Vendor Catalogs allow you to have a list of items from your vendors that you can choose to link to your Craftable items and purchase units.
What are Vendor Catalogs?
Vendor Catalogs (previously referred to as Order Guides on Craftable; and also sometimes referred to as Bid Sheets, Pricing Sheets, etc...) allow you to have a list of items from your vendors that you can choose to link to your Craftable items and purchase units. The Vendor Catalog will update the pricing you see on Craftable against the linked purchase units and on your Order Form page, giving your team the ability to use Craftable knowing that the prices they're seeing are as up-to-date as possible, even if you haven't ordered from the vendor recently - your pricing will be as up to date as the most recently provided Vendor Catalog data.
How do I get Vendor Catalogs?
Craftable supports two types of Vendor Catalogs - either ones that the vendor provides via an EDI connection or a manual import of a file that either you or your vendor can manage. To have Vendor Catalogs activated for your Craftable Account you must have eProcurement as part of your subscription.
Setup
See below for details about the different types of Vendor Catalogs, including information about uploading your own. Once you have Vendor Catalogs on your account you will need to map the items on the Vendor Catalog to the items in your system.
Types of Vendor Catalogs
EDI Vendor Catalogs
EDI Vendor Catalogs are available with specific vendors who offer the integration. Vendor Catalogs must be configured by the Craftable Integrations Team for you. Once this integration is complete, you will see a Vendor Catalog option available under the Orders section of your navigation bar. (This will be at Director if you have a Director-level inventory, or at the store level if you manage your items locally.)
Manual Vendor Catalogs
Even if none of your vendors offer EDI Vendor Catalogs, Craftable supports Manual Vendor Catalogs, which can be imported either from your end, or you can subscribe to a manual Vendor Catalog that your vendor manages through their vendor portal.
If your vendor is going to manage the Vendor Catalog click the +Subscribe button on the Vendor Catalogs page, select the relevant vendor, and enter the Share Code the vendor must provide you.
If you plan to manage your own manual Vendor Catalog you can get started by clicking the Import button at the top right. To download the template click the "click here" link at the top of the popup. This will download an Excel file to your computer, and fill out the spreadsheet (there's a tab with instructions if you're confused at all). Be sure to Save the file, and then return to this popup and import it!
For Item Matching Strategy generally, you want to select "SKU Only", unless your Vendor Catalog file reuses the same SKU for Case and Each, in which case you should select "SKU and Unit of Measure".
How to Map Your Vendor Catalog
Linking Vendor Catalog Items
Click on a Vendor Catalog to view it. The system will auto-match your existing items to the items on the Vendor Catalog based on a combination of factors for each vendor. Typically SKU + Unit of Measure, but varies depending on each vendor's specifications.
On the Vendor Catalog, you'll see a link icon to the left of each item. Green links are already linked to existing items in your system, but Red links are not linked. This means that your users will not be able to order or receive those items until you link them to an item on the system.
To map your unlinked items click the name at the left, search for an existing item if you know this item already exists, or select to create a new item. If you do not want your team to order an item on the Vendor Catalog, do not map it. Once you've completed any missing mappings, if you manage your inventory at Director, be sure to do a store sync to push the updates down to your stores.
Mapping to Existing Items
If your items and purchase units already exist on the system you can link the Vendor Catalog lines to them by clicking on an unlinked item in the list, typing in part of the item name as you've named it on Craftable, and selecting the item from the dropdown.
In the next screen, the system will ask you a question that is formatted as:
"How many [of this item's Count Unit] are in this Pack Size of [the vendor's Pack Size]?"
The value in the quantity field (48 in the image below) defaults to the Pack that your vendor entered on the Vendor Catalog file, but you can change this as needed to properly reflect the size of the pack concerning your count unit. The count unit (1 avocado in the image below) comes from the count unit of the item you selected.
Once you've entered the correct pack size the system will suggest a purchase unit if you have one in existence. In the example above we have the 48-count case purchase unit, so would click the check box at the left and then click "Map" at the bottom right to save. Watch the video below for more.
Creating New Items while Mapping
If the line you are mapping on the Vendor Catalog belongs to an item that does not yet exist you will need to create it as a new item, which you can do through the mapping screen. Just click the line to open the mapping screen, and type the name of the item into the Name field. When what you've typed does not match any existing items on the platform you'll receive an option to add a new item to the system. Just click the "Click Here" to start the process.
The screen will default to the data that the vendor has provided. You can see in the image below where each of these fields is being pulled from. That being said, you can edit any of these fields as needed to correctly correspond with how you want to name your item, count your item, and call the purchase unit.
See below for a step-by-step video walkthrough:
What happens now that the Vendor Catalog is linked?
This means that when your vendor releases a new Vendor Catalog with updated pricing, this new price will automatically update the price of the linked purchase unit. This ensures that if you're ordering on the system you have the most up-to-date price on your order, or if you're doing manual invoices the most recent price is available.
So what does this change?
For the users who are placing and receiving orders, this does not change any step in their process, they won't even see a change. They will still place orders either on the Order Form or by creating an order and adding items to it.
How do I get Vendor Catalogs?
Vendor Catalogs are only available for users with ePro as part of their package, and only specific vendors can be setup for EDI Vendor Catalogs. To check if any of your vendors are available please contact the support team at support@craftable.com or your account manager to check!