Vendor and customer replies

When a vendor answers a follow-up or an emailed PO, the reply lands on the purchase order and Meridian reads the dates out of it for you to accept. Customer replies to status emails land on the ticket. Nothing changes until someone clicks.

Vendor follow-ups, emailed purchase orders and customer status emails each carry their own reply address. When the vendor or the customer presses Reply, the answer comes back into Meridian and attaches to the purchase order or the ticket it answers. Your shop's own email still gets a copy, so you see the thread there too.

Replies come back into Meridian only once your system has been set up to receive them. Until then, replies go to your shop's email, exactly as before, and the Unmatched replies page says so.

What the vendor said, on the PO

When a vendor answers about a purchase order ("the two hangers ship Friday, the dryer is two more weeks out"), Meridian reads the reply and shows what it says about each open line under Vendor replied at the top of the PO, with what each line expects now and what it would expect after you accept:

Shipping: it's on its way, or ships on the day shown.
Backordered: not available yet, with the date they gave, or "no date yet".
Discontinued: they can't supply it.

Each line shows the vendor's own words ("They wrote 'two more weeks'"), so you can check the date Meridian worked out. Dates are counted from the day the reply arrived, on your shop's clock: "tomorrow" written at 10 PM is the next day for your shop.

For each line:

Accept saves that date, and anything the vendor added ("ships from Denver"), on the line. For a discontinued part the button says Mark discontinued: it notes that on the line and leaves its date alone.
Edit opens the date and the note for you to change before saving. Leave the date blank if they gave none; the line keeps the date it has.
Keep current date leaves the line as it was.

Accept both (or Accept all) saves every line in that reply as the vendor said it. An accepted date can be changed any time with Record what they said on the line.

Pressed the wrong one? The message that confirms the save has an Undo button for a few seconds. It puts the line back the way it was, date, note and all, and the vendor's answer waits on the PO again. If someone changed that line in the meantime, Undo leaves their change alone and tells you so.

Nothing is saved to a line until someone presses one of these. Meridian reads the reply; a person decides.

An accepted date is the line's expected date, the same as typing it in with Record what they said. Tickets waiting on the line show it on their special-order chip, the customer's next status email gives it, and Meridian doesn't ask the vendor again before the date has passed (see Vendor follow-ups).

Everyone who can work purchase orders gets a notification in the bell when a vendor replies.

Prices in a vendor's reply are never copied into a line's note. The reply itself shows under Vendor emails only to people who can see vendor cost.

If dates can't be read from a reply on your system, the PO says so, and you record the date on the line yourself.

The conversation, in order

Vendor emails on the PO lists every follow-up and emailed PO that went out and every reply that came back, oldest first. Show their reply opens a reply. "2 lines waiting for you" takes you to the dates still to review.

On a ticket, Messages with the customer does the same for status emails and anything else sent about the ticket, with the customer's replies in between. The service advisor on the ticket gets a notification when the customer replies.

Files they send

A quote, a packing slip or a photo sent with a reply is kept in Meridian with the reply, and listed under it on the PO (under Vendor replied too) or the ticket. Click a file's name to open it. Pictures open in a new tab; PDFs and other files download.

Meridian keeps PDFs, pictures, Word and Excel documents, and text and CSV files, up to 10 MB each and 10 per reply. Anything else (a zip file, a program, a spreadsheet with macros, a file bigger than 10 MB) is listed by name with the reason it wasn't kept. Open those from your shop's email. If your system isn't set up to keep files, every file is listed that way.

Who can open them:

On a purchase order: people who can see vendor cost, because a vendor's quote has prices in it. Everyone else sees the file names.
On a ticket: anyone who can see the ticket.
On Unmatched replies: people who can work purchase orders. When you attach the reply to a PO or a ticket, its files go with it.

Files stay as long as their reply (two years). A reply you put aside keeps its files for 30 days, so you can still bring it back with them.

Unmatched replies

A reply Meridian can't tie to one purchase order or ticket goes to Unmatched replies (Parts & Inventory → Unmatched replies in the sidebar, with a count, or from the bell). That happens when the email it answered has been deleted, when someone typed the reply address by hand, or when a customer answered a status email that covered several tickets.

For each one:

Attach to a PO or a ticket by its number. A customer's reply shows their open tickets to pick from. Attaching a vendor's reply to a PO reads it for dates, which then wait under Vendor replied like any other.
Put aside takes it off the list (Undo right after, or bring it back later from Put aside). It's kept either way.

Only people who can work purchase orders see this page, because a vendor's reply can quote prices.

Replies are kept for two years.

Also send replies to the shop inbox

In Settings → Messaging, Also send replies to the shop inbox is on to start with: each reply goes to Meridian and to your shop's reply address. Turn it off to have replies come only into Meridian. The switch shows only once your system receives replies.