Vendor Management

As you create projects in Bonfire and gather Vendor submissions, your portal shall begin to gather unique records for each Vendor registered with your organization. Bonfire allows you to manage these records in several ways, allowing you to track and invite vendors to future projects. You can also customize the Vendor Registration experience, ensuring information pertinent to your organization is collected from each Vendor according to the industry they're in as well as the goods/services they offer.

In this article, we will go over several tools for managing Vendors in Bonfire. To begin, log into Bonfire and navigate to the Vendors page. You'll find the Vendors Module at the top of your page.

1. Viewing Vendor Records
2. Editing Vendor Records
3. Merging Vendor Records
4. Vendor Lists
5. Verifying Vendor Documents
6. Creating Internal Only Custom Fields
7. Vendor Management - Registration Settings

Viewing Vendor Records

When navigating the Vendor records section, utilizing the Show/Hide Function can allow you to view, filter or export important information from all vendor records (including commodity codes). Note that the selections you make using the Show/Hide Function will save and persist for when you visit the page again.

There is also the ability to add additional filters to each column using the Filter icon, allowing you to further refine your search. Unlike the Show/Hide Function, these filters will not persist upon navigating away from the page.

Editing a Vendor Record

If you'd like to edit a vendor's record, you can do so by clicking on the link to the right of the Vendor Name:

From there, you'll see the vendor's record. Using the Actions menu at the top right, click Edit Vendor:

You'll then have the option to make any edits. Please note that any field marked with a red asterisk is mandatory-you will not be able to save your edits without completing these fields:

Please also note that you cannot edit a vendor's Commodity Code selections. These can only be edited by the vendor themselves.

Merging Vendor Records

If you see duplicate records that you'd like to merge to keep your vendor records clean, you can do so following the instructions on our How do I merge vendor records? page.

Vendor Lists

Vendor Lists can be used to keep track of your prequalified vendors, and then used to invite vendors to submit to future projects.

You can manage and create your lists under the Vendor Lists section. Click on the Create a Vendor List button to get started:

For this example we will create a Vendor List called "Prequalified Mechanical Contractors":

You will see an overview of all Vendors that have submitted to your organization under the Vendor Records section.

In the example below, we've selected 3 different vendors which we wish to include in our new list.

Click on the Actions button and select Add Vendors to List:

From here we select the Pre-Qualified General Contractors under the Vendor List dropdown: 

Now if we wish to invite vendors from this custom list we just created, we can do so in a pending project.

In the Vendor Invites section under the Invite Vendors tab, click on the Invite Vendors button.

The Invite Vendors window pops up. From here under the Select a Vendor List dropdown we can select any custom Vendor lists we have saved.

In this example, we would select our "Pre-Qualified General Contractors" list to auto-populate the contact information for all those associated Vendors.

Verifying Vendor Documents

From this screen, you can also make sure that any documents submitted by the vendor are valid and not expired. To do this, click on the Documents section to expand it, then click the Actions button for the document you'd like to verify and then Verify:

A box will then pop up stating that you've verified the document. Check the checkbox next to it and then click Verify:

A green Verified status should now appear next to the document's file name. Hovering over the status will reveal a tooltip showing who verified the document and when.

Creating Internal Only Custom Fields

Internal users also have the option of creating, adding and editing Internal Only Custom Fields to Vendor Records. These custom fields are not visible to Vendors at any point, and serve to provide internal sort, filter and notation functions. 

To create an Internal Only Custom Field, first navigate to your Vendor Management - Registration Settings accordion, then click Add a Custom Field, as shown below:

You will then see the Add A Custom Field window, as shown below.

Select Internal Only, then choose your field's name and any applicable Vendor types, as well as if you wish to have specific Multiple Options. Once finished, click Add.

To then edit your Internal Only fields, navigate to the Vendor Record you wish to edit, then select Edit Internal Only Fields.

In this example, we have an Internal Only Custom Field noting if this vendor is a previous vendor or not.

Choose your selection, then click Save. This will save the internal only custom field to the Vendor's Organizational Record. 

To then view this information, simply scroll down to the Internal Only header.

Once your Vendors have been appropriately annotated as required, you can then also sort by this data, as shown below:

Internal Vendor Fields can also be marked as Required, meaning that the field must be filled out when a Vendor Record is newly created or edited. Please note that if a Vendor has completed registration prior to an Internal Vendor Field being set as required, any internal user or Buyer that accesses the Vendor Record will be required to complete the required Internal Vendor field prior to saving the Vendor Record.

To read more about Vendor Registration and your customization options, please check out our Vendor Management - Registration Settings page.