Documentation/ Purchase orders and projects/ Reply address and contact
Reply address and supplier contact
Two settings decide whether an order arrives properly and whether the reply gets seen: where the supplier replies, set once for the whole company, and their contact details, which live on their record and can be edited from the order itself.
Management › Purchase Orders › Set the sending address · and the Supplier contact block
On this page
The reply address
This is the address suppliers' replies arrive at. The screen puts it this way: when the supplier answers the order, their reply will reach this address; leave it empty and they will reply to whoever sent the order.
It is set once and holds for every order the company sends. The natural place for it is a shared purchasing mailbox.
It has to be a valid address; if it is not, the application says so before saving and shows the right format.
Who can change it
Only the company's administrator can change this address. Other users are told so on the screen.
Which makes sense: it is a company setting, not a user one, and it affects every order sent from the account.
What happens if it is left empty
Replies go to the email address of whoever sent each order. It works, but it has three known drawbacks:
- The reply sits in a personal mailbox and the team does not see it.
- If that person is away, nobody answers the supplier.
- The history of conversations with a supplier ends up spread across several people.
So as soon as more than one person is placing orders, a shared mailbox is worth setting up.
The supplier's contact details
The order includes a supplier contact block with a warning of its own: these details are used when sending the order by email or WhatsApp, and they are saved on the supplier's record.
In other words, what you edit here is not an exception for this order. It is saved on the record and affects everything else. It is the short cut that saves going to the supplier master, editing it and coming back.
The contact fields
| Field | Its part in the sending |
|---|---|
| Main email | Where the order goes by email. Without it there is no email sending. |
| Second email (copy) | Copied on the email. It does not stand in for the main one. |
| Main and second phone | For information. They play no part in any sending. |
| The number the chat opens with. Without it there is no sending by that route. |
On saving, it confirms that the supplier's contact details were updated.
The WhatsApp format
The number has to be in international format. If it is not, the application refuses it and shows the example
+34600111222.
Write it as one run of digits, with the country code and no spaces. It is the same rule that governs the supplier import from Excel, where the column also has to be formatted as text so the spreadsheet does not eat the leading sign.
How to leave it in good shape
- Set the reply address when you start using orders. It is one field and it saves months of scattered replies.
- Use the supplier's generic mailboxes, orders or accounts, rather than particular people's addresses.
- Finish the contact details as you prepare the first order to each supplier: that is when you have them in front of you.
- Go over the supplier master now and then to find the ones with no email address and no WhatsApp number. The Excel export makes it obvious.
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| It will not save the reply address | The user is not the company's administrator. | Ask the administrator to do it. |
| It says the address is not valid | The address is mistyped. | Check the format: the screen shows an example. |
| The supplier replies to a personal address | The reply address is empty. | Set the purchasing mailbox. |
| The WhatsApp number will not save | The country code is missing. | Write it as +34600111222. |
| The contact details were changed and it affected other orders | Contact details are saved on the supplier's record, not on the order. | That is how it is meant to work. |