Getting started
Vendor guide
External suppliers: how a vendor account is linked to a supplier record, what the portal shows, how an invoice moves from draft to paid, and what a vendor cannot do.
Getting started guide for day and boarding schools.
Last updated August 29, 2026
A vendor is an external supplier with a deliberately narrow view of the school system. The account exists so a supplier can see the orders raised to them and submit invoices against those orders without anyone emailing PDFs back and forth. It is not a staff account with fewer menu items: a vendor session is resolved to a single supplier record and every query is filtered to it.
That linkage is the thing to get right at onboarding, and it is where most vendor support requests come from. Creating a login with the Vendor role is only half the job; the account also has to be attached to an active supplier record at /vendors. Until both exist, the vendor can sign in and reach nothing, which reads to them as a broken system rather than an incomplete setup.
- Sign in - Vendor tab at /signin → /vendor-portal
- Profile - /vendor-portal/profile - contact and banking details
- Purchase orders - /procurement, filtered to that vendor only
- Invoices - /finance/vendor-bills, presented as My invoices, raised against an existing order
- Notifications - email when a new order is issued, if SMTP is configured
- Docs - header Docs icon → /docs for the procurement overview
How an invoice moves
| Status | Who moves it | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Vendor | Started against a purchase order, not yet visible to finance as a claim |
| Submitted | Vendor | With school finance for review; the vendor can no longer edit it |
| Approved | School finance | Accepted for payment, after finance has matched it against the order and receipt |
| Rejected or disputed | School finance | Returned to the vendor, who corrects and resubmits |
| Paid | School finance | Settled; the vendor sees the status change in their invoice history |
| Symptom | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor cannot sign in | User type and tab | Must use Vendor tab at /signin; account needs userType vendor. Reset password via /forgot-password if needed. |
| No purchase orders visible | PO issuance | Finance must issue PO from /procurement linked to vendor record; vendor only sees their scoped POs. |
| Cannot submit vendor bill | Finance path enabled | Submit at /finance/vendor-bills when school enables vendor billing; three-way match done by finance staff. |
| Vendor sees staff screens | Wrong persona tab | Vendor role is portal-only — use /vendor-portal, not staff dashboard. |
Common questions
Quick answers in plain language.
How does a vendor sign in and view purchase orders?+
Vendors use the Vendor tab at /signin, not Staff or Parent, then open /vendor-portal. Purchase orders are read at /procurement, filtered to that vendor. School staff must create the vendor record at /vendors and attach the login to it first.
A vendor signs in successfully but every screen says forbidden. Why?+
Their user account is not attached to an active supplier record. The portal resolves the vendor by looking up an active Vendor row whose userId matches the signed-in user; with no match it refuses rather than showing an empty portal. Fix it by linking the account on the vendor record at /vendors.
Which purchase orders can a vendor raise an invoice against?+
Only their own, and only those at ordered, received, or approved status. A draft or cancelled order is not offered, which is why a supplier sometimes cannot find an order the school believes it has sent.
Can a vendor edit an invoice after submitting it?+
Not while it is under review. Once submitted it is the school finance team that moves it to approved, rejected, or paid. A rejected or disputed invoice comes back to the vendor, who resubmits a corrected one.
Related searches
School leaders and IT teams often search for: how to vendors in school management software, best school software onboarding for K-12 schools, Schoolyi vendors guide, school ERP go live checklist, migrate from Excel to school ERP, and school software training guide.