Parties explained
What Parties are, the organisation party that represents you, shared Parties, and how Party identifiers route Documents.
A Party represents a unique business entity your organisation exchanges data with: a wholesaler you sell to, a supplier you buy from, a retailer, a marketplace or a 3PL.
What Parties are used for
| Use | Example |
|---|---|
| Recognise a business on incoming Documents | An EDI order names the buyer by GLN; the Party with that GLN is matched. |
| Send each system the code it expects | Unleashed needs the customer code; Supply Lens takes it from the Party's identifiers. |
| Price for it | A customer-specific price on a Product. |
| Route Documents for it | A Mapping filtered to one customer. |
| Scope other codes to it | A Product or Location identifier that only applies on that Party's Documents. |
The organisation party
An organisation party is the Party that represents your own organisation. Every organisation has one, created by default. It holds your core details: company name, description, address and identifiers such as your VAT number and GLN. It is used when sending or receiving documents.
On the Parties screen, a small building icon to the left of the name marks the organisation party. For example, the Supply Lens Ltd. organisation has an organisation party of the same name.
Partners identify you by codes on your organisation party. It might carry several Customer Assigned Codes, one for each EDI trading partner, so that each partner's EDI messages are routed to your organisation.
Shared Parties
Parties can be tied to one organisation or shared across organisations. Shared Parties are managed at system level by Supply Lens, so their information stays correct and consistent. Your organisation can still add its own organisation-level overrides, such as its own identifiers, and where your identifier and a shared one compete, yours wins.
Shared Parties show a shared party icon on the Parties screen.
Party identifiers
Party identifiers are the codes, IDs, numbers and references used to identify a Party, such as:
- GLN
- Shopify Company ID
- Supplier Assigned Code
- Unleashed Supplier Code
- VAT
A Party can have many identifiers; the count is shown in the Identifiers column on the Parties screen. Identifiers can be narrowed to an Integration state (Live or Test), country, currency, Integration type or Integration. For every type, see Party identifier types; for how Supply Lens chooses between them, see How Supply Lens matches codes.
Where to find Parties
Open Settings → Reference data → Parties. Search by name at the top of the list, or press / anywhere and search by a name or a code such as a GLN or VAT number. Open a Party to see its details, its Information card (including its default currency, which you can change at any time) and its identifiers.
You can delete your own Parties from the list or the Party's page. If something still uses the Party, Supply Lens shows what uses it, how many there are and where to change them.