Manufacturers vs Suppliers

Manufacturers VS Suppliers There seems to be a lot of confusion when setting up your suppliers in Lizzy. So, let us clarify. Manufacturers make the parts or units. Honda makes Honda parts and units. Toro makes Toro inventory. Since manufacturers make the parts, they number them as well. The numbers are then collected into a price book. Suppliers supply you with the items. Suppliers could supply you with various things: inventory, a service, finances, etc. Distributors just supply you with inventory – so they would only be marked as a supplier. Basically, anyone you will need a payable for is a supplier to you. Honda could be a supplier for you. AT&T Telephone is a supplier. GE Finance is a supplier. You could have a contact that is both. Honda makes the parts and they could supply you with them. So, Honda would be entered into Lizzy as both a supplier and a manufacturer. IF you buy Honda parts from a distributor – then Honda would be set up as JUST the manufacturer, and your distributor is setup as a supplier. When doing this, you can link the manufacturer to the supplier and tell Lizzy who you purchase these manufacturer parts from – and you can select multiple contacts. I may be able to order Honda parts from 3 different suppliers.     Hopefully, all that seems very straightforward and simple to you, but lets just throw a monkey wrench in and complicate this a little bit. Parts Unlimited is a TRUE distributor. They buy parts from other manufacturers and sell them. HOWEVER, in Lizzy, when you set up Parts Unlimited, you set them up as a manufacturer. The reason is simple. Manufacturers make parts – and therefore designate part numbers, which in turn gives you a manufacturer price file (price book). Parts unlimited buys the parts, sticks a parts unlimited part number on the product and sends it to you. They also have a price book filled with all their part numbers. In order to import the part numbers into Lizzy under Parts Unlimited, they must be designated as a manufacturer. If you take that example, you can apply it to Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). They have different divisions – Can Am makes Can Am parts, Seadoo, Skidoo, etc…and each division has their own price book, or set of part numbers. In order to distinguish Can Am parts from Ski Doo parts, simply set Can Am up as a manufacturer – so their price book gets imported, and set BRP as the supplier, as that is essentially who you buy the product from and you need a payable for in the end. If you follow the simple formula that manufacturers make the inventory and suppliers supply the inventory, you should have no issues. Its the occassional “special” manufacturer/supplier that seem to need some special attention and then clutter everything up. But, as you can see from the last 2 examples, these special circumstances can be handled on a case-by-case basis. Also, there is more information on adding suppliers and manufacturers in our Video Library in the Train Me section of Lizzy.