Supplier item codes, catalogs, and mappings
Your purchase orders use your item codes. Each supplier expects their own codes — the article numbers in their system. The review screen's "needs a supplier code" lines are exactly this gap, and closing it is the one piece of real work ProcuLink can't invent for you.
What a supplier item code is
A supplier item code is the identifier the supplier's order system recognises for a product — their SKU or article number. When an order line shows your code (say A4-COPY-500) but the supplier sells it as PAP-0042, someone has to say so once. That "saying so" is a mapping.
Upload the supplier's catalog once
The fastest way to close the gap is to import the supplier's product catalog under Library → Suppliers → Catalog (CSV or XLSX; columns like code, name, unit, price, barcode are auto-detected). With a catalog in place:
- new orders auto-match lines against the supplier's real codes,
- manual entry gets a typeahead of codes that actually exist,
- AI suggestions are grounded in the catalog — they can only propose real codes,
- a typo gets flagged immediately ("not in the supplier's catalog").
Most suppliers can export this list from their ERP or webshop in a minute. One upload keeps teaching every future order.
Catalog file requirements
The import is deliberately forgiving — point it at the supplier's export and it figures the columns out:
- File type: CSV or Excel (
.xlsx/.xls). For CSV, comma, semicolon, and tab delimiters are all auto-detected. For Excel, the first worksheet is read; the first row must be the headers. - Required column: a product code. The header can be named
code,sku,product_code,item_code,supplier_code, and similar — matching is case-insensitive. Rows without a code are skipped (the import tells you how many). - Recognised optional columns: name (
name,description,product,title), unit (unit,uom), price (price,unit_price,list_price— use a dot decimal, e.g.24.90), currency, barcode (barcode,gtin,ean,upc), and an external id (external_id,product_id,erp_id). - Re-imports are safe: rows are matched by code and updated in place, so importing this month's export over last month's just refreshes the data — the result reports how many rows were created vs updated.
ProcuLink remembers your resolutions
When you type a supplier code on the review screen, that resolution is saved as an item mapping for that supplier. The next order with the same buyer code resolves automatically — you should only ever have to teach each product once. Saved mappings live under Library → Mappings.
No catalog handy?
You can always type codes manually — the order still goes out. The catalog just turns a per-order chore into a one-time setup.
Next: Setting up delivery and test-fire — where resolved orders actually go.