Vendor Items vs. Purchased Items

A vendor item is a single item that is purchased from a vendor. R365 does not require vendor item records to be created unless your organization is automating AP invoicing through EDI. When an invoice is brought in to R365, the vendor items will be listed in the vendor items listing but will need to be tied to a purchased item so that the item can be tracked in R365.

Vendor items are named and numbered differently by each vendor, even if the item purchased from two vendors is the same. These items can then be categorized as the same item, or purchased item, in R365. The purchased item record will then store all of the details about this item in one place.

Example

In the example above, the restaurant purchased the same item from two separate vendors: Atlantic Food Distributors and Kendall's Produce. However, over the course of purchasing from Atlantic Food Distributors, the oranges were bought at two different Purchased UofMs: 'Case - 138CT' and 'Case - 88 CT'.

Due to these differences, each fresh orange case purchased had a unique vendor item record created for it, but since all vendor item records included the same type of orange, regardless of vendor item name or number, they are all categorized under the same item: 'PROD Oranges'.

A purchased item record is the record that bundles the same items together from different vendors under one record in R365 and is the record that will store the inventory count details, overall purchase price, and more information for the item.

Map a Vendor Item to a Purchased Item

A vendor item is tied to a purchased item on the vendor item record.

New Vendor Item Record

Classic Vendor Item Record

After clicking into the vendor item record, the first field listed is the Item selector where the corresponding purchased item record should be selected. If the desired purchased item is not in the listing, create a new purchased item record from the Items page or using the Link Items sidesheet.

Once that record is created, return to the vendor item record and select the purchased item from the Item selector before saving and closing the record.

The vendor item will then be listed on the Vendor Items tab of the selected Purchased Item record. Click here to learn more about mapping vendor items.

Once a vendor item record is tied to a purchased item record, no further actions need to be taken on the vendor item record. Rather, when future AP invoices are brought in with these vendor items, these records will automatically map the purchase information to their corresponding purchased item record.