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What this page is for

A supplier is anyone who provides your goods - a raw-material vendor, a finished-goods manufacturer, or your own plant. You model each one here so the engine knows who can source each product, on what terms, and how long it takes. A co-manufacturer (“co-man”) is not a separate kind of record - it is simply a supplier. The switch that matters is External vs In-house:
  • External - an outside supplier or co-man. Products sourced from them get a purchase order (PO) - an order you send to buy or produce goods.
  • In-house - your own production operation. Products sourced from it get a work order (WO) - an internal instruction to build the goods yourself.
That one flag changes what the plan generates: POs for external suppliers, WOs for in-house production.

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Key attributes

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Per-product sourcing terms

A supplier can supply many products, and each product can have more than one supplier. The terms that vary by product live under each product’s sourcing options:

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How it affects planning

These fields shape the timing, quantity, and split of every replenishment order:
  • Order cycle decides when an order can be placed. If a supplier orders on the 1st of each month, the engine batches demand to that date instead of ordering daily.
  • Lead times decide how early the order must go out to arrive on time.
  • MOQ and Reorder multiple decide the quantity - the engine rounds up to the MOQ and to the nearest multiple.
  • Supply share decides the split - if two suppliers are 70/30, the engine routes that share of the volume to each.
  • In-house vs External decides whether the result is a work order or a purchase order.

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Step by step: set up a supplier

  1. Open Settings → Supply chain network → Suppliers and add the supplier.
  2. Set External or In-house - this decides POs vs WOs.
  3. Enter commercial terms: currency, VAT, incoterm, payment terms, pre-payment.
  4. Enter lead times and shipping mode.
  5. Set Production sites to link the warehouse(s) where they make or hold your stock. See Locations & warehouses.
  6. Set the Order cycle if this supplier orders on a fixed schedule.
  7. For each product, open its sourcing options and set Supply share, Reorder multiple, Prod. lead time, and price breaks. See Sourcing.

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Example

You buy a finished good from two external co-mans: a primary at 70% supply share and a backup at 30%. The primary has a 5,000-unit MOQ, a 45-day production lead time, and places orders on the 1st of each month. When demand builds, Spherecast batches it to the 1st, rounds up to at least 5,000 units, and splits 70/30 across the two - generating purchase orders. If you later switch the primary to In-house, its share comes back as work orders instead.
Note: A supplier’s Order cycle overrides the product-level order cycle. If a product seems to order on the wrong day, check the supplier’s cycle first.
Related: Purchase orders · Work orders