Phone. Optional
• ABN. Optional but handy if you reconcile against bills
• Address line 1 / Address line 2 / Suburb / State / Postcode. The supplier's street address
• Payment terms (days). e.g. 30 if you've got a 30-day account
• Default account code. Your bookkeeping code for this supplier
• Default category. None, Materials, Subcontractor or Other. See Default Category below
• Notes. Anything else you want to keep on file

Why the Order Email Matters

The order email is the address Cooledge sends purchase orders to when you hit Send on a PO. If it's blank, the PO can't go anywhere.

Here's what happens if you save a PO against a supplier with no order email set:

• The PO saves fine. Your records stay in order
• A yellow banner appears at the top of the PO. It says "This supplier has no order email yet"
• The Send to supplier button stays greyed out. Hover over it and you'll see the reason: "Supplier has no order email"
• The banner has an Open supplier settings link that takes you to the Suppliers list. Click the supplier to add the email

Once you add the order email and save, come back to the PO. The Send button lights up.

Tip: Most trade suppliers have a dedicated orders inbox (orders@, sales@, etc). Ask your rep which address they want POs sent to. Use that. Not the rep's personal email.

For everything else POs can do, read Purchase Orders.

Adding a supplier from a PO

You don't always have to start from settings. If you're raising a Purchase Order and the supplier isn't in your list yet, click the supplier picker. Scroll to the bottom of the dropdown. Click New supplier... to open the same form. Save it. The new supplier auto-selects on your PO.

This is the fastest way to add a supplier you've just started using.

The Supplier's Page

Every supplier you add has its own page. Open it by clicking the supplier's row on the Suppliers list. A Back to suppliers link at the top takes you back.

Under the supplier's name you'll see how many products are in its pricebook, how many have a price and how many are linked to items on your quotes. If its prices are 90 days old or more, a chip shows the month they're from (for example "Prices from Mar 2026").

The page has four tabs:

• Details: the supplier's name, emails, address and the rest of the fields above. Save your changes here. This is also where you archive or unarchive the supplier
• Pricebook: upload the supplier's price list as a CSV so your purchase orders use their SKUs and prices. Its Products list shows every active product in the pricebook, ready to add to your price list, trade parts or units
• Terms: the discount you get off their list prices, plus any category discounts
• Links: link each item you take off on a quote to this supplier's part

Pricebook, Terms and Links are covered in full in Supplier Pricebooks. To add the supplier's products to your own lists, see Adding Items From a Supplier.

Editing a Supplier

1. Click the supplier's row on the Suppliers page
2. On the Details tab, change whatever you need
3. Click Save

Your POs, bills, credit notes and expenses stay linked to the supplier, so they show its current name after a change. Emails you've already sent to the supplier don't change.

If you want to use one of the built-in curated suppliers (the well-known trade names Cooledge ships with) for purchase orders, save your own copy in the Suppliers table with the right order email. See the Curated Suppliers section below for the full story.

Default Category

Every bill, expense, credit note and purchase order has a Category (Materials, Subcontractor or Other). It decides which row of a job's Profitability card the cost lands on. Set a supplier's Default category so you don't have to pick it every time. For example, set your wholesaler to Materials and your subcontract installer to Subcontractor.

The field sits on the supplier's Details tab and on the New Supplier form. Under it: "New bills, expenses and purchase orders from this supplier start with this category."

How it's used:

• A new bill, expense or PO for this supplier starts on its default category. You can still pick a different one before you save
• A new credit note starts on the category of the bill it's against. With no bill, it takes the supplier's default
• A bill created from a PO takes the PO's category, not the supplier's
• With None, a new PO starts on Materials and a new bill, expense or credit note on the portal starts with no category (it shows as Uncategorised until you set one)

Changing the default only affects new documents. Bills and expenses you've already saved keep their category, unless you choose to apply the default to the ones that have none.

Applying the default to documents with no category

When you save an existing supplier with a default category and that supplier still has bills, expenses or credit notes with no category, Cooledge asks Apply default category? with a message like "This supplier has 4 bills and expenses with no category ($1,280.00). Set them to Materials too?" (the dollar figure is ex GST).

• Apply to 4 sets the category on those documents, on every job and the general ones with no job. It confirms with "Category set on 4 documents."
• Not now leaves them as they are

It never changes a document that already has a category. It also sets this supplier's purchase orders and voided documents that have no category, so the confirmation can count a few more documents than the question did.

Said Not now and changed your mind? While any documents with no category remain, an Apply to documents with no category link shows under the Default category field. Click it to get the same question.

A brand-new supplier has no documents yet, so it never asks. Only owners and admins can set the default or apply it.

Archiving a Supplier

If a supplier closes down or you stop buying from them, archive them.

1. Click the supplier's row on the Suppliers page
2. On the Details tab, click Archive supplier
3. Confirm

The supplier:

• Stops showing up in pickers. No more accidentally picking a supplier you don't use any more
• Disappears from the Suppliers table in settings
• Keeps every historic PO, bill or expense intact. Those old records keep their link to the supplier

Archiving is the only "remove" option. It's deliberate. Trying to fully delete a supplier could break links to old POs or bills you still need for tax. Archiving keeps the paper trail safe while cleaning up your day-to-day pickers.

You can't upload a pricebook for an archived supplier. Unarchive it first.

Bringing a supplier back

1. Tick the Show archived checkbox above the Suppliers table. Archived rows appear with an "Archived" badge next to the name
2. Click the supplier's row
3. On the Details tab, click Unarchive

Once restored, the supplier shows up in pickers again and on every new PO or bill you create.

Duplicate Names

Cooledge doesn't block you from creating two suppliers with the same name. Be careful. If you've already got a "Reece" in the list and you add another, both will show in the picker. The only thing telling them apart is the order email shown under each name.

Before adding a new supplier, type the name into the search box at the top of the Suppliers page. If it's already there, edit the existing supplier instead of creating a second one.

The search box also matches on order email or ABN. So if you can't remember the trading name but you've got the ABN handy, paste that in.

Curated Suppliers

Cooledge ships with a small list of well-known trade suppliers already populated in the background. You won't see them on the Settings → Suppliers page (that page is just for the suppliers you manage), but they do show up in the supplier picker when you're raising a PO, bill or expense, sitting underneath your own suppliers.

Curated suppliers:

• Can't be edited or archived. They're shared across all Cooledge businesses
• Are handy for logging expenses quickly (e.g. a Bunnings cash sale you just want to record against a job)
• Aren't set up to receive purchase orders by default. If you want to send POs to a curated supplier, add your own copy in Settings → Suppliers with the correct order email, then use your version on POs

If you've got a trade account with a curated supplier and want to send POs, the cleanest path is to add your own copy of the supplier with the correct order email. Use your version on POs. Keep using the curated one for ad-hoc expense receipts if you like.

AAD works the same way. It's built in, so it isn't on your Suppliers list. The hint under the list reads: "To upload a pricebook for AAD, add AAD as one of your suppliers."

Common Questions

Can techs add or edit suppliers? No. The Suppliers settings page is owner and admin only. Techs can pick a supplier from the picker when raising an expense, but they can't change the directory itself.

Can I share suppliers between branches? Each business has its own supplier directory. The curated list (the background list that powers the picker) is shared across all Cooledge businesses. Your own suppliers stay private to your business.

Can I import a CSV of suppliers? Not yet. Add suppliers one at a time through the New Supplier form. CSV import is on the wishlist. If you've got a long list to migrate, email support and we can help.

How do I upload a supplier's price list? Open the supplier's page and use the Pricebook tab. That's a CSV of the supplier's products and prices, which is different from a list of suppliers. See Supplier Pricebooks.

What happens to my historic POs if I rename a supplier? They stay linked to the supplier, so they show the new name. Anything you've already emailed to the supplier stays as it was sent.

Does Cooledge auto-create a supplier the first time I type a name on an expense? No. You always pick a supplier from the picker. If the supplier isn't there yet, use the New supplier... option at the bottom of the picker. That opens the same form you'd use from settings, then auto-selects the new supplier on your expense.

I picked a curated supplier on a PO but it has no order email. What do I do? Curated suppliers are read-only because they're shared across all Cooledge businesses. The fix is to add your own version of that supplier in Settings → Suppliers (e.g. "Reece (my account)") with the correct order email, then pick your version on the PO.

What's the difference between order email and accounts email? Order email is for purchase orders going out. Accounts email is the address you'd use for invoice queries or account statements. Cooledge only emails POs to the order email.

Do I need to fill in every field? No. Only the supplier name is required. Everything else is optional. That said, order email is the one to prioritise if you ever want to send a PO through Cooledge to that supplier.

Can I attach my account number with the supplier? Use the Default account code field for your internal bookkeeping reference. ABN sits in its own field too. Trade-account numbers issued by the supplier can go in Notes if you want them handy on the supplier record.

Related Articles

• Supplier Pricebooks: Upload price lists, set discounts and link parts
• Adding Items From a Supplier: Add a supplier's products to your lists with linked costs
• Purchase Orders: Create, send or receive a PO
• Supplier Bills & Credit Notes: Match bills to POs and reconcile credits
• Tracking Expenses: Log receipts on the go from the mobile app

Need help with suppliers? Email us at support@cooledge.com.au