Vendor follow-ups

Let Meridian ask your vendors when late and backordered parts will arrive. It drafts one email per purchase order each morning for you to read and send, keeps each line's expected date and what the vendor said, and stops asking after three tries so you know who to phone.

When a delivery comes in short, or a purchase order is late, someone has to ask the vendor when the rest is coming. Vendor follow-ups does the asking by email. Meridian writes the email; you read it and press Send. Nothing goes to a vendor until you do, unless you've told Meridian that vendor can be sent to automatically.

Turn it on

Open Settings → Vendor follow-ups and switch on Draft vendor follow-ups. It's off until you do. You need to be an owner or manager.

On the same page you choose when the day's follow-ups are drafted (9:00 AM on your shop's clock unless you change it) and when a line is asked about:

Setting	Starts at	What it means
No expected date: ask after	7 days	Days after the PO was placed, for a line nobody has a date for.
Past its expected date: ask after	2 days	Days after the line's expected date (its own, or the PO's).
Left short by a delivery: ask after	3 days	Days after a delivery came in without it. Whichever comes first, this or the rules above.
Ask again every	5 days	When the vendor hasn't given a date yet.
Stop after	3 tries	Then the line shows under No date yet, for someone to phone.

Days are whole days on your shop's calendar. A date the vendor gave you always wins: Meridian waits until it has passed before asking again.

Who it goes to

Each email goes to the vendor's Orders contact for the store the PO ships to. Add contacts on the vendor's page, under Contacts, and tick Orders for whoever handles your orders. A contact for one store is used for that store's POs; a contact for every store is used otherwise; with no Orders contact at all, it goes to the vendor's main email. Replies come back to your shop's email, the same as your other emails (Settings → Messaging), and, once your system receives replies, onto the purchase order too, with the dates read out for you to accept (see Vendor and customer replies).

Every follow-up has a line at the bottom that lets the vendor stop them. If someone uses it, their name shows "unsubscribed" on the vendor's page and on any follow-up, and Send is turned off if there's no one else to send to. Emailed POs don't have that line and still reach them.

Review and send

Each morning's drafts are on Parts & Inventory → Vendor Follow-ups. The sidebar shows how many are waiting, and everyone who can send them gets a notification in the bell (and an email, if they have Email me on).

Each draft is one email to one vendor about one purchase order. It shows:

To: who it goes to, and Replies go to. If your shop has no reply address, it says so: add one in Settings → Messaging, or the vendor's reply has nowhere to go.
Asking about: the lines still to come, with what was ordered, what's arrived and what's still to come. When you've recorded the vendor's own part number on the part (under the part's suppliers), the email leads with theirs: "FP-88213 (our S-2840)".
Subject and Email: the wording. Change anything you like before you send. If your change leaves out a part the follow-up is about, Meridian tells you, because it still counts as asked.

Then:

Send emails it. Pressing it twice sends once.
Skip doesn't send it, and doesn't count as a try. Those lines are asked about again after the Ask again every days.
Pause stops all follow-ups to that vendor for 3, 7, 14 or 30 days, and skips the ones waiting for them.

If a line arrives before you send, it's left off. Draft today's follow-ups now drafts anything due without waiting for the morning.

If Meridian can't send one (no Orders address, everyone at the vendor has unsubscribed, or email isn't set up), it stays in the list with a note saying why, and it isn't counted as a try.

To change the wording every follow-up starts with, edit Vendor follow-up: when will the rest arrive? in Settings → Customer emails & texts, under Vendors.

Expected dates and what the vendor said

On a purchase order, each open line shows when it's expected and how many times it has been asked about. Record what they said records the date the vendor gave you and what they said ("Ships from Denver Tuesday"). The same is on the part's page, under Coming on purchase orders.

A line with no date of its own expects the PO's date ("the PO's date").
Tickets waiting on the line show the new date on their special-order chip.
Recording a date or a note counts as the vendor answering, so the line's tries start again from zero.

When a delivery comes in short, the lines left over are marked Supplier back-order and asked about Left short by a delivery days later.

No date yet

A line asked about the most times allowed with no date recorded shows No date after 3 asks on the PO and under the No date yet tab. Meridian stops asking, and the bell tells Parts the day it happens. The tab shows the vendor's Orders contact phone number. If they replied by email, choose Record what they said and enter the date; otherwise phone them.

Coming up lists every other open line, when it will next be asked about, and whether it waits for review or sends automatically. Sent lists what went out.

Sending automatically, one vendor at a time

Once you're happy with the wording for a vendor, open the vendor's page and, under Follow-ups, choose Send automatically. Meridian asks first, naming who will get them. From then on that vendor's follow-ups go out each morning without anyone reading them first (held until your quiet hours end, if the send hour falls inside them). There's no shop-wide automatic setting: each vendor is switched on its own.

The same card can turn follow-ups off for one vendor, give one vendor its own timings, or end a pause.

Email a PO to the vendor

On a placed purchase order, Actions → Email PO to vendor sends the order to the vendor's Orders contact: each part still to come and how many, where to ship it, and when you need it. Lines already received are left off, so they aren't shipped twice. It doesn't show prices. Meridian shows who it goes to before it sends, and warns you if the PO was emailed before. It's always sent by hand, never automatically.

Everything sent about a PO, follow-ups and emailed POs, and any replies that came back, is listed on the PO under Vendor emails, and in the PO's history.