The vendor portal (for vendors)

The vendor portal is where a company's vendors work with it. It is free for vendors.

Joining

The company's buyer invites you: an email arrives with a link. Open it, choose a password, and sign in at the vendor portal's address. If several companies invite you, one account works with all of them: pick the company at the top.

Where you stand

Each company's page opens with Where you stand: your way to approval in three stages, Your documents (what you still have to hand in), the company checks (it is going through your documents and details) and Approval (the company is approving you). It says where you are, never who at the company decides.

Your documents

Documents lists what the company asks of you (GST certificate, PAN card, bank letter, MSME certificate). Upload each: PDF or image. Each file is virus-checked, then the company checks it and verifies or rejects it with a reason (you are told by email). When a document is about to expire, you are reminded to upload a current one.

One account, several companies

Each company keeps its own record of you, its own documents and its own checks. What one company holds is never shown to another, and neither learns the other's name.

Where two companies hold the same PAN for you, a company's page can offer Use what you already gave your other customers: a document you handed in yourself at the other company, that it verified and that has not expired. Use here asks you to confirm, then gives the company a copy. The company checks the copy itself, like any upload, and nothing from the other company's check goes with it. When the PANs differ, or one company holds none, nothing is offered: ask either company to correct your details. A company can also ask for a new file each time (its own rule): then you upload it as usual.

RFQs and quotations

Requests in the menu lists the requests for quotation your customers sent you, all in one place: the customer, the RFQ's number, when quotations are due and where it stands for you (To quote, Quoted, Declined, Not accepted, Closed, and Auction when you are invited to a reverse auction that is set or live). The ones that wait for you come first, the soonest due on top, and your home page tells you how many wait. What the buyer asked after your quotation and still waits for (an engineer's question, a price agreed on the phone to confirm, a request to extend your validity) shows on the request as 2 to answer, with an Answer button, even after the due time: it leads the list until you answer. A request the buyer cancelled stays on the list for a few days as Cancelled, and one it awarded or closed as Closed (nothing is said of who won); neither can be opened. A customer that has its vendors answer by email only, or has put you on hold, is not listed. Open one (Quote, Change, Bid or View) and the request is a page of the portal: you are already signed in, so no code is asked for. Read what is asked and the buyer's drawings, ask a question, fill in your prices, add your files, then Save to keep it for later or Send quotation; you can change it and send it again until the due time, and Decline says why you will not quote. When the buyer runs a reverse auction, its page is at the top of the request and you bid there.

When a customer emails you an RFQ, everyone who signs in for your company on its portal is told too, by an email of its own and on the bell: it opens the request here. The same happens when the customer changes the RFQ (an amendment), and when it reminds you to quote: the bell rings and an email arrives, each opening the request. (A customer can turn each of these off.)

RFQs come by email from the buyer, with the RFQ's PDF and a quotation sheet. Reply to the email with your quotation, fill in the sheet, or use the link when the buyer sends one: a code sent to your email opens it, and you enter your prices yourself. Questions about an RFQ: ask; the answer goes to every vendor asked.

If the buyer attached drawings, a specification or terms, they are on the page under Drawings and documents: open them before you quote (a link works for a few minutes; open the document again for a new one).

Each line says what the buyer asks of it besides its description (a grade, a standard). Once you give a line's price, the form also asks what your buyer's company wants answered, such as the heat number or the grade you offer; a field marked with a star must be answered before you can send. If a certificate is asked, upload it among your files and choose it on the line. The Excel sheet has a column for each of these too.

Purchase orders

Orders in the menu lists the purchase orders your customers sent you, all in one place: the customer, the PO's number, when it reached you, what it comes to (its Total, with GST) and where it stands for you (To acknowledge, Accepted, Accepted with comments, Declined, Closed). A repeat order a customer asks you to confirm is listed as To re-confirm, with the day to reply by, and shows the number of the PO it repeats until it is issued. What waits for your answer comes first, and your home page tells you how many wait. What you answered, or the customer cancelled, stays on the list for the number of days your customer keeps a PO open to you (30 unless it says otherwise), then leaves it. Open one (Answer, Confirm or View) and the PO is a page of the portal: you are already signed in, so no code is asked for. Read it, download its PDF, then answer once: Accept, Accept, with comments or Decline with your reason. For a repeat order, Confirm its rates and delivery, Change the price or Decline, saying the new price or why. The buyer is told, and for a PO sees that you answered on the portal.

When a customer sends you a PO, or changes one it had sent, everyone who signs in for your company on its portal is told too, by an email of its own and on the bell: it opens the PO here. (A customer can turn this off.)

A PO also comes by email with its PDF and a link, and that link keeps working: open it, prove it is you with the code sent to the same email, and answer. No account is needed for this. Either way the PO is answered once.

Language

The whole vendor portal, and the quotation and purchase-order pages you open from an email, can be read in Hindi (हिन्दी): use Language / भाषा in the menu under your name, or the language button in the footer of any page before you sign in. The choice is kept in this browser. Emails and PDFs from your customers are not translated, and a word a customer typed (an item, a note) stays as they wrote it.

Need help?

Ask the buyer who sent the RFQ or PO. The error codes page explains any message you see.