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Suppliers & Orders

Manage your supply chain from order to delivery

Overview

Running a grooming salon means keeping shelves stocked with shampoos, conditioners, grooming tools, and retail products. CheckinDog's supplier and order management system gives you a complete supply chain workflow: register your suppliers, link products to them with buying prices, create purchase orders, and reconcile deliveries — all without leaving the application.

Adding a Supplier

Navigate to Suppliers in the sidebar under the Products navigation group to view your supplier directory.

Creating a New Supplier

Click the New supplier button in the top-right corner. The supplier form is organized into several sections.

Company Information

Fill in the core business details for the supplier:

  • Company name — The official registered name of the supplier's business. This is the only required field.
  • Contact name — The name of your primary point of contact at the company.
  • Company type — Select from common French legal structures: SARL, SAS, SASU, SA, or Other. This is useful for accounting and legal documentation.
  • Capital — The registered share capital of the company, if applicable.
  • VAT number — The supplier's intra-community VAT identification number (e.g., FR12345678901).
  • Registration number — The company's trade register number (SIRET, SIREN, or equivalent).
  • Activity code — The supplier's APE/NAF activity code, which classifies their primary business activity.

Contact Details

Provide all the ways you might need to reach this supplier:

  • Email — Primary email address for correspondence and order confirmations.
  • Phone — Landline phone number.
  • Mobile — Mobile phone number, useful for urgent queries.
  • Website — The supplier's website URL for quick reference to their product catalog.
  • Main contact — An additional field for specifying the key account manager or sales representative assigned to your account.

Address

Enter the supplier's full postal address:

  • Address line 1 — Street number and name.
  • Address line 2 — Additional address information (building, suite, floor).
  • Postal code — ZIP or postal code.
  • City — City or town.
  • Country — Country name.

Order Terms

These fields help you plan your orders efficiently:

  • Minimum order amount — The minimum purchase value required by the supplier to process an order. CheckinDog will display a warning if your order total falls below this threshold.
  • Free shipping threshold — The order value above which the supplier offers free delivery. Knowing this helps you consolidate orders to save on shipping.
  • Delivery delay (days) — The typical number of business days between placing an order and receiving the delivery. This helps you plan ahead so you never run out of essential products.

Notes and Comments

Use the notes field to record any additional information about the supplier — payment terms, discount agreements, seasonal promotions, or anything else worth remembering.

Linking Items to Suppliers

Once your suppliers are registered, you can link your inventory items to them. This creates a direct connection between the products you sell or use and where you buy them from.

From the Item Form

When editing an item in your inventory, you will find a Suppliers section. For each supplier link, you can specify:

  • Supplier — Select from your registered suppliers.
  • Supplier reference — The supplier's own product code or SKU for this item. Having this on hand makes ordering faster and reduces errors.
  • Buying price — The unit cost you pay the supplier for this item. This is essential for calculating margins and tracking profitability.

An item can be linked to multiple suppliers. This is useful when you have backup suppliers or want to compare prices.

Practical Tips for Item-Supplier Links

  • Always record the supplier reference exactly as it appears in their catalog. This avoids confusion when placing orders.
  • Keep buying prices up to date. When a supplier sends a new price list, update the buying prices in CheckinDog so your margin calculations remain accurate.
  • If a supplier discontinues a product, you can remove the link and add a new supplier for that item without losing any historical order data.

Creating Purchase Orders

Purchase orders let you formally request products from a supplier and track the entire order lifecycle.

Starting a New Order

Navigate to Orders in the sidebar under the Products navigation group and click New order.

Order Header

  • Supplier — Select the supplier you are ordering from. This is required.
  • Status — Every new order starts as Open. The status will change as you process the order:
    • Open — The order has been created and is awaiting delivery.
    • Closed — The order has been fully received and reconciled.
    • Conflict — There is a discrepancy between what was ordered and what was received.

Order Lines

Each order contains one or more order lines. For each line, specify:

  • Item — Select from your inventory. Only items linked to the selected supplier will be suggested, making it easy to find the right products.
  • Quantity ordered — How many units you are requesting.
  • Quantity received — This field is filled in during the receiving process (see below). It starts at zero.
  • Unit price — The per-unit buying price. This auto-fills from the item-supplier link if one exists, but you can override it for special pricing.

The order total is calculated automatically from the sum of all line totals (quantity ordered multiplied by unit price).

Saving and Submitting

Click Create to save the order. You can continue editing an open order at any time — adding lines, adjusting quantities, or changing prices — until you begin the receiving process.

Receiving Orders

When a delivery arrives at your salon, CheckinDog makes it easy to reconcile what you ordered with what you actually received.

The Receiving Process

  1. Navigate to your Orders list and find the open order you want to receive.
  2. Click the green Receive button that appears on open orders.
  3. For each order line, enter the quantity received — the actual number of units that arrived.
  4. Save the receiving record.

What Happens Automatically

When you complete the receiving process, CheckinDog performs several actions behind the scenes:

  • Stock update — Each item's stock level is automatically incremented by the quantity received. You do not need to manually adjust inventory.
  • Status determination — The system compares ordered quantities to received quantities for every line:
    • If all quantities match, the order status is set to Closed.
    • If any line has a mismatch (received more or fewer units than ordered), the order status is set to Conflict.

Handling Conflicts

A conflict status does not prevent you from using the received stock — it simply flags the order for your attention. Common reasons for conflicts include:

  • A supplier shipped fewer units than ordered (back-order or out-of-stock situation).
  • A supplier shipped more units than ordered (bonus stock or packing error).
  • Damaged items that you chose not to accept.

Review conflict orders regularly. You can add notes to the order explaining the discrepancy for your records.

Exporting Orders

CheckinDog supports exporting your order data in two formats, accessible from the orders list page.

PDF Export

Generate a professional PDF document for any order. This is useful for:

  • Sending a formal purchase order to a supplier by email or post.
  • Keeping printed records for your files.
  • Sharing order details with your accountant.

The PDF includes the order header (supplier details, order date, status), all order lines with quantities and prices, and the order total.

Excel Export

Export your orders to an Excel spreadsheet for:

  • Bulk analysis of purchasing history.
  • Importing into accounting software.
  • Creating custom reports on supplier spending.
  • Tracking order trends over time.

Best Practices

Organizing Your Suppliers

  • Register all your suppliers, even occasional ones. Having their details on file saves time when you need to reorder.
  • Keep contact information current. Update phone numbers, emails, and contact names whenever they change.
  • Use the notes field to record negotiated terms, discount codes, or preferred ordering methods.

Efficient Ordering

  • Check the minimum order amount before submitting. Consolidate small orders to meet thresholds and avoid surcharges.
  • Aim for the free shipping threshold when possible. Sometimes adding a few extra units of a fast-moving product is cheaper than paying for shipping.
  • Use the delivery delay field to plan your orders. If a supplier typically takes 5 business days, place your order well before you run out of stock.

Accurate Receiving

  • Always receive orders promptly when deliveries arrive. Delaying the receiving process means your stock levels will be inaccurate.
  • Count every item carefully. A few minutes spent verifying quantities saves hours of troubleshooting inventory discrepancies later.
  • If you notice damaged or missing items, record the actual received quantity (not what was ordered) and handle the dispute with the supplier separately.

Stock Accuracy

  • The receiving process is the primary way stock levels are updated for purchased items. Make sure every delivery goes through the receiving workflow.
  • Periodically compare your physical stock counts to what CheckinDog reports. If numbers drift, check for orders that were delivered but never formally received in the system.

Summary

The suppliers and orders system in CheckinDog gives you end-to-end control over your product supply chain. By maintaining accurate supplier records, linking items with buying prices, and using the order-receive workflow, you can ensure your salon is always stocked with the products you need while keeping clear records for accounting and analysis.

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