Suppliers

The Suppliers tab is your central hub for everything related to who you buy materials from. From here, you can add new suppliers, manage their contact information, and control how Ply sources pricing for your catalog.

From here you can see all suppliers currently loaded into your account. If you're a Ferguson customer, Ferguson will already appear here as your primary supplier; no setup needed on your end for that connection.

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That's it; the supplier is now available to select anywhere in Ply where suppliers apply (materials, POs, etc.).

Suppliers often have more than one point of contact (sales rep, branch manager, billing contact). To add one:

✅ Keep supplier names consistent. Avoid creating duplicate entries for the same supplier under slightly different names (e.g. "Ferguson" vs. "Ferguson Enterprises"), this splits your pricing history and makes reporting harder to trust

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✅ Add pricing per supplier at the material level. If you're working with more

than one supplier for the same material, use Smart Suppliers to let Ply automatically flag the lowest-cost option, or set a Preferred Supplier if you want to lock in a specific one regardless of price.

✅ Use Supplier UPC codes if your supplier catalog uses different item numbers than your internal SKU; this keeps scanning and receiving accurate. See Supplier UPC Codes in Ply.

✅ Bulk-loading a new supplier's pricing?

Don't add it material-by-material if you have a large catalog; use the bulk upload option instead (see below).

✅ Want to track price creep by supplier?

Check out Spend Lens, an early-access feature in Ply Labs that breaks down spend by supplier and by PO, designed to help you spot which suppliers are quietly raising prices over time. Enable it under Settings → Labs, then find it under Purchasing → Spend Lens. Since it's early access, functionality may still evolve.

"I need to update pricing for many materials from the same supplier at once." Manually adding prices per material works fine for a handful of items but doesn't scale well. For bulk changes, use How to Bulk Upload & Edit Prices and Supplier instead of editing materials one by one.

"My supplier contact says they never got the PO confirmation, but it shows as sent."

This is usually a delivery/spam issue on the supplier's side rather than a Ply issue; double-check the contact email on file is correct and ask them to check spam/junk folders. If you're still stuck, reach out to our team with the PO number and we'll confirm on our end what was sent.
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"A PO looks like it was confirmed automatically, and no one on our team or the supplier's side did it."

This can happen if an email security scanner (used by some email providers, like Zscaler) automatically opens links inside the PO email, including the confirmation link, before a person ever reads it. If you notice this, let our support team know so we can look into it with you; in the meantime, always double-check PO status manually before assuming it's been reviewed by the supplier.

"I set up a preferred supplier, but Ply keeps switching it back to the cheapest one." Preferred Suppliers only stick if the general Smart Suppliers toggle is on and the per-material Smart Supplier toggle is turned off for that specific item. See Smart Suppliers and Preferred Suppliers in Ply for the full walkthrough.

"I don't see the supplier I need in a dropdown."

Double check the supplier was actually saved (not just drafted) in the Suppliers tab, and that it's active. If it's a brand-new supplier you just added, refresh the page, new suppliers sometimes don't appear in open dropdowns until the page reloads.

"I have duplicate suppliers already in my account, the same distributor listed twice under different names/emails."

This is common, especially across multiple branches or after onboarding. Our support and data team can merge them for you: send us the names of the duplicate supplier records and which one should be kept as the "correct" one. We'll transfer all UPCs and materials tied to the duplicate over to the correct supplier, then delete the duplicate. Log in afterward to confirm everything (pricing, UPCs) is showing up as expected under the surviving supplier.

"I need this cleaned up across multiple branches/locations, not just one."

Let us know all the affected branches in your request, this is handled the same way (UPC/material transfer + duplicate deletion), just scoped to each location you flag.

Can I have more than one contact per supplier?

Yes; add as many as you need using the three-dot menu next to the supplier.

Does deleting a supplier affect materials already linked to it?

Removing a supplier does not delete your materials, but it will remove that supplier as a pricing/sourcing option on any materials it was attached to. Double-check you're not relying on that supplier as a preferred or smart supplier before removing it.

Can I bulk-add suppliers or bulk-edit supplier pricing?

Adding brand-new suppliers is currently a one-by-one process from the Suppliers tab. However, once suppliers exist, you can bulk-edit pricing and supplier assignments on your materials; see How to Bulk Upload & Edit Prices and Supplier.