Admin / power user ·
Yellow Dog Inventory 2026
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
In Yellow Dog
Inventory, vendors are the source of your items for purchasing, invoicing, and
cost tracking. Accurate vendor records keep on-hand quantities and pricing
correct across every store. You create and manage both vendors and
manufacturers in the same section.
A vendor is
required. A manufacturer is optional unless your POS requires one.
REQUIREMENTS
Each capability
below has its own conditions:
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CAPABILITY
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REQUIRES
|
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Vendor
record
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One per item source. Required
before you can purchase, invoice, or track cost for an item.
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Manufacturer
record
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Optional, unless your POS
requires it.
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Primary
Vendor enforcement
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The Force
Purchasing Documents to respect Primary Vendor option enabled in System
Setup > Global Options > Purchasing, plus a Primary Vendor set
on the item’s Vendors tab.
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Contract
Price with deviation tolerance
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A Contract Price and
positive/negative Deviation Percentage set on the item’s Additional Vendors tab. The permission to
view and edit these fields.
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Prepaid
documents
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The prepaid checkboxes set per
store on the Stores tab of the
Vendor Editor.
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KEY FEATURES
Vendor
and manufacturer records
Create, edit,
and remove both record types from the Manufacturers
and Vendors section. Yellow Dog generates a Vendor Code
automatically, which you can replace with your own.
Store-level
configuration
On the Vendor
Editor’s Stores tab, choose which
stores the vendor is available to and enter store-specific accounting details:
Accounting ID, Account Number, Tax Number, Terms, and Customer Number.
Prepaid
documents
Mark Receipts
or Invoices as prepaid, automatically or manually, so they are excluded from
your accounting export. For a vendor that is always prepaid, set the document
type as prepaid on the Stores tab.
Every document of that type created for that vendor in that store is then
marked prepaid automatically.
Vendor
contacts
On the Contacts tab, enter email, address, phone, and
fax details. Set which stores a contact is valid for, and indicate whether the
address serves as both Order From and Return To. Adding email addresses lets
you email purchase orders directly to vendors.
Primary
Vendors
Designate a
Primary Vendor for an item. When enforcement is enabled, adding the item to a
Request or PO for a non-Primary Vendor triggers a notification, as does
converting a Request into a PO that uses a non-Primary Vendor for that item.
Contract
Price with tolerance of deviation
Hold a vendor
to a contracted price or price range by setting a Contract Price plus
acceptable positive and negative Deviation Percentages. Prices that exceed the
tolerance appear in the Invoice Records / Price
Changes report, which you can filter to show only items with
contract price deviation.
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Note: Items show data in the contract price report
columns only when both a Contract Price and the deviation thresholds are set.
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HOW IT WORKS
The record you
create flows through the rest of Yellow Dog Inventory. A vendor’s store
availability controls where it can be used; its accounting fields and prepaid
settings shape how its documents export to accounting; and its Primary Vendor
and Contract Price settings govern how purchasing documents behave and which
prices get flagged for review.
BEST PRACTICES
Set up
vendors completely
• Add a contact email so you can email purchase
orders directly.
• Confirm store availability before creating
documents, so the vendor appears where you need it.
Keep
pricing under control
• Set both a Contract Price and deviation
thresholds on contracted items so deviations surface in reporting.
• Designate a Primary Vendor for items that should
normally be ordered from one source, and enable enforcement to catch
exceptions.
RELATED ARTICLES
Last reviewed: June 2026
· Applies to: Yellow Dog
Inventory 2026