Before the first purchase: a supplier your books can post to — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This presentation is for you if you set up suppliers for GadgetSphere, or you own the chart of accounts they post into. In about eight minutes you will make sure the supplier record keeps what you type, know when a new supplier goes live, choose the payable account each supplier lands in, and prove it on the first invoice.

Step 1 — Save the supplier settings once, with Email showing

After this step the Supplier applet will keep the e-mail addresses you type. On a tenant where nobody has ever saved the applet’s settings, it behaves as if Hide Email were switched on. The Email field is disabled, and a disabled field is not saved, so suppliers created until then are saved with no e-mail address, and the form does not even show the field. This has been reported for a fix; until it ships, the workaround takes a minute. Open Settings, then Application Settings. Because the screen shows the settings the applet is using, Hide Email opens switched on, so saving without touching it changes nothing. Switch it off, then press Save. Do this before the first supplier is created, and add a note to your new-tenant checklist.

Reference: Supplier — Applet settings

Step 2 — Know the moment a new supplier becomes active

After this step you will not leave half-made suppliers behind. Pressing the plus button creates a supplier record straight away, at status temporary, before you type anything; press it again later and it reopens your own unfinished one. Then the edit screen watches three fields: the name, the currency and the accounts receivable and payable type, AR/AP type for short. The moment all three hold a value, it saves the record as active by itself. Your applet’s defaults may already fill the currency and the AR/AP type, so a pause after typing the name can be enough. From then on it is an active supplier, whatever else you have or have not filled in. So have the details in front of you before you start. If it has already saved itself and you decide not to go on, set it to inactive.

Reference: Supplier — Creating a supplier

Step 3 — Choose the payable account each supplier lands in

After this step each supplier’s invoices will land in the account you meant. The AR/AP type on the Main tab is not a label. When a purchase invoice posts, BigLedger turns trade payable into the code CREDITOR, other payable into CREDITOR_NON_TRADE, and employee payable into EMPLOYEE_OTHER_PAYABLE, then asks the company which account it has chosen for that code. So GadgetSphere’s distributors are trade payable, and their invoices credit LIAB-SUPPLIER-TRADE. The landlord who bills the rent is other payable, and lands in your non-trade creditors account. New suppliers start as trade payable unless you change the default. You can shorten the list a clerk sees in the applet’s Default Selection settings, but that only narrows a drop-down; it is not a control.

Reference: Supplier — How the AR/AP type reaches a GL code

Step 4 — Give one company a different answer, deliberately

After this step you can let one company treat a supplier differently without changing it for the others. The Company Linking tab on the supplier adds a row for one of your companies, and that row’s AR/AP type wins for documents that company raises. Suppose a brand principal sells stock to GadgetSphere Distribution but only charges GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd a marketing fee: other payable on a GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd row does exactly that. Now the caution. The AR/AP type on a new Company Linking row starts as trade payable, and a row is needed for other things too, such as a per-company supplier code. So a row added for a code quietly turns your landlord into a trade creditor for that company. Read the AR/AP type on every row you add.

Reference: Supplier — Company Linking

Step 5 — Map the codes before the first invoice

After this step each company can post the payable side of every supplier you have set up. For each company, open the Default General Ledger, or GL, Codes tab in the Chart of Account applet, and look at the entity group. CREDITOR needs an account, LIAB-SUPPLIER-TRADE for GadgetSphere, and so does CREDITOR_NON_TRADE if any supplier is other payable, and EMPLOYEE_OTHER_PAYABLE if you reimburse staff this way. Saving each code also creates the sub-ledger it needs. Here is why this matters before go-live. A missing code does not stop anyone pressing Final. The invoice goes final, and the posting just after it fails, naming the code. A mapping with no sub-ledger, or a supplier with no AR/AP type, ends the same way with a different error: the supplier’s line is left out, and the posting refuses a journal that does not balance. Either way you have a final invoice and no journal.

Reference: Chart of Account — Company — Default GL Codes

Step 6 — Check the first invoice’s journal

After this step you will know the set-up works. Take the first purchase invoice finalised for a new supplier. On its Posting tab, Journal should read posted; if it reads anything else a minute after Final, the posting failed. Open TraceDocument and read every line: purchases debited, input tax debited if the bill carries tax, and the supplier credited with the invoice total in the account you chose in step three, LIAB-SUPPLIER-TRADE for a distributor. Read them all, because a missing purchase or input tax code does not fail: that line is left out, the supplier’s credit shrinks to match, and the journal still posts. If the posting failed, fix the mapping or the AR/AP type first. Then open Financial Report, Error Checking, Trace Document, choose the purchase invoice’s document type, enter its number, press Trace, and press Resolve on the missing journal.

Reference: Purchase Invoice Processing — Step 6: Confirm it posted, then settle it

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Save the supplier settings once, with Email showing"]
  s2["Step 2 — Know the moment a new supplier becomes active"]
  s3["Step 3 — Choose the payable account each supplier lands in"]
  s4["Step 4 — Give one company a different answer, deliberately"]
  s5["Step 5 — Map the codes before the first invoice"]
  s6["Step 6 — Check the first invoice's journal"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

Next: What a supplier record controls, and what it only records · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation