Inventory

Vendor Portal

The Vendor Portal helps your vendors to manage purchase orders, view the payments they’ve received, upload invoices to be converted to bills in Zoho Inventory, and more! Let’s understand the use of a vendor portal with the help of a scenario.

Enable Vendor Portal

To start off, you will have to enable portal access and invite your vendor or their contact persons you’ve added in Zoho Inventory. To enable the portal:

• Go to the Vendors module under Purchases from the left sidebar.
• Select the vendor for whom you want to enable the portal.
• Click the More dropdown and select Configure Vendor Portal.

(Or)

• Go to the Overview tab and enable portal access under the Other Details section.

• Choose the contact person for whom you would like to enable portal access.

• Click Save and an email invitation will be sent to your vendor and they will be able to access the portal by accepting the invitation.

You can configure the portal in the preferences section.

Accept the Invitation

Once your vendor accepts the invitation, they will be able to view and track all their transactions, upload transaction documents and collaborate with you easily. To join the portal, your vendor should:

• Go to the email invite sent to them.
• Click the Accept Invitation button and they will be redirected to the portal login page.
• Enter the email address, set a password and sign in.

They will now be logged in to the portal where they can perform various functions.

Functions in the Vendor Portal

Let us see the functions that can be performed in the vendor portal.

• Home
• View Purchase Orders
• Accept and Decline Purchase Orders (For Vendors)
• Manage Invoices
• Track Payments Received
• Generate Statement of Accounts

Home

Once your vendor logs in to the portal, the home page/dashboard will give them an overview of all the transactions that took place between you and your vendor. They can view the following details:

• Outstanding Bills: The total bill amount that you owe them for previous transactions.
• Available Credits: Amounts they might have refunded or any amount they owe you (through credit notes) are saved as credits in Zoho Inventory. These can be applied to transactions and tracked accordingly.
• Last Payment Received: The recent payment you made.
• My Account Details: Vendor’s name and contact details which can be edited.
• Customers Contact Details: Your customers contact information.

View Purchase Orders

Documents created by you in Zoho Inventory requesting your vendors to supply specific goods along with their prices and quantities are Purchase Orders. Vendors can view the purchase orders and comment on them to negotiate the prices or add their remarks before they create the final invoice. To access the purchase orders, your vendors should:

• Log in to the portal and go to Purchase Orders from the left sidebar.

• Click the purchase order and view its details.
• Add comments if necessary to discuss the order.

They will also be able to filter the purchase orders by their statuses by clicking the Show All Purchase Orders dropdown. The available filters are: All, Billed, Partially Billed and Cancelled.

Accept or Decline Purchase Orders (For Vendors)

Vendors can use the portal to accept or decline the purchase orders that were created in Zoho Inventory. When you create a purchase order in Zoho Inventory, you can send it to your vendors for review.

Once the vendor accepts your purchase order, you can go ahead and purchase the goods from your vendor. If your vendor rejects your purchase order, you can create a new purchase order and submit it for review again.

This feature comes in handy when you require the vendor’s consent to purchase goods from them.

Enable Review for Purchase Orders

Admins must enable this feature before the users send purchase orders for review. Here’s how:

• Click the Gear icon in the top right corner and select Preferences from the dropdown.
• Under Portal, select Vendor Portal.
• Scroll down and select the Allow vendors to accept/reject purchase orders option.

Submit Purchase Orders for Review

Once the admins in Zoho Inventory have enabled the option to approve purchase orders, users will be be able to submit it to their vendors for review. Here’s how:

• Go to the Purchase Orders module under Purchases from the left sidebar.
• Create + New in the top right corner to create a new purchase order and select the vendor to whom you want to want to submit it for review.
• Enter all the necessary details and click Save and Send or Save as Draft.
• Review the purchase order email and click Send Purchase Order again or click Mark as Issued in the top right corner.

Accept or Decline Purchase Orders (For Vendors)

Vendors can accept or decline the purchase orders that have been sent to them from the users in Zoho Inventory. Here’s how:

• Log in to the Vendor Portal.
• Click Purchase Orders on the left sidebar and select a purchase order.
• Review the purchase order and click Accept or Decline. If you’re declining the purchase order, enter a reason and click decline again.

You will be notified in Zoho Inventory when your vendor approves a purchase order.

Manage Invoices

When your vendor has shipped goods to you, they can upload a picture of the transaction’s document (invoice) to the portal, you can then verify it and accept or reject them in Zoho Inventory. Once accepted, it will be created as a bill in Zoho Inventory.

• Upload Documents
• View Invoices

Upload Documents

To upload a transaction document in the portal, your vendors should:

• Download/Print and take a picture of the transaction’s document.
• Log in to the portal using the link provided in the email.
• Go to the Invoices module and stay on the Uploaded Documents tab to add transaction documents.
• Drag and Drop or Upload Documents from the computer.

The document will be in the Pending state as soon as it is uploaded. If you accept the document in Zoho Inventory, it will be converted into an invoice in the Vendor Portal. You will be able to add comments to the document by clicking it.

View Invoices

Once your vendor uploads a document, you can review and accept/reject the document. If it is accepted, it will be created as an invoice in the portal. Here’s how your vendor can view the invoice in the portal:

• Log in to the portal and go to the Invoices module.
• Go to the Invoices tab to view all the accepted documents.

• Click an invoice to view all the details.
• Enter comments and click Add Comment to share them.

Track Payments Received

You might have made an online payment or a cash payment towards the vendor’s invoices. Your vendor will be able to view them once you record the payment manually in Zoho Inventory. This section will show the details of the amount, the payment mode and the reference transaction. To view this, your vendor should:

• Log in to the portal and go to the Payments Received module. This will list all the payments you (Zoho Inventory user) have made.

• Click on a payment receipt to drill down the details of the payment.
• Click the Download PDF or Print button to save a copy of the document.

Generate Statement of Accounts

Statement of account shows a consolidated list of all the transactions carried out between your vendor and you. Your vendor can generate this statement for any period and view the payments received and balance due. To view the statement:

• Log in to the portal and go to the Statements module.
• Select the Date Range in the top corner.
• Click Go to generate the statement.
• Click the Download PDF or Print button to keep a copy of the statement.

Create Bills

You will be able to create bills in Zoho Inventory based on the documents uploaded by the vendor. Furthermore, you can also discuss them in the comments section.

• Click the notification sent to your Zoho Inventory account when your vendor has uploaded a document.
  (Or)
  Go to the Vendors module under Purchases from the left sidebar and select the vendor who has uploaded documents. Click the document inbox to view the pending documents.

• All the uploaded documents will be listed. You can click a document to view its details.

• Click Convert to Bill from the top-right corner to accept the document. You can also reject/delete the document, if necessary.

• Enter the details by viewing the bill alongside. The vendor’s name will be auto-populated for you.
• Click Save as Draft or Save as Open. Only the transactions that are in the Open state will be visible to the vendors.

Enable Autoscan for Uploaded Documents

If you’ve enabled the Autoscan feature in the Documents module, vital information of a document such as date, amount, etc., will be automatically captured from the uploaded document and populated while creating a new transaction.

Here’s how you can enable autoscan for the documents uploaded by the vendor:

• Go to Settings > Preferences > Vendor Portal
• Scroll down and mark the option Autoscan uploaded documents.

As the documents get autoscanned, you will be able to observe the following status of the documents:

Scan in progress: The document or receipt is currently being scanned.

Processed: The document or receipt has been scanned and data is captured.

Failed: The autoscan has failed. This may result due to illegible data, images which cannot be interpreted or when the language is not supported.

Once the documents uploaded by your vendor has been autoscanned in Zoho Inventory, you can convert the scanned documents to a bill manually in the Documents tab.

Other Actions

Edit Address

The address you have stored in Zoho Inventory will be visible to your vendors. In case they have changed their address, they can edit them in their portal. To do this:

• Log in to the portal and go to Home.
• Go to the My Account Details section and click Edit near the address.

• Update the address in the pop-up and click Save.

Send Email

Your vendor will be able to contact you directly from the portal by sending an email. Here’s how:

• Log in to the portal and go to the Dashboard.
• Scroll down and the organisation details will be listed.
• Click the Send Email button and enter the message.

• Click Send.

Change Password

If your vendor’s password is too old or vulnerable, they can an change it easily from the portal. Here’s how:

• Log in to the portal and click Change Password in the left sidebar.
• Enter the old password and enter a new nassword based on the password requirements.
• Re-enter the new password and click Save to update the password.

Log Out

To log out of the portal:

• Go to the portal.
• Click Log Out in the left sidebar.

Vendor Portal Preferences

The preferences section will allow you to configure the portal.

• Go to Settings > Preferences > Vendor Portal
• Navigate to the Vendor Portal tab.

The custom options available are:

Portal Name

The portal name is unique to your organisation and it is used in the URL of the Client and Vendor Portal. This is auto-generated by default. However, you can edit the portal name, and click Save if you want to customise it.

Notify me for every activity that takes place in the portal

Enabling this option notifies you via emails and in-app notifications whenever your vendor uploads documents, adds comments or updates any details.

Notify my vendor when I comment or reject the documents

Enabling this option notifies your vendor via an email whenever you add a comment or reject the documents they had uploaded.

Allow vendors to update their contact details in the portal

Enabling this option allows your customers to add/edit their shipping/billing addresses, custom fields and other contact details in case of any changes.

Allow vendors to upload documents

Enabling this option allows vendors to upload PDFs or images of transactions that support your purchase. You can view the document and accept it to create a bill in Zoho Inventory.

Autoscan uploaded documents

Enabling this option will capture the important data from the documents that are uploaded by the vendor and will be used to create bills easily.

Allow vendors to accept/reject purchase orders

Enabling this option provides vendors the ability to accept or decline the purchase orders in the Vendor Portal.

Banner Message

The banner message will be displayed in the Home screen of the vendor portal. For example, you can say “Welcome to Zylker. Have a nice day!”

• Click Save after configuring these settings.