Add a New Supplier

The page allows you to add a supplier manually into your kolum workspace, ensuring you have complete and clean supplier data before inviting them to collaborate. This step is useful when you want to bring suppliers into your emissions data workflow systematically, maintaining clear ownership of who is responsible for providing data on the supplier side. In kolum, each supplier requires one main contact person (Default Contact Person). This person will receive the invitation to join the platform, create their supplier account, and submit the required emissions data for their company. Without adding this contact person, a supplier cannot be invited or onboarded.

Key Points

• You can connect suppliers to one or multiple companies immediately while creating them.

• The Default Contact Person is mandatory and will receive the platform invitation.
• After adding a supplier, you can invite or reinvite them anytime.

How to Add a New Supplier

1. Go to Suppliers Management in your sidebar.
2. Click "Add a New Supplier."
3. Under Supplier Details:
   • Name (required): Enter the supplier's name.
   • Identifier (required): Enter the internal or external system identifier you want to use for this supplier. This field cannot be left empty and kolum will not generate a value for you, so decide on your identifier convention before you start. The identifier must be unique within your account.
4. Fill in Address Details (optional but recommended for clarity):
   • Street name and number
   • PO Box
   • City
   • Postal Code
   • Country (select from the dropdown)
5. Under Default Contact Person (mandatory):
   • First name of the supplier contact.
   • Last name of the supplier contact.
   • Phone number.
   • Email address: this is the address where the supplier invitation will be sent.
6. Under Connected Companies:
   • Select the companies that purchase from this supplier.
   • You can select multiple companies or leave it blank if you wish to connect later.
7. Review all information entered to ensure it is accurate.
8. Click "Create Supplier."

About the Supplier Identifier

The Identifier is the key you use to recognise a supplier in your own systems, in the supplier bulk upload and in the supplier production facilities upload, so it has to be a value you control.

• Leaving the field empty is not accepted. The error message points you to the supplier export: download your current supplier list to see which identifiers are already in use before you choose a new one.
• If you enter an identifier that another supplier in your account already uses, saving fails with a clear "identifier already taken" message and nothing is created. Pick a different value and save again.
• kolum does not check the identifier while you type; the conflict is reported when you submit the form.

What Happens Next

• The supplier will now appear in your Suppliers List.
• The Default Contact Person will be available for invitation; once invited, they will receive an email to join kolum, set up their supplier account, and begin submitting emissions data.
• You can invite or reinvite this supplier contact at any time from your supplier list.

Business Partner Number (BPN)

The supplier create and edit screens include an optional BPN (Business Partner Number) field, the Catena-X identifier for the supplier, which is also available as a column in the supplier bulk import. Leave it empty if you do not use Catena-X.

What's new

The supplier Identifier is now a required field that you set yourself, and kolum rejects a value that another supplier already uses with a clear message instead of a server error. The Supplier Type (Trader or Manufacturer) has been removed, so the form, the supplier list, and the detail page no longer show it.