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Mapping

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.

This article explains the idea. For the procedure at the review screen — accepting a suggestion, entering a code by hand, and what gets remembered — follow resolve item codes in review.

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 Partners → 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.

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 Rules & formats → 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.