Add a Party
Lesson 17 of 24 5 min read
Create a Party for a customer, supplier or partner, and fill in the details that matter before you add its identifiers.
In this lesson you will add a new Party and decide what to fill in straight away. Adding a Party takes a minute; the identifiers you give it afterwards are what make it useful, and you will add those in the next lesson.
Before you add one: check it isn't there already
Search the Parties list, or use the top-bar search (/) with the company name, GLN or VAT number. Large retailers and marketplaces may already exist as shared Parties maintained by Supply Lens. If so, use the shared Party and add your own identifiers to it rather than creating a duplicate.
Add the Party
- Open Settings → Reference data → Parties.
- Click + ADD in the top-right to open the Add new party window.
- Fill in the form. The name field is the company name, not a contact person's name. The Description describes the Party.
- Click one of:
- Create to create the Party and close the window;
- Create and edit to create it and go straight to the Edit party screen to fill in more details.
After you create a Party you are taken to that Party's page, where you can add identifiers.
Details worth setting
| Detail | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Company name | How the Party appears on Documents, in lists and in search. Use the trading name your team will recognise. |
| Address | Your record of where the business is. Delivery points are usually better set up as Locations. |
| Default currency | The currency the Party normally trades in. You can change it later on the Party's Information card. |
| Identifiers | How Supply Lens recognises the Party on Documents. See the next lesson. |
Adding Greenleaf Wholesale
Priya searches for "Greenleaf" first, in case it exists as a shared Party. It doesn't, so she clicks + ADD, enters Greenleaf Wholesale as the company name, a short description ("Wholesale customer, EDI, cases of 6"), and their head office address. She clicks Create and edit and sets the default currency to GBP. Then she moves on to identifiers.
She repeats this for Brookside Fulfilment, the 3PL, which she will need as the owning party of the warehouse Location.
Deleting a Party
You can delete your own Parties from the list or from the Party's page. If something still uses the Party, Supply Lens shows you what uses it, how many there are and where to go to change them, so you don't break a Mapping or price by accident.
Tip
Use the Party's notes to record anything your team should know, such as the partner's EDI contact or their go-live date. Notes are filed on the Party and appear in My tasks with a link straight back to it.
Recap
- Search first: the Party may already exist, possibly as a shared Party.
- Add Parties from Settings → Reference data → Parties → + ADD.
- The name is the company name; the default currency can be changed later.
- Create and edit takes you straight on to add details and identifiers.
- Deleting a Party that is still in use shows you what uses it first.
Quick guides for this topic
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