Supplier accounts

If you want to buy from your suppliers on credit and monitor your business relationship with them you need a supplier account for them.

The supplier account contains:

  • The supplier's name, address and their contact details.
  • Their bank details.
  • The currency in which they conduct their business.
  • Your credit limit with them.
  • Their bank account details.
  • The country in which they are based and the VAT code applicable to the goods or services you purchase from them.
  • The value of any early settlement discount they offer you and their payment terms.

Each account must have a code and name. All other details can either be left blank or are inherited from the Supplier Defaults and Settings. You can keep or change them as you create each account.

Some of these defaults also carry through to individual transactions. Again, you can amend them as you enter the details of a transaction.

The following table shows how information is passed from settings to accounts, and from accounts to transactions.

How default settings are applied to accounts and transactions
Supplier settings Supplier account Transaction
Default VAT code Default VAT code VAT code
Settlement Discount Settlement Discount Settlement Discount
Payment Terms Payment Terms Due Date (Payment Terms)
Terms Agreed Terms Agreed  
  Default Nominal Account Nominal Account

Amending accounts

Any changes you make to an account will only affect transactions that you enter after you've made the changes. For example, if you change the settlement discount details, this doesn't affect the discount details already entered on transactions.

  • You can't change the account Code once the account has been saved. If you've entered a code incorrectly and haven't yet entered any transactions for the account, you can delete the account and recreate it.

Once transactions have been entered for an account:

  • You can't change the currency.
  • You can't delete the account, unless you archive and delete all transactions associated with the account.

Foreign currency accounts

You can create supplier accounts in any currency. To create an account for a supplier in another currency, set the account Currency, and then set the Country code and VAT details on the Trading tab of the account. All transactions are then recorded in the supplier's currency.

When payments are allocated to transactions, any changes in value due to exchange rate fluctuations are dealt with automatically.

Put accounts on hold

You can put accounts on hold when you want to temporarily suspend an account and prevent new transactions being posted to it. This is useful if you need to resolve a query or wait for a payment to be received.

An account can be put on hold at any time. Once on hold, new transactions cannot be entered for the account. Existing transactions can continue to be processed, although you will see a warning to inform you that an account is on hold.

See Change supplier status (hide or put on hold).

Hide accounts

Once you've stopped trading with a supplier, you can give the account a Hidden status.

Hiding an account prevents them being selected in error. This means the account can't be selected when you're entering or processing transactions, invoices or sales orders.

See Change supplier status (hide or put on hold).

Supplier alerts

You can set up alerts on a supplier account, to show messages whenever you deal with that supplier. For example, if a supplier has specific requirements, you can set up a reminder message that will be displayed whenever you enter an order for that supplier.

When you set up an alert on the supplier account, you can choose to show the alert for particular activities.

You can choose to show alerts when entering purchase orders and returns, and generating purchase orders.

Supplier alerts are displayed for these activities in both the Web Portal (where available) and the Sage 200 desktop.

Alerts are specific to an individual supplier, and you can have multiple alerts for each supplier.

See Supplier alerts.