Marking a supplier active or inactive

Every supplier has an Active switch, which is set by hand. New suppliers start out active. Turn the switch off when you no longer buy from a supplier but want to keep everything attached to it.

The Active switch is in the Settings section of the supplier form, whether you are adding or editing a supplier.

Make a supplier inactive

1. Open Catalog, then Suppliers.
2. Click the supplier's name to open it.
3. Click Edit Supplier at the top of the page. On a phone, open the … menu and choose Edit Supplier.
4. Scroll to the Settings section at the bottom of the form.
5. Turn the Active switch off.
6. Click Save.

Editing a supplier requires the Add / Edit Supplier permission. Without it, Edit Supplier, Delete and the button for adding a supplier are not shown. A supplier outside your departments that you can see because it supplies an order you can see opens marked Read only.

What happens when a supplier is inactive

The Suppliers list shows active suppliers by default, so an inactive supplier no longer appears there. Wherever it does still appear, its name is greyed out and has an Inactive label.

Its purchase orders, claims, products, stock movements, prices and documents are untouched, and your figures and reports are unaffected. Only supplier lists and supplier dropdowns behave differently.

An inactive supplier also drops out of supplier dropdowns when you create a purchase order or add a component to an assembly, and from the supplier filters on the purchase orders list and Supplier Claims. Existing purchase orders that name the supplier are unaffected. To raise a new purchase order for the supplier or filter by it from one of those dropdowns, set it back to active first.

The supplier's Active switch is separate from the active setting on individual products. Making a supplier inactive does not change its products, which continue to appear in product lists and inventory as before.

View or reactivate a supplier

To view or bring back an inactive supplier, widen the list filter first.

1. Open Catalog, then Suppliers, on a computer.
2. Find Activity in the filter sidebar beside the list.
3. Change Activity from Active suppliers to All suppliers.
4. Open the supplier you want. Inactive suppliers are greyed out and have an Inactive label.
5. Click Edit Supplier.
6. Turn the Active switch back on in the Settings section.
7. Click Save.

When Activity is set to All suppliers, its box is outlined in amber to show that the list includes more than the suppliers you normally work with.

The Activity filter is available only in the filter sidebar on a computer. The filter panel on a phone offers search, country and department only, so turn a supplier back on from a computer.

Deleting a supplier

Delete is in the … menu on the supplier's page. Its Keep history option still marks all the supplier's products as deleted and permanently removes every attached file: product images, product documents and documents on its purchase orders.

Both delete options are refused while the supplier has an open claim. Keep history is also refused while any of its products holds stock, positive or negative. The message names those products; bring their stock to zero first, for example with a stock-out. Keep history is also refused when the supplier has any record dated in or before a locked year.

The other option, Delete permanently, is only for a supplier that has never been used. It is refused if the supplier has any purchase order or claim, or if any of its products has stock movements, stock on hand, value adjustments, order lines, deliveries, stock counts, assembly use or notes, or anything dated in a locked year. A refused deletion changes nothing.

How supplier activity was initially set

Before the Active switch existed, a supplier counted as active only if it had a purchase order dated within the last 365 days, or had been added within the last year. That old rule was applied once to set the starting values, so some suppliers you still use may have started out inactive. Turn such a supplier back on and it stays on.