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Multiple Suppliers

Learn how to link multiple suppliers to a single product in Optiply, giving you flexibility, price advantage, and protection against supply chain issues.

Ricardo Guerreiro avatar
Written by Ricardo Guerreiro
Updated in the last 15 minutes

🔗 Multi-Supplier Functionality

Optiply's Multi-Supplier functionality allows you to source the same product from two or more suppliers. This feature gives you the flexibility to manage supply chain risks and leverage price advantages when generating purchase orders.

Core Benefits of Multi-Supplier Planning

Using multiple suppliers for a single product provides several strategic advantages:

  • Risk Mitigation: Become less dependent on a single source, protecting you from delivery problems or stockouts caused by one supplier.

  • Price Advantage: Automatically or manually choose the cheapest supplier for every order, maximising your margin.

  • Supply Fluctuation: Easily manage high demand and fluctuations by spreading orders across different suppliers.

  • Strategic Negotiation: Improve negotiation power for price and delivery times, as suppliers must distinguish themselves from the competition.

Step 1: Enabling and Linking Multiple Suppliers

The Multi-Supplier feature may need activation. Contact your Optiply account manager.

Once enabled, follow these steps to link multiple suppliers to a product:

  1. Open the Product Page: Navigate to the specific product in the Optiply platform.

  2. Access Supplier Management: Go to the section for Supplier relationships and click Add new.

  3. Adding the new supplier: Fill in the required information about the product and supplier, and once done, click Save.

  4. Add Suppliers in bulk: Add two or more suppliers for the same product.

    • You can also add supplier products in bulk; for that, follow the instructions found here.

Step 2: Setting the Preferred Supplier

A Preferred Supplier is a specific supplier you designate as the primary source, overriding Optiply's cost-efficiency calculation.

  1. Edit Supplier Settings: Within the supplier management section, select the appropriate supplier.

  2. Designate Preferred: Mark this supplier as the Preferred supplier for the product.

  3. Save Changes: Confirm the changes.

Note: If your source system (e.g., Exact Online) can handle multiple suppliers, it is more sensible to manage the primary link there, as Optiply will synchronise this information.

Core Purchasing Rule: Preferred vs. Least Expensive

Optiply determines which supplier to recommend in the final purchase order based on a clear hierarchy:

  1. Preferred Supplier: If you manually set a supplier as Preferred, Optiply will always choose this supplier, even if a competitor is cheaper.

  2. Least Expensive Default: If no supplier is set as preferred, Optiply will automatically choose the supplier that is the most cost-effective (least expensive purchase price, delivery time, etc.) by default.

Editable Supplier-Product Attributes

When managing the link between the product and a specific supplier, you can adjust the following attributes. These settings prioritise the product-level rule over the general supplier-level rule.

Attribute

Purpose & Impact

Inventory Warning

Product Lead Time (Days)

Lead time specific to this product. Takes priority over the supplier's general lead time.

Purchase Price

The cost of the product from this supplier.

WARNING: Optiply calculates Inventory Value based on the current purchase price. A price change affects the historical valuation of all existing stock.

Lot Size

Mandatory unit quantity (e.g., boxes of 12).

MOQ

Minimum Order Quantity required by the supplier.

Available

Set to Off if you do not want to purchase this product from this supplier (even if stock is negative).

Weight / Volume

Used for container/logistics calculations.

Product Name / SKU / EAN

Supplier-specific identifiers.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

If I set a Preferred Supplier, will Optiply ever order from the backup supplier?

Optiply will only order from a non-preferred, active supplier if the preferred supplier is marked as unavailable (e.g., they are phased out or the Available toggle is set to Off). Otherwise, the preferred supplier is always prioritised, regardless of cost.

I changed the purchase price for a product. Why did my Inventory Value jump?

When you manually change the Purchase Price on the supplier-product link, Optiply updates the valuation for all existing stock of that product to the new price. This is why you see a significant, immediate jump in your total Inventory Value on the dashboard.

Does the Multi-Supplier feature increase my purchasing costs?

Not necessarily. If you leave the Preferred Supplier field blank, Optiply defaults to choosing the least expensive active supplier for every purchase, which helps minimise costs.

What is the difference between setting a product as Phased Out and setting the 'Available' toggle to Off?

Phased Out is a global product status that usually stops all purchasing. Setting the 'Available' toggle to Off only stops purchasing from that specific supplier, allowing you to keep buying the product from a different linked supplier.

If my source system syncs MOQ, can I still edit it in Optiply?

Yes, you can edit it in Optiply, but be aware that if your source system (WMS/ERP) continues to sync the MOQ, your manual changes in Optiply may be overwritten during the next synchronisation cycle.

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